Groupie/Rock Star Bundle (77 page)

Maybe she was dying and was having some sort of
mental breakdown because of it.

She grabbed his hand in hers and brought it to
her lips. She didn’t know how he’d take the news, so it was almost
impossible to bring the words to the surface. Instead she placed
his hand on her stomach and flattened it out to cover the soft
swell there. Her eyes softened as she covered his hand with both of
hers.

He glanced down with a furrowed brow, then as
realization dawned his eyes shot back up to her face. “Are you
kidding me?”

She shook her head as laughter once again
spilled forth in pure, undiluted joy.

“When?” he asked stupidly, as if they had had
more than one opportunity.

“My birthday,” she confessed. “The best gift
ever,” she added before she pulled him down to her for a long,
grateful hug.

“I don’t understand,” he mumbled against her
hair. “When did you find out?”

“Just now. They just did an ultrasound. I heard
the baby’s heartbeat,” she added with a happy grin. “I hadn’t been
feeling well but I thought it was the flu. It started about ten
days after I got back from New York, when things were so
complicated at the house. Graham was getting over pneumonia and I
was still reeling from letting you go.”

He clutched her tighter. If she thought he was
going to go anywhere now she was crazy. She was pregnant with his
baby. Surely there was nothing that could break their bond
now.

“I had stopped taking birth control after being
hospitalized in June and it made my periods all wonky. I wasn’t
even sure if I was ovulating.”

“So when we made love in New York…” he
began…

“I didn’t even think it was a possibility,” she
answered. “I just wanted to be with you. Nothing else
mattered.”

He kissed her mouth tenderly. “We’ll never be
apart again,” he promised.

She touched his face. As usual he wasn’t
thinking it through. “What about Holly?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t
have to marry her to be there for our child. I only thought I
should marry her because I thought you and I could never be
together. This,” he said as he put his hand against her stomach,
“proves we’re meant to be together. We’re linked forever
now.”

It warmed her heart to hear it, but she also
knew that things were never that cut and dried for them.

And they still had to tell Graham. She didn’t
think she could bear to break his heart again.

Vanni wanted to be there when she told him,
which she initially resisted. In the end Graham requested to speak
to them both in her private hospital room later that evening, where
they treated her exhaustion and malnutrition.

Vanni sat over on the window ledge as Graham
wheeled himself in. He carried manila envelopes on his
lap.

“What’s up, boss?” Vanni asked, although the
rougher edge of his discontent had considerably lessened since he
learned about the baby.

“Good news and bad news,” he said. “Depending
on your perspective, I guess. I hired a detective to see if I could
track down your fiancé,” he said to Vanni. “Even though the
investigation was cursory, I found a lot more than I bargained for.
Holly and Julian didn’t just happen upon the scene. These are
grifters and you were their target.”

Both Vanni’s and Andy’s jaws dropped open in
shock. Graham went on.

“There are arrests in several different states
for writing bad checks, forgery and theft.” He tossed several mug
shot photos onto the table across Andy’s bed. Her hair had been
blond, red and brown, she’d worn various contacts and had adopted
several different looks along the way, which made her look like a
half a dozen different people. “She was somewhat of a chameleon,
possibly changing for each target. They find someone with means and
get close, then rob them blind.”

That would explain her wanting to attach
herself to someone like Vanni, especially so quickly. “Most of
their cons have been finding powerful people to fund his music
career. Her aim, apparently, is to marry powerful men of means.
This way they could get all the money they want the minute they
decide to split.”

“How did we not know any of this? You’d think
PING would have dug that up the first week they photographed her on
my arm.”

Graham shrugged. “This wasn’t their first
rodeo. They’ve spent years perfecting their game, finding out what
does and what doesn’t work, through the safety of different aliases
and personas. Odds are she had PING in her pocket the whole time.
They came to depend on her as a trusted source and since she was
throwing you to the wolves on a regular basis, she could keep the
focus off of herself. It’s a game they’ve played with meager
successes until now. Most of the time they get paid a small
settlement and can start over elsewhere. But they’ve upped their
ante as of late.”

“The baby,” Vanni said as he felt heart sink to
his stomach. What the hell had he gotten himself into this
time?

“This isn’t the first time they’ve tried
playing the baby card. Their last target was the owner of a Denver
management group. He and his wife had gone public with their
struggles to have a baby. Enter Holly… or Heather I think she
called herself then. Worked as his assistant, got the guy to cheat
and then used the promise of a baby to make him choose. Evidently
when she told him the rabbit died he wanted to see the carcass.
They split soon after and the Denver guy gladly swept it as quickly
under the rug as possible once he realized she had lied about
everything.” He glanced over at Vanni. “Did you happen to see the
test?”

Vanni shook his head. She had him so convinced
that it would be positive he didn’t even question it. Maybe by then
he hadn’t wanted to. After everything he had been through it felt
like a chance to make a new beginning, which of course was what she
had been counting on.

“That’s what I thought,” Graham said. “Pulled a
few strings and found out the only clinic that Holly had gone to in
the last month is a fertility clinic.”

“How’d you find that out?” Andy wanted to
know.

“Our good friends at PING,” he said as he
pushed some grainy paparazzi shots taken outside a Manhattan
fertility clinic. “They’ve been desperate to find any concrete
proof that you guys were having a baby so they’ve had all of
Manhattan watching her like a hawk. Apparently someone at the
clinic recognized her and let them know she was coming in
regularly, as recently as a week ago. She’s not
pregnant.”

Vanni almost melted off of his perch by the
window in relief. He wasn’t sure how he was going to manage two
different mothers and two newborn babies, but he had been ready to
face that challenge. In the end he was glad he didn’t have
to.

All he had to worry about was Andy and their
child she carried in her womb. Finally the Universe got something
right despite all their mistakes.

“I’ve started the paperwork to get a
restraining order against Leo, Julian and Holly. Yael has already
headed for L.A. If,” he directed his attention back to Vanni,
“that’s what you want to do. I know you’ve considered terminating
your contract.”

Vanni stood and walked over to Andy. “That kind
of depends on you,” he said.

Graham sighed as he placed all the paperwork
and photos back into the envelope. “If there’s anything I’ve
learned in this last year it is that life is short. You have to
live it in the way that seems right to you and no one else. I knew
when I saw that photo from the church that I’d been forcing myself
to live a lie.” He glanced at Andy. “Forcing you to live a lie. And
now look where it got you.”

It dawned on her that finally the situation has
reversed. He was sitting at her hospital bedside considering how
his actions might have put her there. She had to let him off the
hook. “Graham, there’s something I think you should
know.”

He held up his hand. “On some level I’ve always
known. I was in denial because I wanted you and I needed you. And I
thought that was enough.” Graham looked up at Vanni. “You’ve got
yourself a good woman there. The best. And I wish you both the best
of luck in your new life together,” he said as he set them both
free.

Vanni went over to where Graham sat in his
wheelchair to shake his hand. “Thanks, Graham.” He gestured at all
the envelopes that virtually saved his ass. “For
everything.”

Graham nodded. He wasn’t happy, he wasn’t even
sad. He was resigned. And he was ever the businessman. “In spite of
everything I hope you stay with us, Vanni. I’ve heard the new stuff
and I really think it can take you to the next level. I’d love to
be a part of that journey.”

Vanni just smiled. “I’ve got a lot of things to
think over, but I’d say chances are good.”

Graham nodded before he looked over at Andy
where she sat in the bed. Wordlessly he lifted himself up on the
handlebars and rose to his feet, pulling some crutches from the
side of the chair. She stared on incredulously as he took the two
steps that remained between the chair and her bed. There were tears
in her eyes as he perched beside her and took her into a hug he had
always envisioned being a new beginning instead of an end. “I will
always love you,” he whispered into her hair. “If you ever need me,
you know where to find me.”

She nodded through her tears as she watched him
struggle to stand and then walk on unsteady feet back to his chair.
With a wave he turned and wheeled out of her room.

Vanni took her into his arms as she sobbed
softly, thinking how far they had all come. It had been a helluva
six months.

That year they celebrated Christmas at Iris’s
house, with Jacob and Angelo present along with a stunning
clientele of fabulous and exciting people. Iris doted on her like a
mother hen, deliriously happy about the new addition to their
non-traditional family. She even insisted on giving the baby a
whole pre-birth wardrobe makeover with two full suitcases to send
with them on the trip home.

In the following days they recuperated in the
hotel suite where they had conceived their child. It was a
celebration of love where he pampered Andy in ways she had only
dared fantasize. There was breakfast in bed, long slow bubble baths
and nights of endless loving that didn’t have to result in the raw
passion that had always threatened to consume them before. Instead
he was gentle and he was sweet as they consummated something much
deeper than either of them had ever imagined.

To offset all the gossip about the wedding that
never was, Graham had booked Vanni for a sort of “come back”
appearance during New Year’s Eve telecasts from New York City. His
groupies screamed at his feet in undying devotion when he took the
stage solo to sing the old ballads that had made him a star. None
of them complained that he wasn’t married. In a weird sort of way
that made him all the more theirs.

He gave them a good show, but it was the woman
curled up in his robe in a fancy hotel suite for whom he truly
sang. She smiled every time his eyes looked into the camera. She
was finally secure in his love for her, despite the fact they
couldn’t go open with anything yet.

Honestly, she didn’t really want to. She
enjoyed their safe little bubble.

By January 6, 2011 Vanni did what he had always
hoped he would do. He carried Andy over the threshold of his
Redondo Beach house to welcome her home to L.A.
properly.

They didn’t talk much about the future yet,
except to daydream about the baby. It was simply a foregone
conclusion they’d be together. They even considered finding a
bigger home complete with a back yard for their growing family.
Andy could tell how much it meant to him to provide the kind of
idyllic life he had been denied. She had no idea that he had
already decided if they could make it without a glitch to
Valentine’s Day he would go all out on a cheesy, campy wedding
proposal the likes of which PING had never seen.

In the meantime they made up for lost time in
each other’s arms. He waited on her hand and foot. He joined her
for her first appointment with an L.A. based OB/GYN and was floored
when he heard their baby’s heart beat for the first time. He cried
tears of joy that made Andy love him all the more.

That afternoon he presented her with another
charm for her bracelet. It was a baby slipper with a red ruby
centered in it, to represent the arrival of their little
miracle.

They knew they still had a lot to work through,
specifically with the legal problems from the accident with Baylee.
Their lawyer had already contacted Vanni’s attorneys with a laundry
list of demands they expected him to pay, and Donny Wilke was still
a volatile variable.

But Andy knew that she was finally where she
belonged each night she fell asleep listening to the strong beat of
Vanni’s heart under her ear.

They had defied all the odds and were finally
together. She had full faith everything else they could manage.
They had been forged together through the fires of the past three
and a half years. Every time he took her into his arms she knew
they were stronger together now than they’d ever been
apart.