Mogul (17 page)

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 best
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.