by Marian Tee
When Fangirls Lie
How Not To Be Seduced By Rockstars #1
Marian Tee
Copyright © 2013 Blue Ribbon Books
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
For questions and comments about this book, please contact us at [email protected]
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Acknowledgments
I’m going to write a longer one next time, but for now I’ll just give a quick but heartfelt shout out to those who made this book possible, some of them without even knowing it:
GOD
My publisher
My loved ones and partner Allen Tan
My beta readers (for past books and future ones I hope), Wendy Chan, Ria Pavia, Alyssa Dee, and Marinelli Tee
A wonderful person and another beta-reader I’m looking forward to getting to know more, Jackie Gardner
The one who gave me lots of helpful “insider’s knowledge” about the wonderful wacky world of fangirls, Clarise Tan
And finally, everyone who took the time to subscribe to my newsletter, read my blog, followed me on Twitter, liked my Facebook page, and reviewed my book in Goodreads and Amazon – each and every one you had a part of this. Really! Whenever I felt unable to write, I thought about you all, and it helped me get past writer’s block.
Looking forward to sharing more stories and journeys with all of you!
Thanks dpgroup forum.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
A Sneak Peek of When Fangirls Cry
A Message from Author Marian Tee
Prologue
“That’s him, isn’t it? Staffan!” Carmina Virgil was the first one to spot the limousine driving out of the underground parking lot. Thousands of women who also lined the street echoed her scream, all of them waiting to catch even just a glimpse of Staffan Aehrenthal.
“I effing love you!” the brunette next to her yelled as the limousine inched nearer, its journey impeded by the fans doing their best to get past the human barricade that stood in their way. The hotel management had called police officers to the scene, their private security unable to handle the hysterical fans that did everything short of murder to get closer to their favorite rockstar.
The brunette started sobbing. “Love you, oh my God, love you!”
Carmina rolled her eyes even as she continued recording the limousine moving in front them at a snail’s space. Typical fangirl bullshit, she thought as she irritably pushed her red locks away. Why couldn’t they say it like it was? They didn’t love Staffan Aehrenthal. They just loved the idea of loving him.
It was a good thing she had no such misconceptions. She was a fan of Staffan because he sang well, danced well, and – according to the other Gs – he fucked unbelievably well, too. Maybe if she was lucky, she’d learn about it firsthand, too.
A wide-eyed teenage girl with glasses next to Carmina asked in a shaky yell, “Is it always like this?”
“Like this what?” Carmina’s head started to ache. With the throng of crazy obsessed fans jostling behind them, it was a challenge to keep eye contact with the younger girl.
The younger girl waved a hand. “Is it always this crazy?” Her voice was slightly muffled as a more aggressive wave of incoming fans tried to move past her.
Giving up recording, Carmina slipped her phone back in her jacket’s inner pocket and yelled back, “Is this your first time going to his concert?”
The girl nodded. Or at least Carmina thought she did since the younger girl had started to drown amidst the chaos. Taking pity, Carmina grabbed the girl’s hand, uncaring of who she elbowed in her way. She pulled the younger girl to her. “It’s bitch-eats-bitch every time with the Sex God’s concert, hon. And this? It’s nothing. You should have seen his concerts in Europe. I went to his concert in Netherlands once.” Her scalp tinged at the memory. It wasn’t a good tingle, not when she remembered a German chick pulling her back by the hair just to catch a closer glimpse of Staffan’s crotch-grabbing move.
She said feelingly, “Freaking insanity! Half of the audience went topless in hopes that he’d pick one of them to fuck!”
Somebody accidentally knocked the younger girl’s head from behind, and Carmina shrieked furiously, “Watch your hand!” She glanced at her companion, who was doing her best not to be swept away by the tidal wave of other aggressively adoring fans. Almost every woman in the crowd was chanting his name like they only needed to see Staffan Aehrenthal trademark smirk to have the most stupendous orgasm.
The younger girl shrieked again, and Carmina immediately reached out to rescue her companion from the crowd. She sighed. “This isn’t the place for kids like you.”
“I just wanted to see him in person, and I didn’t have enough money to watch his concert.” There was a faraway gaze in the younger girl’s eyes as she looked up. Carmina didn’t have to look the same way to know what made her companion lose herself in a dreamlike state.
God.
Or rather the Sex God.
The larger-than-life tarpaulin hanging from the concert venue’s front wall showcased an obviously tall man with longish blond hair, an angel’s face and an utterly sinful look in his hazel eyes.
His black blazer was exquisite in its cut, just like the silk shirt underneath it, almost completely unbuttoned to reveal more than an eyeful of his muscular chest. The matching trousers he wore were just as stylish, but there was nothing elegant at all about the more than noticeable bulge under his pants.
He had been photographed leaning against the wall, hands inside his pockets, but the ordinary posture did nothing to diminish the bold and vibrant energy he emanated. Staffan Aehrenthal was a classically beautiful man, as perfect as a marble statue, but there was nothing at all elegant about the raw sexuality burning in his eyes.
“Don’t fall in love with him, hon.”
The teenage girl blushed.
Carmina suppressed a sigh. “Do you know John Lennon and Yoko Ono?”
“Umm, are they, like, a boy band?”
Save me from Beliebers who just discovered what sexy truly meant, Carmina thought. There should really be sexier boy bands. There had to be some kind of middle ground between The Bieber and Staffan Aehrenthal, some way to prevent young girls like the one in front of her from losing their virginity to the first tattooed guy they met and resembled their favorite rockstar.
“Umm, no. Let’s just say that John Lennon used to be a really popular rockstar and Yoko Ono was this really infatuated fan.”
The girl gasped. “And they fell in love?”
“Yeah, but that’s not the moral of the story.”
“So…what is it?”
“She became the most hated bitch on the planet.” Carmina turned back to face the street, where the limousine had only managed to move past them by several feet. “Staffan Aehrenthal isn’t something you can order for yourself. He’s like this magnificent exotic hotel buffet, something that’s only for sharing.”
The teenage girl didn’t answer. She was too busy gazing dreamily at thirty-foot tall poster of Staffan Aehrenthal.
Carmina shook her head. Oh well, at least she had tried. She gazed back at the poster. It was really those eyes’ fault. No one could ever be immune to the message glinting in those beautiful fuck-me hazel eyes.
I can make you scream with just one touch.
~~~
Half-sprawled on the custom-designed seat of his limousine, with a glass of whisky in one hand and his iPad on the other, Staffan Aehrenthal cursed out loud when he read the dozen or so headlines staring back at him.
Outside, hundreds of fans lined the road leading into the airport, screaming his name and a lot other words.
Do me. My virginity is yours. I’m your #1 groupie.
Ten years ago, Staffan would have paid attention to them. At twenty-two, he had believed he really was the king of the world, and that he could have anything he wanted. Back then, he did have everything – or he thought he had.
But things had changed now, so much so that he had been living like a bad-tempered monk since the start of his first world tour. Sex was his only stress reliever, but for the longest time he wasn’t able to find someone who could stir his cock to life even just an inch. All he needed was a fucking inch, and he could make any woman happy.
Gritting his teeth in frustration, Staffan returned his attention to the rest of the headlines.
The Three Pussketeers
He rolled his eyes when he caught sight of what the press had dubbed him and his friends. What the fuck did that even mean?
The other headlines were just as bad. What was it with American media and their inexplicable obsession over the most absurd titles? The U.S. leg of his tour had barely started and already they had a dozen nicknames for him.
Mr. Fucktastic
Europe’s badass version of Justin Timberlake
Sweden’s #1 Sex God
These people were insane. They made it sound like his countrymen were so fucking obsessed – literally – that they actually kept a list for man whores.
He clicked on the next page that Constantijin – a Dutch billionaire who had been his friend since their boarding school days and was also one of the so-called Pussketeers –had emailed.
This one you will love, Constantijin had typed on top of a red arrow pointing down.
Staffan almost choked at what he had read. Clearly, his friend had saved the best for last.
Mr. Rockstar Chic.
A fan-made collage created by someone named Starry Eyed had been pasted below the title, featuring rows and rows of his red carpet photos and paparazzi snapshots.
He wanted to puke at the title. They made him sound like a fucking fashionista with a dick.
So he liked his clothes fucking decent. So he preferred his blazers custom-designed, his shirts made from the finest cotton and smoothest silk, his trousers bearing only labels of European’s leading houses of fashion and his shoes and belts cut from hand-sewn leather.
All those didn’t mean he welcomed being in every fashion police’s Best-Dressed list. Other men might have considered that an achievement, but as far as Staffan was concerned it just made him sound fucking gay.
They didn’t know that his almost fanatic obsession in having the best clothes was a by-product of his childhood, of the times Staffan had been forced to alternate between two shirts until there were more holes than clothes in them, had no fucking uniform to use for school, and had nearly peed in utter shame whenever he was forced to go to Mrs. Gustav next door because he was close to starving to death.
Running an irritated hand through his hair, Staffan tossed the iPad on the opposite row of burgundy-colored seats in disgust.
His phone rang. He accepted the request for the FaceTime call and a second later, the faces of Constantijin and his friend’s girlfriend popped out on the screen. “How was the email?” Constantijin asked with a grin. An extremely good-looking man in his own right, Constantijin used to be known as Netherlands’ #1 Playboy. He had also been notorious for his unsmiling ways, but that, too, had changed when Yanna Everleigh entered his life.
Staffan answered his friend by flipping him off.
Constantijin’s bark of laughter was cut short when Yanna slapped his arm. She gave Staffan a sweetly apologetic smile. A pretty, dark-haired charmer, Yanna had easily won him over with her sometimes-shy and sometimes-bubbly personality.
“Don’t mind him, Staffan. He just misses you.”
Constantijin choked.
Staffan deliberately lowered his voice, adopting a seductive tone as he teased, “And what about you, my beautiful darling? Did you miss---?”
Yanna blushed.
“Goddammit, Staffan, I’m the only one who can make Yanna blush,” Constantijin growled.
“Constantijin!” Yanna wailed as her cheeks turned a darker shade of pink.
“Just tell him what we called him for so I can get you naked---”
Eyes widening, Yanna slapped her hand over Constantijin’s mouth. Clearing her throat, “Umm, anyway, I just wanted to remind you that it’s the 30th today, Staffan. And you haven’t yet made a call.”
Shit. He had forgotten about that.
“I know you’re tired after your concert and you’d rather relax---”
Staffan shook his head. “You were right in reminding me.” He checked his watch, a slim gold type that had no doubt added to his newfound “fashionista” image. Earlier, he had even heard one of the popular morning show hosts refer to him as the music industry’s very own David Beckham.
God save him from all these fucking comparisons. David Beckham? He had utter respect for the man, but they were too different. The soccer player had the patience to stand in front of camera for hours, but Staffan found it literally hell to be still for more than five minutes, and especially when it had to be for photo shoots.
“Staffan?”
He shook the irritable thoughts of photo shoots away and glanced at his watch again. Fuck. 10 minutes before midnight. “I need to put the phone down. I have to make the call now.”
“Understood.” Yanna beamed at him. “We look forward to spending more time with you when you come here to Florida!”
He gave her his sexiest smile. “After the tour, I’ll go straight to you, darl---” The last thing Staffan saw was Constantijin kissing Yanna as his friend reached for his wife’s iPad to end the call.
It almost made him smile. These frequent displays of Constantijin’s possessive jealousy were extremely amusing, mostly because his friend had never been like that until Yanna entered the picture.
Staffan used to think he had that with---
Fuck.
To distract himself, Staffan reached for his iPad again and signed in for the administrator account of his fan club’s website. He went to the members’ page, clicked a button to have it sorted according to birthdays, and picked the first name he spotted on the list who was celebrating her birthday today.
One of the perks that his fans club members enjoyed was having the chance to receive a birthday call from Staffan himself. He had been doing it for eight months now, and so far all the women he had called had acted the same. They would pretend they didn’t recognize his voice, did everything they could to prolong the call, and when they finally realized that he would be putting the phone down, they’d ask him to fuck them.
He had no reason to believe this call was going to be different.
~~~
Sapphire “Saffi” March tumbled out of her bed in her haste to get to the phone. It had to be him. It just had to be. She didn’t have any close friends, had never gone out on a date, and none of her family would ever have considered calling her at this hour of the night.
After all, an eccentric bookworm like her had no reason to be up this late. No one would have reason to expect that she was the most diehard of all fangirls and that her locker had a pin-up of Staffan Aehrenthal, hidden behind the evolutionary chart of ichthyology she had
taped to her locker door.
Oh, please, it just had to be him.
Saffi lost her footing as she got hold of her phone, falling flat on her face as she pressed the green button to answer the call. “Suffering sardines!” The words escaped her as she bit back a groan of pain, her chin connecting with the floor in a small thump.
On the other end of the line, Staffan sputtered in disbelief when instead of ‘hello’ he heard two words he had never imagined he would hear in his entire life.
Suffering sardines?
Perhaps he had dialed the wrong number? But---did sardines actually suffer? When they were canned perhaps?
Saffi quickly stuck the phone to her ear, hoping he had not put it down yet. “H-hello?”
He had probably imagined it, Staffan thought. He decided to put his half-empty glass of whiskey away, placing it back on the glass cabinet hidden cleverly behind one of the limousine’s paneled doors. Nothing good would come out from chatting with a fan while drunk.
“Is this---” He glanced at his iPad to confirm the name. “Saffi March?”
Saffi swooned.
That voice. Oh dear, THAT VOICE. How many times had she dreamt of Staffan Aehrenthal saying her name? It was pointless to count. It was that many.
Wondering where he could be as he talked to her on the phone, she tried to recall the schedule of his tour. Fangirls knew their favorite stars’ schedule the same way sports buffs could recite the entire season’s schedule of games.
Tonight, he would probably on his way to JFK Airport since Staffan Aehrenthal was well-known as a man of habit. And when it came to working while on tour, there were quite a number of those habits that were, well, notorious.
Supposedly, Staffan always “hand-selected” which girls got a backstage pass.
Supposedly, Staffan’s definition of stress relief after a concert involved getting naked.
Supposedly, Staffan needed stress relief more often than a thirsty man needed to drink water.
Mmmm…could she be his stress relief on the phone?
She blushed at the thought just as Staffan said, “Hello?”
Fluttering flounder!
She had actually zoned out on Sweden’s #1 Sex God!
