The Complete Groupie Trilogy (62 page)

He felt like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He had to fix what had gone so wrong with Baylee, that was priority one. Now that she had a name, a family and a history he felt like even more of a shit for what had happened. He had been sincere when he told Graham he was ready to pay whatever restitution was needed. Anything was worth ridding himself of the pitch black ache he had carried around since the accident. He hated making any public mistake, but making a mistake he couldn’t
take back cut him to the core.

People all over the world treated him like a god. Things like this showed just how much of a fraud he was and always would be.

Then of course he thought about his father. His father was the main reason he felt like a fraud, like a walking talking mistake that someone had regretted so much he had to disappear entirely. Now Graham wanted him to go make nice with him for the cameras just so he could come back from the horrible things he had done.

He had a hard time reconciling it in his head as worth the bother. He was confused as to what he should do and suddenly without any real mentors to guide his path. After that afternoon he was no longer convinced that Graham would guide him to make the right decision emoti
onally, or even professionally.

Even the other members in the band – as well as Holly herself – had ulterior motives for him to polish his tarnish
ed image.

There was only one person in the world who could guide him to make the
right choice for his conscious.

Within an hour he was walking through the lobby of her hotel.

He could tell she didn’t want to open the door and let him into her room, but she relented anyway. There were lines around her eyes that made her look older and more tired than usual. Vanni realized in that moment she had been carrying her own problems much like he did. He wanted to take her into his arms and tell her he was sorry for adding to the burden, but he refrained. Instead he sat in one of the chairs by the large window overlooking the L.A. basin as lights twinkled to life in the twilight.

“I’ve been thinking about what Graham said this morning regarding my dad. It’s the last thing I want to do, but maybe he’s right. Maybe there’s no way around it.”

She shrugged slightly. “It’s still up to you what you want to do, Vanni. You have every right to be angry with him. You can’t just turn off those feelings because it may help your career. What kind of man would you be if that were true?”

“The kind of man everyone else thinks I am,” he answered dryly. It mattered to him more than he wanted to admit, and she was the only one he could even trust with that dirty little secret. He watched her soften with his confession. She still loved him despite all his failures and all his faults. It made all the rest of the bullshit worth it. “Do you think I should go?”

Again she shrugged. “Being abandoned by this man was the cornerstone of every problem you have ever had. How can I send you right back into the lion’s den on a ‘maybe’ that it would actually heal anything?”

“You could if you came with me,” he said softly. She stiffened immediately. “For emotional support only,” he said. “No expectations beyond that. No guilt. No blackmail. I just really need a friend and you’re the closest one I got.” She hesitated so he said, “Please?”

She sighed. As much as she tried to extricate herself from the tangled ball of muck that was her life, she knew there was no way she could turn down anyone who really needed her, especially someone she loved as much as she loved Vanni. He knew that too.

“A couple of conditions,” she said. “One: you don’t drink. Not one drop. I don’t care how bad it gets or how much it hurts. You can’t afford to backslide now.”

He nodded. She was right. He was nearly 50 days sober; he had no real intention of breaking his streak for someone like his father, especially when it could do more damage to him when he finally got back home to Los Angeles.

“Two,” she continued, “Graham can’t know. Ever. I don’t care how much you guys want to ‘win’ by who I choose; you can’t use my good intentions against me anymore. When I do a favor for either of you it’s not to hurt the other one. Got it?”

He nodded. He noticed that she had left out any caveat that they couldn’t find their way back to each other while they were away, back in the city where their affair had taken root. Maybe she thought it didn’t need to be said.

But when they booked the trip that night he couldn’t get it out of his head that New York City was where he first kissed her and he knew instantly she was different than all the rest. So much so he had shared his brownstone and his neighborhood with her and no one else, even Kat. With everyone else he turned on the charm as a star. With Andy he was able to be himself.

He suddenly really wanted to be himself. That they would be there around her birthday this time gave him plenty of ideas how to rekindle what they once shared. No matter what she thought he wasn’t trying to ‘win’ her away from Graham. He needed her in a way that didn’t involve anyone else, no matter how many people they both had put in between them.

It was time to prove that to her.

As he drove back home he made a mental promise to himself that after this trip she would have no doubt how much he loved her and how much he was willing to turn the world upside down to show her. It was time they took things back to basics, to reclaim something as sweet and simple as two hearts in love. Everything else would work itself out as long as they reestablished a foundation, and he knew they were so much stronger together than apart.

He could only hope it would be the thing that would save them both.

Chapter Fourteen

October 20, 2010. New York City.

Andy

There were a lot of things running through her head as the plane made its final descent into John F. Kennedy Airport. Not the least of which were all the other memories of traveling to NYC in order to indulge her crazy, unpredictable and tumultuous love affair with Giovanni Carnevale. She’d come a long way from that Tennessee girl who arrived there nearly three years before. She’d gone from being a low paid freelance travel writer with a five piece wardrobe to a jet setting executive assistant for one of the most powerful enter
tainment moguls in the country.

How it had all fallen into pl
ace she couldn’t even remember.

When had she stopped writing? And when had entertainment, music and celebrities taken over her life?

It had been a dream of hers for so long, ever since she and Iris mooned over big name movie stars at the neighborhood theater. Now Iris was a public relations powerhouse with influence in New York City, and Andy helped run an entertainment label on the opposite coast. It was a dream come true for both, so why wasn’t she happy?

Unlike Iris, Andy’s dream had come with serious dues. Graham lost his ability to walk and Vanni was up to his neck in legal problems thanks to some poor personal choices. These were the men she loved and felt the need to protect and to heal. Doing any kind of work in what should have been her dream career came second to take care of these two men… who by no small coincidence hated the very sight of each other.

Which was why she had to lie her butt off to Graham in order to get away from Los Angeles, coincidentally around the same time Vanni was traveling to New York City for some positive PR. As far as Graham was concerned, she was visiting her grandmother in Nashville for her birthday.

He had been doing so well with his physical therapy since she left the house that Andy hardly felt any guilt at all for leaving him for the week. Maggie was turning out to be a godsend. They seemed to get more done without Andy around than with her under foot. Graham hardly put up a fight at all when she told him of her plans, and she suspected that had everything to do with the hard work they had put in for his next milestone: taking his first independent step.

He only mentioned how much it would mean to him if, when she got back, she could move back into the house. Things would be different, he promised. This would be his gift to her.

She hadn’t made any concrete decisions either way. She actually liked staying in her hotel suite by herself. She was able to get some writing done, fiction this time, while she inadvertently cleaned out all the emotional clutter from her brain. Writing was, as it has always been, cathartic. It was also liberating to control at least one world somewhere, as well as all the people in it.

So aside from the several hours she spent at Graham’s house each day helping him with his business, her time was mostly her own. There were some stolen lunches with Vanni to prepare for this emotional meeting with his father, but she was perfectly happy to keep their relationship well under wraps. This time around it was her idea to keep things clandestine, especially with how the paparazzi followed Vanni around in Los Angeles.

She never wanted it getting back to Graham that she was spending time with Vanni. She hadn’t moved out to choose one over the other, but he’d never understand that.

Even the trip east had to be carefully orchestrated. Vanni set out a few days before she did, and Andy actually did make a pit stop in Nashville to visit her grandmother. Two days before her actual birthday she bought a plane ticket on her own money bound for New York, where she would meet up with Vanni in a five star hotel across from Central Park.

They had considered staying in his brownstone, which he kept for sentimental reasons. But the minute he got to NYC he realized that the paparazzi stalked him just as tirelessly on the East Coast as they did the West. Instead Iris set him up in the hotel while she personally put together a televised interview with his father for one of the weekly news magazines broadcast in the city.

There was a car waiting for Andy when she picked up her luggage. She adjusted her sunglasses and hat as she slid in the back seat. She figured no one really knew or cared about who she was by this point, but she figured it was silly to take any unnecessary chances. If it got back to Graham that she had spent her birthday in New York with Vanni, it could set him way back in his recovery. Andy considered this pointless because she hadn’t come to New York for any other reason than to provide Vanni some friendly support.

The entire time they spent organizing the trip there had been no mention of rekindling any romance. Instead of his usual innuendo whenever he had it up his sleeve to seduce anyone, he was a perfect gentleman
in all topics of conversation.

On one hand, Andy was relieved. Getting romantically involved at this point was beyond foolish. It would complicate everything. She knew they were both wise to avoid allowing even their thoughts to go down that road. But deep down Andy found herself curious at the sudden about-face. Was it truly a mark of maturity on Vanni’s part?

Or was something more conventionally Vanni at play? Andy knew that Holly had become a huge part of his everyday life. She was there when he practiced and recorded with the band, but she was also there right on the front page of any gossip website. They were constantly being photographed together, which Graham fully supported. If anyone could help polish his image after a hooker scandal it was the sweet faced Holly with her ever present smile.

Andy wanted to ask if a stronger relationship had taken root between them or if it was really only for show, but then decided she didn’t want to put him in the position to lie. It really didn’t matter anyway. Andy wasn’t free to be with him and he knew it.

Could she really ask him to wait for her when there were no guarantees whatsoever she would ever be free?

It was not unlike that conversation they had at a Brooklyn pizza joint so many years ago. He had been bound to Lourdes and couldn’t break free, and honestly let her know he couldn’t give her what she wanted. Now the tables had turned. She was limited in what she could give, and it was up to
him to decide if it was enough.

She made her decision to walk away, so why shouldn’t he?

Andy had started to suspect their whole affair was just the product of bad timing.

Yet despite her constant, possessive language in regards to Vanni, Holly wasn’t the one racing toward Manhattan to support Vanni through what had to be the toughest emotional speed bump of his entire life. In fact Vanni had decided not to share much about this trip with her at all. She had offered to come, naturally, but he declined. He wanted Andy there and he felt that it would have complicated more than it helped to inc
lude both women in this ordeal.

He agreed with Andy, the fewer people who knew the better. It was hard enough trying to carve out any kind of private life these days now that he was on the PING hit list. Any decision he could make that didn’t make the front pages of tabloid news was one more battle
against the gossip mill he won.

The ironic part was only he knew it.

So they both signed into the hotel under aliases. They booked suites on the top floors where patrons paid way too much money to care what kind of celebrity was doing what around them. Giovanni Carnevale was small potatoes next to the dignitaries and box office titans who might be registered right next to him.

But he still tied his hair back, wore glasses, hats and overcoats, and basically didn’t make eye contact with the crowd that milled about the streets of New York.