Groupie/Rock Star Bundle (59 page)

She nodded. That was her Vanni. The show must
go on.

He took her hand and led her into the beach
house. It wasn’t carrying her in like he had imagined, but there
was time for that later. He watched with delight as she drank in
the view.

“It’s lovely,” she said.

“I’m glad you like it,” he replied. He led her
up the steps and out onto the deck for his private view of the
Pacific. He wanted to pull her body to his, to hold her from
behind, his chin buried in her hair, just like he had dreamed. But
her body was rigid and her eyes were troubled. He got the not so
subtle hint it was not the time to indulge in his romantic
fantasies.

In fact, his heart started to pound. Something
was coming and he sensed it was bad. He just hoped it wasn’t
another goodbye. He’d barely survived the last one.

“What’s wrong, Andy?” he asked her directly.
After all they had shared there was no need for games.

Though he projected strength, his dark eyes
were vulnerable. It made her want to take her back into her arms
and shield him from the blow. Instead she withdrew a piece of paper
from the back pocket of her jeans and handed it to him.

The blood drained from his face as he read the
article. “Fuck me,” he breathed as he staggered backward toward the
hammock stretched across one corner of his deck.

She joined him as he sat, taking his hand in
hers. She more than anyone knew the impact this would have on him.
All the anger, disappointment, resentment and hostility he’d ever
felt toward this stranger bubbled up in him as he read each
word.

“Angelo Carnevale, the alcoholic
father of Dreaming in Blue’s lead singer Giovanni Carnevale, wants
to get in contact with his troubled son. After a long absence,
Angelo seeks to reach out to the child he abandoned three decades
ago and help him through this next painful step of recovery from
addiction, as well as support him through his legal
troubles.”

Vanni’s deep brown eyes hardened. “Wonder how
much he wants to get paid to go away? Or is that in another
article?”

She sighed. There was no way to tell him that
there were, in fact, several articles and even a few interviews he
could reference. Just as they had faded to minor gossip pages, this
story put them back on the front page.

“Is he for real?” And as he asked it, he kind
of hoped he wasn’t.

She nodded. “Holly had him investigated when
she stumbled across the article. Graham called in a few more favors
and made doubly sure.”

Vanni nodded. “You know, there was a time when
I would have given anything for this,” he confessed softly as he
held up the paper. “My first recital. When I graduated. When I
signed with my first band. June,” he added as he looked at
her.

They were both still in residual shock over
what happened in June, on a day that should have been a milestone
in his career.

She squeezed his hand. She had no idea what to
say.

“You ever think you want something really,
really bad… then when you get it you think maybe it isn’t what you
wanted at all?”

She nodded. She could have written a book on
the subject. “You don’t have to make any decisions now,” she told
him.

His sad eyes met hers. “I couldn’t even if I
wanted to.”

It was more than Andy could take. Inside this
man was a little boy someone had casually abandoned. His soul bore
the scar; she could see it written in his eyes. She opened her arms
and took him into her embrace.

The warmth of her love knocked over the final
wall. His arms tightened her waist and he held on for dear life as
he sobbed softly into the nape of her neck. There was no shame, no
reason to pretend that he was anything other than what he was: a
wounded child. He could do that with Andy. She was his safe place.
He knew no one could ever hurt him there in her arms. He pulled her
down and held onto her as they swung back and forth in the hammock,
listening to the ebb and flow of the tide. He cried until he was
spent, then dozed in her loving arms as she rocked them
both.

Just before sunset he awoke, but seeing her
there beside him made him think he was still dreaming. He reached
out to touch her hair. “You’re here,” he said softly.

“You keep saying that,” she pointed out with a
slight smile.

“You keep surprising me,” he
answered.

His hand slipped behind her head to draw her
closer for a kiss. His lips savored hers until her mouth finally
parted in submission. It was as electric as it had always been. His
hand grasped a handful of hair as their kiss deepened.

She moaned in her throat as she shifted under
him. It was just like coming home whenever he touched her like
this. It was a tenderness she often wondered if she alone brought
out of him. Nothing else mattered, nothing else existed but the
next kiss… the next touch.

But as crazy as he had been for her the last
few months, he didn’t push it. His fingers traveled a puritan path
along her body, along her shoulder, across her back and down her
arm until he clasped her fingers in his. She tested his muster
mightily when she whispered his name, but he didn’t push it beyond
another sweet kiss.

They had fought a bitter path to get to this
place and he wanted to savor the moment. To him, this was truly
making love. He was doing what he had never before done to any
woman: he was honoring her.

He wasn’t going to pressure her to make love to
him before sending her back to Graham. He knew Andy too well. She
resented the push and pull, especially over something as stupid as
his ego. Thanks to rehab he finally realized that sex had been his
addiction as much as drinking. He needed to be wanted in a way that
no one could ever fill the void.

He burned to have her in his bed from the
moment she left him curious and frustrated in that Philadelphia
bar. When she denied him again in New York, twice, she grew even
more desirable. He had to have her and once he did even that wasn’t
enough. He didn’t want anyone else to have her.

But the sad truth was someone else did have
her, at least for the time being. So Vanni decided he would wait
until she came to him. It would be her choice in the future. He
wouldn’t coerce, he wouldn’t seduce; he wouldn’t take what she
wasn’t yet ready to offer.

He hoped that by doing so the next time they
came together they’d never have to part again.

When her cell phone rang he knew that she had
been summoned and had to leave. She didn’t even have to tell him.
He kissed her again and told her he’d see her the next day so they
could talk about what he should do with his newfound father. Then
he released her to go tend her other obligations without
guilt.

She rose from the hammock where he sprawled
looking beautiful with fanned out hair and sultry brown eyes. “Why
are you being so good?” she wanted to know.

“I love you,” he said simply, as if that
explained it all.

Andy smiled, blew him a kiss and left for
home.

He pulled out the article and read the copy
again. He searched his memory for any hint of Angelo Carnevale but
it was futile. His dad split when Vanni was a toddler and his
mother hadn’t exactly had a happy scrapbook to fill in the
blanks.

Against his better judgment he rose from the
hammock and went back inside his house. He opened up the computer
and searched for more content, hoping for a photo or something to
help him connect the dots.

He found the interviews and saw the man’s face
who faintly mirrored his own. His hair was cropped short and he
wore a dark beard, but the eyes, nose and mouth were identical. He
hadn’t aged well, probably due to the alcohol. He didn’t appear to
be a man of means either, though he seemed to try and clean up for
the cameras.

How considerate of
him
, Vanni thought with a
snarl.

He played each video so he could listen to the
sad tale of a remorseful father who realized his greatest mistake
was leaving his child. He had wanted to spare him, he said. He was
cursed with the same alcoholic tendencies as his own father, who
never could hold down a job and took out all the pressure that
created onto his wife and kids.

“It’s been almost 30 years. Why wait until now
to reach out to your son?” the interviewer asked.

“Excellent
question
,” thought Vanni.

The older man’s shoulders lagged as he sighed
deeply. “I didn’t think I had anything to offer him. Here he came
from nothing and made this big success of himself. He didn’t get
that from me. What he did get was the same monkey on his back,
which threatens to ruin his entire life. I couldn’t run from it
anymore.”

The words were like a physical blow. How could
anyone sell such irresponsible and thoughtless abandonment as
noble?

Worst of all, despite Vanni’s resentment, they
rang true. It sounded like something he would say, which dug up a
seed of empathy from a mountain of lifelong hostility. Vanni didn’t
know who he hated more for that, himself or the man who suddenly
wanted to play dad.

He slammed the laptop together. His eyes
wandered over to the now empty liquor cabinet. He thought about all
those bottles sitting in a bag just outside his front door. It was
a brief, fleeting thought, but it was there almost instantly the
minute he started to feel anything toward his father.

He pulled out his phone. At first he thought
he’d call Andy, but he knew that she was on her way home to Malibu
and to Graham. It wasn’t fair, especially after unloading on her
earlier like an emotional basket case, to ask her to come back just
so he didn’t go suck every last bottle dry.

He sighed and scrolled through his contacts
until his eyes landed on the only other person who could help
him.

She was there within the hour.

Holly brought him food and even knitted him a
throw blanket to welcome him home. Her sunny smile chased the dark
shadows from his brain as he let her into his house.

“Thanks for coming,” he said with complete
sincerity.

“Anytime,” she answered as she made herself at
home in the kitchen area. “You know you can always call me,
Vanni.”

He nodded as he strolled over to sit on one of
the barstools at the counter. “Andy says you found the article
about my dad.”

She nodded as she sent him a sympathetic
glance. “I keep an eye out for anything about the band or you,
especially since the court stuff. I was shocked and immediately
wanted to verify if he was the real deal.”

“Thanks for having my back,” he
said.

Again she said with a big smile,
“Anytime.”

She then launched into a full production of
preparing his meal, while getting him up to date on everything the
band had been doing. They had gotten a lot done in 30 days, laying
down tracks and recording background vocals for the new songs. “Leo
is a workhorse,” she said finally. “And a slave driver.”

They laughed. He was still smiling when he
asked, “All you’ve really talked about is the band. How are you
doing?”

She shrugged. “Keeping busy. You know me. I do
a lot for Gwen and for Andy. I’ve even been spending some time at
Graham’s house. I think I’m one of the very few he’s seen in person
aside from Andy.”

His eyebrows rose. “Not even Leo?”

She shook her head. “I generally am the go
between whenever they’re not video conferencing. It’s easier that
way. Leo can’t stand Andy since Andy’s not really anyone in the
company and Graham… well, I get the feeling that he’d rather no one
see him in the state he’s in.”

Though he didn’t want to ask, he felt compelled
to. “Which is?”

She picked her words carefully. “He’s not the
guy who built this company. Not anymore. Leo has been dancing
around the idea of finding someone else.”

Vanni shook his head. Despite it all, Graham
had been good for DIB. They had done well under Jasper but it was
Graham who had catapulted them into the stratosphere. He owed him a
certain loyalty.

She shrugged. “It’s your band,” she said. “I
just don’t want you to bury yourself out of some misguided sense of
obligation. I mean, you have to take care of you,
right?”

“And Julian,” he added.

She paused to face him. “Yeah. And Julian. He’s
fought a really long time to make it, just like you. But unlike you
he needs this big break and he needs it to be perfect.”

He had never seen her get so passionate, but
then again it was her brother. If she didn’t take care of him, who
would?

“I’m not going to let anything ruin it,” he
assured her. “This next CD will be even bigger than the last. You
have my personal guarantee.”

Just like flipping a switch she went back to
the Holly he knew best. She gave him a cute smile as she came over
to where he sat. She held out her hand. “Pinky swear?”

He laughed and grasped her pinky with his.
“Pinky swear,” he confirmed.