That night, for the first time in three years, his dreams included another woman.
The next morning she was business as usual as she drove his therapy harder than normal. She chastised him for slacking off on his exercises, and by the end of their routine he was sweaty and exhausted – but feeling more in control than he had all week she’d been gone.
She drew his whirlpool bath but didn’t stay once he slipped his robe from his shoulders. She left him in total privacy until his soak was finished, then she helped him to the massage table where she worked out some of the kinks their grueling workout had left in his legs and hips.
As he lay on the table, naked except for a towel, all he could think about was how her body felt against his, her arms around his shoulders and her breath against his face. Every touch was layered now with more intimate subtext. He couldn’t separate the feeling of her strong fingers against the muscles of his thighs and buttocks with thoughts of how her fingers would feel elsewhere on his lonely body. This new longing surged throughout him like a wildfire out of control, resurrecting some feelings he hadn’t felt since before he was shot. This wasn’t the early awakening he had experienced with Andy.
This was a phoenix exploding from the ashes.
But Maggie had made it clear on more than one occasion that their relationship was just business. Though his thoughts raced with the idea of taking her into his arms or acting on these completely inappropriate feelings, he knew she was way too professional to allow it to happen. It was why she changed her mind at the very last second out on the patio. He saw her head tilt ever so slightly toward his own. He knew that she, too, was caught up in the moment.
She was only human, after all.
He respected her for her resolve and her integrity to her character and to her job. But there wasn’t enough cold water in Malibu to extinguish the fire her impromptu therapeutic dance had ignited.
And somehow he found himself grateful. It helped lift the cloud Andy’s constant rejection had darkened his world with for so long. He felt frustration and exquisite longing, but he felt. For the second time in his life, he was returning from the dead.
It finally dawned on him that in both instances, Maggie Fowler was the reason why.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
West Los Angeles
February 25, 2011
From the moment he stepped off the podium, Vanni’s phone alerted him to an incoming text message. He knew who it was before he even read it. He knew that he would have some explaining to do, given he didn’t tell Holly about what was going on with Andy and their baby prior to the public announcement.
He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one hand he wanted to keep both of the pregnant women in his life de-stressed enough so they could safely carry healthy babies. On the other, just the existence of another woman in his life was enough to drive both of them crazy. His priority had been Andy. She was going to be his wife, and as such she came first above anyone. His children came next, and while Holly was being hospitalized for being so sick, it just made the most sense not to upset her any more than necessary.
And truthfully he just didn’t want another tantrum.
From her “You lying son of a bitch! I never want to see you again!” text, he figured she had launched into aforementioned tantrum with near-psychotic abandon. How much of that was her personality and how much was due to her pregnancy hormones, he couldn’t be sure. But he was on his way to the hospital to find out.
PING tailed him the entire way despite his best efforts to ditch them. He had begun to recognize their slimy faces by this point. They weren’t exactly shy about hiding who they were. One was already staked out at the hospital entrance. “Coming to see Baby Mama #2?” he asked with a smug little smirk Vanni immediately wanted to knock right off his face. Instead he shoved past and headed up toward Holly’s floor.
The nurse tried to stop him as he marched toward her room. “Miss Neal doesn’t want any visitors,” she cautioned, but he was undeterred. He didn’t even knock as he entered her room and found her curled up into a sobbing ball on the bed. She sat upright the minute she saw him.
“Get the fuck out of here!” she screeched, but Vanni advanced around the bed, his mouth set in a grim line.
“Calm down, Holly.”
She grabbed the pregnancy book from her nightstand and launched it his direction. “Don’t you tell me what to do, you son of a bitch! You’re a two-timing liar!”
He picked up the book that had missed him by a mile. “I never cheated on you, Holly. We weren’t a couple when Andy and I were together in October. You showed up when I asked you not to, remember?”
“I was trying to help you!” she wailed. “I loved you!” Tears poured down her face. “I loved only you.” Her face screwed into a hateful scowl. “But you slept with that whore instead! That fat cunt was only using you!”
“That’s enough, Holly,” he warned in a low voice.
“Get out!” she screamed again. “What do you want from me anyway? You have it all. You have your nice little happy ending. Leave me the fuck alone. We don’t need you!”
“Yes, you do,” he corrected. “Who do you think is paying your hospital bill?”
“I never asked you to!” she screamed louder. “I never asked you for a goddamn thing, you miserable bastard!”
His voice never elevated and he never stood any closer than the foot of the bed. “You asked me for a baby, didn’t you?”
She grabbed whatever she could find and threw it where he stood. “Get out!” she kept screaming.
The nurse had returned with security, which escorted him out of the room where her doctor waited. “This is not good for her,” he said. “You can’t keep upsetting her like this. Her blood pressure is elevated and her nausea is worsened by all the stress. Maybe it would be best if you didn’t come and see her for a while.”
Vanni let out a deep breath. “She’s going to take my kid away from me,” he confessed his greatest fear. “If I just have time to help her through the initial trauma, she can get used to the way things are going to be. Better now, while she’s here, than chasing her all over the country, right?”
“My concern is my patient, Mr. Carnevale,” the doctor reminded. “Your personal life is your own. I can’t have that kind of environment in this hospital around my patients.”
“Fine,” Vanni said. He hadn’t wanted to involve any attorneys at this point, but it was clear he would have to in order to protect his parental rights. “You’ll be hearing from my attorney,” he said as he turned to leave. He found Holly leaning up against the door frame. She nearly lost her footing and Vanni rushed over to catch her before she wilted straight to the floor.
She had torn out her IV to come chasing after him. It was clear she was still weakened by her condition.
He carried her like a doll back to the bed. The doctor checked her vitals while Vanni stood off to the side. “I can have security remove him from the room, Miss Neal,” the doctor said. She shook her head.
“No need to complicate this any more than it already is,” she said in a shaky voice. “I’d actually like to talk to him in private.”
“If that’s what you would like,” the doctor said. “But security will be right outside the door. If you need to, you yell for them,” he said. He sent a contemptuous glance toward Vanni as he left the room.
Her big blue eyes met Vanni’s. “Would you really try to take my baby away from me?” she asked.
“I could ask you the same question,” he said as he sat in a nearby chair.
“If you get married, a court might give you custody. I have nothing to offer a baby right now. I can’t work. I’m dependent upon my brother, who is working day labor. You have money and now a family of your own,” she eked out painfully. Her eyes beseeched him. “Please don’t take away the only thing I have left in the world.”
He scooted the chair closer and took her hand in his. He didn’t want to hurt her. He just wanted to do the be
st he could for both his kids. “That’s not my intention,” he promised. “I want to find a compromise for all of us.”
“Really?” she asked with the hopefulness of a child.
He nodded. “Of course. It’s a mess and I helped make the mess. All I can do now is do my best to clean it up.”
Her chin trembled. “I know it’d be easier if I just disappeared. Then you could be happy.”
“I could never be happy at someone else’s expense, Holly. That’s not who I am anymore.” She didn’t look convinced. “But at the same time, I know I can’t make everyone happy. I have to do what is right for me. I’m in love with Andy. I have been for a long, long time. And despite all the pain I put her through, she loves me, too. This is my future. It’s not changing. I can give you money. I can set you up and give you a certain amount of security. But I can’t give you my heart, Holly. It’s not mine to give.”
Tears rolled down her face. It was clearly not the news she wanted to hear. She took a deep breath. “I wish I could tell you to take your money and shove it,” she said. “But you’re right. I have nothing. And that’s not fair to our baby.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
She nodded. “If you really mean what you say, if you really want to compromise and work together for the future of our baby, then I think I know a way you can do that. Without marrying me,” she added.
“I’m all ears,” he said.
“Put Julian back in your band,” she said softly. “Give him the career he deserves. You know he has what it takes to take Dreaming in Blue to the next level.”
“Holly…” he began, but she cut him off.
“What better way could there be to show me you’re not going to just discard me once the baby’s born? This way you prove that we’re in it together, that our future is guaranteed – even if it’s only as co-parents and not a couple.”
“I can’t just say yes to that, Holly. I can’t forget that you and Julian came here deliberately to con me out of money. How can I trust him with my band?”
“The only reason we conned for money was because we had nothing. We came from nothing, Vanni. You know that. And you know what that’s like.” He said nothing so she went on. “You also know what it’s like to make stupid mistakes when you think you have no chance to get what you really want.”
“That’s a great sob story, Hol, but the gaping hole is that he was willing to go along with conning me even after he became a legitimate member of the band.”
She lowered her head. “That was my fault. By the time I thought I got pregnant, I didn’t want your money anymore. I wanted you.”
His eyes leveled on her face. “And did you tell that to the guy in Denver, too?”
Her breath caught. It was the first time he brought up her past, letting her know just how much he’d uncovered about her. “That was different,” she said. “I didn’t love him. I thought once he married me, he’d give Julian the chance at his own career. I know I’ve made mistakes, Vanni, but I swear to you it was for the right reasons.”
“There’s a right reason to use people?” he wanted to know.
“You tell me,” she said. “You slept with me on Thanksgiving because you knew you couldn’t have Andy. You were using me then.”
“I had the help of some little blue pills,” he pointed out.
“That was Leo. He wanted to see us get together because he was tired of seeing Andy dick you around.” She touched his hand. “But did you really need them to make love to me, Vanni?”
He withdrew his hand. She was right. Despite his excuses of being inebriated and unknowingly drugged, he had slept with her because he wanted to.
He had used her, and that was what put them into this mess.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll think about it. Nothing will be done with the band until after the show anyway.”
“He could work with Yael, like they were doing while you were in rehab last year,” she pointed out. “Just put him to work, Vanni. It’ll help everything.”
“I’ll think about it,” he reiterated, though he really didn’t think Andy or Graham would go for the idea.
The nurse came back in to administer a new IV. Holly looked so frail as she lay there, it was hard to believe she was casting such a huge threat over his future. He sighed again as he glanced down at his phone. “I have to get home,” he told her. “I’ll let you know about Julian,” he promised as he left the room.
The minute he passed through the doorframe he felt a weight lift from his shoulders. It was like taking off an extra coat. Dealing with Holly was a challenge that kept him emotionally drained from being on guard.
He hated himself for walking right into her trap. He knew better than that. But they knew just when to hit, when his downward spiral made him easy pickings for the vultures to swoop in. For whatever reasons, he had made poor choices. Now, no matter how hard it was, no matter how complicated, he had to try and make it right. Otherwise he was the selfish asshole everyone tried to say that he was.
PING still loitered on the street and sidewalks around his beach house as he pulled into the drive. He kept his head down and ignored their barrage of questions as he disappeared inside the front door. Andy was in the kitchen preparing a snack. She gave him a wry smile. “I guess our cover is effectively blown,” she commented. “How did Holly take it?”
He grinned as he headed into the kitchen and turned her into his arms. “How did you know?”
She leaned in, conspiratorially. “I’m a girl. Besides, I think I know how she operates after everything she put us through last year. No doubt she is watching your every move like a hawk. Watching a press conference regarding your new, highly-paid show would be at the top of her to-do list.”
“You are a wise woman,” he said as he planted a kiss on her upturned nose. “Too bad I didn’t take your advice a year ago.”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” she pointed out. “How did she take the news?”
“Aside from a screaming conniption and calling security to throw me out of her room, pretty well.”
Andy shook her head. “Predictable.”
“She’s scared, babe. She seems to think a court would favor us for custody since we have money and a family and security.”
“I can’t say I haven’t thought about it,” Andy confessed. She wasn’t mad at the baby, she was mad at Holly, and for very good reason. If they could prove Holly unfit, then they could manage their blended family without as much unnecessary drama and expense. They owed Vanni’s child – not the conniving woman trying to use him or her as a bartering tool.
Vanni, however, was surprised by her reaction. “Andy.”
She shrugged. “Tell me it wouldn’t be easier this way. As long as she’s in the picture, she’s going to play you like a marionette. You know that, right?”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point, Vanni?”
“A child needs his mother,” he said, as if he couldn’t believe he had to spell it out.
“Even if the mother is a virtual sociopath?” She could tell Vanni immediately shut down with her scathing comment. He was riding to Holly’s rescue again, even if he didn’t know it. “See what I mean? She’s gotten to you already.”
He watched as she stalked across the kitchen and banged through cabinets to complete the snack she no longer felt like eating. “You’re a mom now, Andy. Don’t you have any sympathy for her at all?”
Her eyes leveled on him. “No.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He understood her concerns, but to take away another woman’s child simply because it would make their life a little more convenient? It was inconceivable. He was aghast as he stared at her.
“I’ll tell you who I do have sympathy for,” she said. “These two babies. They didn’t ask to be born into these situations and it’s up to us to protect them.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” he insisted.
“No, yo
u’re trying to make everyone happy. As usual. When are you going to realize that’s impossible? Think about it. As long as she has access to her child, she has access to you. Like right now – she’ll text you and you’ll drop everything to run to the hospital just to make sure she’s okay.”
“She needs me, Andy. And she’s carrying my child. What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“I just want to know how far you are willing to go. What’s it going to take to make her happy? Because we both know that is the priority you’re chasing right now.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. You’re the one with my ring on your finger.”
“For now.”
He grew more annoyed with her. “You’re right, Andy. You busted me. I want to marry the both of you. Let’s move to Utah and have our own commune.”
“Stop being facetious.”
“Stop being paranoid,” he shot back. “I told Holly tonight that my future is with you. That I’m in love with you. She knows she has no chance with me.”
Andy chortled in disgust. “Then what does she want? Because she wants something, that much I know.”
“I told you. She wants a little bit of security. She’s had to fight for everything she’s ever had –”
“Stolen,” Andy corrected, but he went on.
“Whatever. But I’m not going to use her like some brood mare and kick her back out into the streets once she serves no further purpose. If we were all solely judged by the sins of our past I’d be locked up in a jail cell right now after what happened with Baylee. All that matters to her right now is the wellbeing of her baby. She’s not strong like you, babe. She can’t do this on her own.” He took a deep breath. “That’s why I’m thinking about putting Julian back in the band.”
It was Andy’s turn to be aghast. “What?”
“Think about it. Julian is taking care of her. If I invest in his future, she won’t feel so threatened and want to come between us.”
The Complete Groupie Trilogy Page 67
