Mogul (16 page)

“We’re a little surprised you would lock
yourself into this kind of commitment when you are still a
top-selling artist on the charts. Will you be putting your own
singing career and your band, Dreaming in Blue, on hold for the
show?”

Vanni remained congenial, when essentially
the host had just asked him if he was selling out. “I have
commitments much closer to home that require my attention now,” he
offered.

The host went off the spine a bit, and asked
what all the tabloids wanted to know. “Is this because you are a
daddy-to-be?”

He hadn’t come out in public and admitted
that he was the father of Holly’s child, so he resented – deeply –
this interviewer would go there when it wasn’t on the list of
topics to cover. It was sensationalism journalism at its finest,
hyping rumor and conjecture to sell magazines and pump up ratings.
He ambushed him to get Vanni off his game, but Vanni had come
prepared, with a few more aces in his pocket.

“As a matter of fact,” he said with a
slightly clinched jaw, “it is. My fiancé, Andy Foster, and I will
welcome our first child in July. We found out we were expecting in
December, so we wanted to find a project close to home while we
wait for the blessed event. Actually she’s working with us on the
project. We really couldn’t be happier or more excited for both
developments.”

He felt somewhat gratified that the news took
the interviewer off guard, much more than his own question had done
to Vanni. And it was a live show; there was nothing he could do to
re-edit the tape. “Congratulations,” the host stammered. “And best
of luck on your new show,” he offered, in a closing line to get
Vanni off the stage.

“My pleasure,” Vanni said as he shook the
other man’s hand.

And he truly meant it.

After Vanni left the stage for the next guest
on the entertainment magazine’s show, Maggie turned to where Graham
stood off to the side with the other suits. She could see that this
news was not as shocking to him as it was to her. She wondered when
he had found out, because he had said nothing to her… even when she
had left the house.

She wound her way through the crowd to get to
Graham, trotting behind him as he turned from the press tent and
headed toward the parking garage. “Graham!”

He turned back to face her. His eyes were
deadened with pain he couldn’t express. Now the whole world knew
that Andy and Vanni had been together, even when she had lived with
Graham. If Maggie’s math was correct, Andy was pregnant from the
time she moved back into the house in October, after his pneumonia
scare. That meant every time he had taken her into his bed, she was
already carrying another man’s child. How her heart ached for
him.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He shrugged. “It’s over now,” he said in a
low, defeated voice.

She silently walked over to where he stood
and took him into an uncharacteristic hug, which he allowed. He
rested his face against her hair. She felt like home. He hadn’t
realized until that moment how much he missed her. Not just as a
stand-in for Andy, but as the friend she had become. He reluctantly
ended the embrace. “I guess I should get home,” he said as he
pulled away.

She took his hand in hers. “Then let’s go,”
she said with a smile.

They dismissed the company car so that she
could drive him home. The house was closed up and stale, something
she had missed when she had been in her self-pitying stupor for the
last week. There wasn’t even any food in the kitchen; it was like
everyone had disappeared on Graham when he needed someone the most.
She got him settled into a therapeutic whirlpool bath before she
set off for the store. She stopped to get her bag and check out of
the hotel. She hadn’t asked him if she could move back to the
house, but she decided to make an executive decision. He was
clearly floundering. She was going to fly in on her merry, magical
umbrella and save the day.

That’s just what people did when they loved
someone. More importantly, that was what Maggie Fowler did when she
loved somebody.

While at the store she bought fresh flowers.
It hadn’t escaped her notice that the carcasses of her last batch
sat withered in their vases scattered across Graham’s house. She
stopped at a restaurant to get a meal already prepared, something
hot and steaming fresh, and then headed back home.

She carried the bags into the kitchen, and
noticed that Graham had finished with his whirlpool bath and was
sitting on the deck in his wheelchair, wearing only a robe. He
fended off the cold with a snifter of brandy as he stared into the
inky darkness of the Pacific.

She placed the bags on the counter before she
headed out onto the deck. He didn’t even turn around when she
walked over to where he sat. “I brought dinner,” she said.

He tipped the glass to his lips. “Not
hungry,” he muttered.

She grabbed the glass from his hand. “Don’t
care. You need something more substantial than alcohol. I can tell
by looking at you that you haven’t been exercising. We have to keep
those muscles strong.”

He sighed as he slumped against the
wheelchair. These days he only used it when he was tired. And today
he was exhausted. It had been a rough week, both physically and
mentally. He felt Andy pushing him aside and he didn’t like it. It
was convenient to blame Vanni but the truth was she had made her
choice. Graham was back to fighting the world on his own. As far as
he could peer into the future, he’d be fighting it on his own. Was
there really a point in staying strong? He’d hit all his
professional milestones. He built his label from the ground up, and
now it ran like clockwork even when he was playing hooky at a
studio lot, chasing after Andy like a forlorn puppy. He was
seriously contemplating the idea of retiring and moving the hell
away from Los Angeles.

He’d finally accepted, especially hearing
Vanni proudly proclaim Andy as his wife to be, that there really
wasn’t anything there for him anymore.

It was the same kind of self-defeating
attitude Maggie had pulled him out of when they first met. He was
feeling mighty low then, too, when he didn’t see the point of
therapy because he couldn’t yet move his legs.

For being so successful, he had a hard time
moving past setbacks – at least since Andy had come into his life.
It made Maggie resent her even more.

She walked around to face him, giving him
something more to look at than staring blindly toward the ocean.
She put one hand on her hip. “Don’t tell me I have to start over
from scratch with you. You get your heart broken and all of a
sudden you’re willing to throw in the towel? That’s not the Graham
Baxter I know.”

He wore an ironic smile. “And who is the
Graham Baxter you know, Mags?”

“He’s one of the strongest and smartest and
kindest guys I have ever met. He’s got more determination in his
little finger than most people do in their entire bodies. Not only
did he build a multi-media corporation, he willed himself to walk
again after a paralyzing gunshot wound. And he certainly wouldn’t
sit here on this deck, drinking like a fool over some idiot too
stupid to know what’s good for her.”

He shook his head. He knew that she was
unhappy with Andy’s choices, but he didn’t want her trashing her
like that. She wasn’t a fool. She was just young. Everyone was
allowed to be stupid when they were young. “You don’t understand,”
he offered.

“Then explain it to me.”

“I love her, Mags. Right or wrong. I’ve loved
her since the very first moment I took her in my arms and asked her
to dance. She fit just like the missing piece of a puzzle. Without
her…” he took a deep breath. “Without her, I feel incomplete.”

She sighed. Then she put the snifter down on
the table beside his wheelchair. She turned back to him with an
outstretched hand. “Dance with me.”

Confusion knit his brow. “What?”

“Dance with me,” she repeated.

He hesitated for only a moment. But he had
come to trust Maggie over their long year together. It was too late
to question her methods now. He struggled to his feet, cinched his
robe and walked into her arms.

She pulled him close and they began to sway,
with nothing but the melodic rhythm of the ocean to guide them.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered as she laid her head on his
shoulder. He complied. She continued, almost hypnotically. “Feel my
arms,” she instructed as she circled him in a strong embrace. “Feel
my body,” she whispered against his ear.

His eyes were closed so using only the
sensation of touch he concentrated on every curve of her body that
touched his. She was warm and supple in his arms.

“Love is a circle, Graham. You get what you
give, like the ebb and flow of the tide. It restores and renews the
parts it takes away; otherwise it’s not really love at all. In
every other case it’s just a dance. Two bodies responding to each
other until the music has ended and they have to move on.” She
pulled back again and his eyes opened to stare into her face,
illuminated by the moonlight. “It’s time to move on,” she said.

He didn’t say a word as his eyes traveled
across her face. Ultimately they landed on her parted lips, and for
a crazy moment he wanted to know what her kiss would taste like. It
was crazy. She was his nurse… his friend… but she was also a very
real woman standing in the circle of his arms. He could feel her
heart thunder against her breast, which was pressed so firmly
against his solid chest.

Even more remarkably he felt himself stir for
her. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time. She was
rewriting his history by erasing the ghost of Andy and penciling
herself in the empty space. And somehow, he didn’t find it that
objectionable. She was right; they were two bodies responding to
each other, both free of any other obligations that would prevent
them from enjoying it.

Andy had been the pot at the end of the
rainbow he would endlessly chase but never quite catch. Maggie was
the one who, at the darkest moments of his deepest despair, would
show him a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. “Mags,” he
whispered as his head began a most imperceptible tilt towards her
own.

Her eyes widened as she read the intent in
his darkened eyes. For an infinitesimal moment she had found
herself reaching back, almost out of some primal instinct to
respond to the man she’d grown to love. But before their lips could
meet she wrenched herself from the embrace. She was many things,
but a substitute she had sworn to herself never to be. She cleared
her throat and headed toward the house. “Dinner’s getting cold,”
she said as she disappeared into the kitchen.

Graham was left to catch his breath in the
cool night air. His robe had loosened and his body betrayed him, so
he waited a moment before he followed her inside.

He was contrite once he faced her. “I’m
sorry, Maggie. That was totally inappropriate.”

She shook it off with a wave of her hand. “My
fault entirely,” she said. “That’ll teach me to go off the spine,”
she added with an embarrassed grin.

He walked over to where she stood, preparing
their plates to keep her hands and her thoughts busy. He turned her
to face him, taking both her hands in his. “You helped more than
you know,” he assured her.

She nodded, but she wasn’t completely sure
she hadn’t just thrown her heart away. If he had kissed her, she
strongly suspected she’d never get it back.

The rest of their evening was quiet and
comfortable, with no further mention of what had almost happened on
the patio.

But that night, when he retired to the
privacy of his bedroom, he couldn’t stop thinking of how her body
felt in his arms, or the look in her eyes before they almost
kissed. Every time he closed his eyes he could feel her, and his
hungry body responded in kind.

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.