Mogul (8 page)

He circled her waist with his arms. “Can we
tell him together?”

She sighed. “I think it might be best if I
tell him alone.”

His grip tightened, but then he mirrored her
sigh. If they were going to be married, he’d have to trust her. Now
was as good a time as any.

But just in case he spent the entire night in
perfect fiancé mode, making sure that she knew without any doubt
what kind of man she had at home so she’d never be tempted to leave
him again. He did the dishes, he massaged her feet, they shared a
bath – and he made love to her until she could do nothing but
scream his name as she rode higher on wave after wave of
pleasure.

She was his, and he emblazoned his mark on
her in every loving way possible.

The next day she arrived in L.A. a little
earlier than scheduled. She had hoped to see Graham privately
first. Maybe if he knew about the marriage and the pregnancy he
wouldn’t want to work with her on this new production.

She was a nervous wreck by the time he opened
the door for her. He was standing on his own two feet as he greeted
her, which made her tear up with joy. “Oh, Graham,” she breathed as
she walked into his open embrace. They didn’t speak for a moment,
both choked up by the magnitude of the moment. Finally he broke
apart and led her into the office.

“You look amazing, Andy,” he said, and he
genuinely meant it. Her face was fuller, rosier and she wore the
happy look of a woman well loved. He felt a tug at his gut that she
had never looked this way when she was with him, which renewed his
commitment to keep his residual longing for her to himself. It was
baggage she no longer needed to carry.

“Look at you,” she said as she watched him
walk – slowly but steadily – back to his desk, using only a cane.
It was only ten steps, but it was ten more than she thought he’d be
making a year ago. She sat in the chair opposite his desk. “I can’t
believe how far you’ve come.”

He chuckled. “Thank Maggie. She’s the one
that made it happen.”

Andy shook her head. “You made it happen,
Graham. It just proves again how amazing you are.” He didn’t say
anything for an awkward moment. Finally she cleared her throat.
“Thanks for agreeing to see me before the meeting with Shannon,”
she said.

He just smiled. “I’m always happy to see
you,” he said. “You didn’t need an excuse to come by.”

It was such a Graham thing to say. “I know.
It’s just been… awkward.”

He nodded. Their relationship had always been
complicated.

She took a deep breath. “I have something to
tell you. Something I think you should know before we attempt to
revive any kind of working relationship, or even any real
friendship.”

He sat back in his chair. “I’m always going
to be your friend, Andy. Despite everything that has happened, I
hope you know that.”

“I do,” she said. “But like I said, things
are a bit awkward. I know that … there were feelings…”

He wanted to correct her and say, “Are
feelings,” but he got the sense that would only distress her
further. He simply said, “No matter what it is, I have faith we can
handle it.”

She nodded. Her eyes met his. “I’m going to
marry Vanni,” she said quietly.

It was as if a gunshot had reverberated
throughout the quiet office. His jaw clenched, but he recovered
quickly with a forced smile. “Congratulations,” he managed.

“There’s more,” she added, looking up at him
like a naughty child facing a disappointed parent. “I’m
pregnant.”

That news seemed to rock him more than the
engagement. He couldn’t say anything for a moment as he stared at
her in disbelief. It had only been a few months, he thought. She
had been sleeping in his bed, lying in his arms, only three short
months before.

Now she was pregnant and marrying another
man?

It didn’t seem possible.

“When?” he asked.

“July,” she answered.

His blown mind quickly did
the calculations. She was four months pregnant, which meant she was
pregnant the last time they were together… when they had made love…
when he had hoped beyond hope they had conceived a child –
their
child.

“Congratulations,” he
managed again, only this time with considerably more difficulty. “I
know it was what you wanted,” he added.
What I wanted
, he thought to himself
as he swallowed the bitter, bitter pill.

She remembered that last night together, when
he had whispered that he wanted to give her a baby, and she cried
in his arms for those things she thought she could never have.
Looking back it seemed so cruel, to use him as some consolation
prize because Vanni wasn’t available. He had deserved better than
that. “Graham, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know at the time. I swear. I
didn’t know until I passed out in New York in December.”

It was yet another blow. She had known when
he set her free in December, and had opted not to tell him. He
wondered how much Vanni had influenced that decision.

He glanced down at the flashy ring on her
hand, which was in her lap by her growing belly. He didn’t know why
he hadn’t noticed either before. “I’m happy for you,” he said as
sincerely as he could muster. “I hope that Vanni can give you the
life and happiness you deserve.”

It was a double-edged sentiment, heavily
laced with his doubts on the matter. She just smiled. “He already
has,” she assured him, but her words only seemed to inflict more
harm. “If this makes things too awkward between us, I
understand.”

He shook his head to cut her
off. “Don’t be silly, Andy. I made peace with your decision in
December. There are no strings attached to my friendship, nor any
other relationship we have in the future. I really think you’ll be
an asset for
Fierce
.” He smiled and was all business the rest of their meeting.
He introduced her to Shannon, a fellow writer excited to include
her on their team, especially since they had so much in common.
With Andy’s music background with Dreaming in Blue, she was a
perfect fit to their collaborative production team.

They spent the rest of the afternoon
fine-tuning the creative details on the competition. It was dark
before she returned home. Vanni had prepared a candlelight dinner
for his workin’ woman, and they spent their evening sharing their
excitement over the upcoming project.

Most of all they couldn’t wait until the
following week, when they could finally tell the world they were
together.

And then, just like every other time in their
relationship they dared believe they were bulletproof – karma
kicked them both in the ass on the morning news.

PING hadn’t given a rat’s ass about Andy’s
two-karat bauble because they had a much juicier story to uncover.
They had discovered a pregnant, destitute Holly holed up in a seedy
Hollywood motel, carelessly discarded and virtually ignored by the
deadbeat father of her child while he shacked up with another
woman, spending his 10-million dollar payday on exorbitant trips to
New York instead.

It was all over the news from the time they
woke up. When they dared to open their front door to drive to her
OB/GYN appointment, the paparazzi was all over their lawn waiting
to hear what they had to say on the matter.

“What are you going to do about Holly?”

“Is that why you didn’t marry her in
December?”

“Following your father’s footsteps,
Vanni?”

They slammed back into the house and stared
at each other in disbelief.

It had happened again.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Redondo Beach, California

February 17, 2011

“Are you crazy?”

Andy and Vanni stood off in the bedroom, he
on one side of the bed, she on the other. They hadn’t spoken much
about their newest problem all that day. In fact, they had barely
spoken at all. They each bore their burden separately and silently,
mostly because Andy didn’t know how to reach him now that he had
withdrawn into a familiar spiral of self-loathing.

Those rumors about his being a deadbeat dad
hit him below the belt and Andy knew it. What had shadowed him most
his entire life was being shaded in the same ugly colors as his own
absentee father. Now that Holly had tuned up like a bad penny –
again – with the claim of being pregnant with his child, Andy knew
he was being torn in every direction in order to make things
right.

Graham had called them the minute he heard
the news. He was quick to assure them he’d investigate first to
make sure her claims were valid, and that they shouldn’t panic
until they knew the truth.

But the weight of the rumor had eaten at
Vanni all day, and he couldn’t stand waiting around for someone
else to get to the bottom of it.

He wanted to go see Holly himself.

“She’s lying,” Andy said. “She can’t be
pregnant with your child. She was in a fertility clinic in
December, remember?”

“That was two months ago,” he reminded her.
“We were … together – a lot – two months ago.”

The thought turned Andy’s already queasy
stomach. Their little Bean wasn’t taking the stressful news too
well, and she’d felt like hell all day long.

“Unprotected sex and a fertility clinic in
the same month, Andy. You do the math.”

She sighed as she plopped down on the bed
with her back to him. He crawled across to hold her, which she
allowed even though she was furious he’d ever even consider going
to see that horrible woman. Why give her any sort of a foothold
after all she had done to tear them asunder? There were tears in
her eyes as she turned to him. “It’s a trap, Vanni. She’s a
grifter. She will do or say anything to get you and your
money.”

He turned her to face him. “She’s not going
to get me. Okay?” He held up her hand and showed her the ring. “You
have me. Forever. Nothing is going to change that ever again.” Andy
didn’t say anything so he went on. “If money is all she wants, then
let’s just give it to her. We’ll pay her off just like we’re going
to pay off the Wilkes’ and we’ll get our lives back. You, me, the
baby. This is our happily ever after, babe. I’m not going to throw
it away over her.” He cupped her face. “I need you to trust
me.”

She shook her head. “And I need you to trust
me. You go there and she’ll work her magic on you all over again. I
know it. She’ll play this poor little victim routine and you’ll
crumble just like a dry cookie.”

“Thanks for the faith, babe.”

She touched his face. “You’re a good man,
Vanni. You have a big heart… and an ever bigger need to be a good
boy who makes everyone else happy.”

That hurt and he withdrew. After the last
couple of months, how could she doubt his commitment to her? And if
she doubted now, how would she ever trust it once they were
married? “I have to do this, Andy.”

“Why? Why can’t you wait for Graham?”

His tone was sharp. “I don’t want to wait for
Graham,” he told her bluntly. “Next week, when I go in front of the
press, I’m going to announce our engagement and our pregnancy. If
you’re right and Holly’s lying, then she’ll take whatever I offer
and slither back under the rock she’s been hiding under the last
two months.”

“And if she isn’t lying?” Andy wanted to
know. As much as she wanted to believe it was a crock of shit, deep
down Andy was terrified she was telling the truth. That’s just how
things worked in her relationship with Vanni. Whenever they took
any steps forward – it was usually right off a cliff.

He gulped. He didn’t have an answer for that
yet. He just took her by the hand and touched the ring on her
finger. “It changes nothing about you, me, and our future.”

It was all he could promise.

That was no longer good enough for Andy. “I
don’t want you to go,” she said. Her eyes met his. “Please don’t
go.”

His heart melted at the pain in her eyes. He
knew he had put it there through years of squandering her trust. He
sighed as he pulled her into his arms. “Okay,” he said. She finally
let the torrent loose and cried in his arms. Whether it was
hormones or just an emotional release four years in the making, she
couldn’t be sure. But she couldn’t stop the tears even if she
wanted to. He rocked her gently until her sobs were spent.

He lay in bed wide awake long after she had
fallen asleep in his arms. He stroked her hair as he stared out the
enormous window opposite their loft bedroom. The ocean reached into
the night like a black abyss right outside their door, which was
symbolic of the black hole they themselves teetered on thanks to
Holly’s reappearance. He wanted desperately to believe Andy and
Graham, both of whom tried to convince him that with Holly’s
history of lying and manipulation, it was far more likely that she
was trying to scam him again.

But anxiety gnawed at his gut as he
remembered those last few weeks they had spent together, when he
believed she was already pregnant. There had been no real need to
curb his robust sexual appetite or give any thought of birth
control. And she had been an enthusiastic partner, which he could
see in retrospect was because she was trying like hell to get
pregnant for real.

They had sex every day, sometimes twice or
three times a day. She had been insatiable, and he was resigned. He
had given up on ever being in another relationship with anyone
else. He’d missed The One (Andy,) so it really didn’t matter who he
married after that. If he was going to have a family with Holly, if
he was going to marry Holly, there was no reason not to indulge her
every time she made any kind of advance.

She was a beautiful girl, whose sexy
innocence had appealed to him from the very first time they met.
Truth was he had enjoyed making love to her – only now the thought
of wanting anyone else felt like a betrayal of the worst sort.