Page 59 of Sebastian's Baby

Lita makes a face but doesn’t say anything as I pull out of the parking bay. We drive toward the exit, and I sigh because we’re likely to have our pictures taken on the way out of here.

“You’ll probably want to hide your face, princess; there’s usually someone hanging around,” I warn her.

Lita drops her head, and her long, brown hair falls around her face while she stares down at her lap. Sure enough, there are a few reporters waiting to get pictures. I keep my face completely neutral as I drive away, and once we’re on our way and through the next set of lights, I tell Lita she can sit up. I reach over to link my hand with hers after she sits up, and I begin stroking her skin with my thumb.

“This is the most fucking weird thing ever,” she says.

“The paparazzi?”

“That too, but no, I meant this whole thing. At the beginning of the year, I was looking at pictures of you and Heather together in this car and taking part in discussions online about what it all meant. Now, I’m leaving your apartment in this car, and people will be discussing online about what it all means.

“But this time, Iknowwhat it all means. It means I’m pregnant and having your baby, except I don’t want people to sit around discussing me like that. So now I feel bad for all the times I’ve speculated about your lives, as it’s kind of shitty.”

It’s so strange to think of Lita debating with her friends about my relationship with Heather. I feel bad that she feels guilty about it, though, since she was just a fan of the band back then.

I look over and smile at her. “If people didn’t sit around speculating about us, we wouldn’t have the life we have. Like I said the night we met, princess, it’s the price of fame. We accepted that price when we sought out this life, and having people talk about us isn’t the worst thing that’s happened to us.”

I think about the night of the charity event in Los Angeles and the horrible months that came after it. The media went apeshit when the picture of Harrison in bed with another woman was released. There was so much speculation about whether he’d done it because Heather and I had been having an affair that I wonder what Lita knows about it.

“What do the fans know about the night we were drugged?”

I glance at her, and she raises her eyebrows as she asks, “What do you mean?”

“From what you all know, why were we drugged?”

“No one could really figure it out. There’s a lot of theories, and some idiots insist it’s bullshit to cover up Harrison having an affair.” She shrugs her shoulders.

A flare of anger passes through me, and I’m glad that Lita knows this is complete bullshit. Harrison has only ever loved Heather, and I hate knowing that there are people who think badly of him.

“What’s your best guess?” I ask her, wondering how close she can get to the truth.

“Well, it was Willful Poisoning, and Harrison said you were specifically targeted. It was GHB. I don’t know why someone would want to get you high.”

“They weren’t allowed to say in the interview because the case was ongoing, but as soon as this group of people found out we were coming to their hotel, they planned to drug us.”

I know that I’m not meant to tell anyone this, but Victor has been found guilty now, and Lita is a part of my family, so she needs to know.

“They went through our rooms as soon as we were at the event to see if they could find anything worth selling.”

I feel violated whenever I think about someone trawling through my things while I was blissfully unaware downstairs. It’s so uncomfortable, and I’m glad we have bodyguards now, so that will never happen again.

“They chose ecstasy in the hopes of getting some kind of scandal out of us. Harrison got unlucky. Heather got the offer to doSaturday Night Live, so she didn’t go, and Maddie took her place. If Heather had been there, he would’ve just slept with her like Gabriel did with Ariana. No scandal. I guess itmighthave then been a ‘Sebastian Fox’s wild night’ kind of story instead. For so long, I wished it had been. It almost broke Harrison and Heather.”

I pause for a second, thinking about that time. They had split for a few months, and it was torturous for them. I struggled really hard to support them both, and I was so angry about what had happened and the way the paparazzi were treating them.

“The thing that still pisses me off is they sold those fucking photos for a small fortune. Even if they go to jail for this, they still get that money. It was all transferred offshore as soon as they got it. The future royalties for the photo have been seized, but the biggest sums came in the immediate days after it was leaked.”

It’s infuriating, and I’m not sure that I’ll ever not feel this level of rage when I think about it. Lita doesn’t say anything for a short while, and I hope that I haven’t scared her too badly by telling her the truth about what happened.

“They didn’t care who they sold the story about. They just drugged you all in the hopes they would get something.”

“Exactly. So, you can see how fans who support us and care about us, speculating about what’s going on is so unbelievably far from the worst thing we’ve been through, princess.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

She sounds a little scared, but she’s a part of my life now, and she needs to be warned.

“Because you need to know, Lolita. I’m sorry I’ve dragged you into my world, but we’re having a baby together. You need to know the darkest parts of my life, or you won’t know how careful to be.”

---