Sonny’s
eyes dropped to his drink that sat untouched on the tablecloth.
He had to count to fifty before he could trust himself to answer
his wife calmly. “I’m not having an affair with Alexis,”
he said simply.
“Oh, you mean you’re not having sex with her yet?”
Carly rephrased. “Well, having sex with someone isn’t
the only way to have an affair. Sometimes you can be intimate without
intercourse, and it’s still a betrayal, Sonny.”
He was tired of her preachy tone and her accusations so he fired
back. “You mean like when a wife has erotic dreams about her
husband’s enemy and moans that man’s name aloud in bed?
You mean like when a wife has flashes of these--these fantasies
about another man? Does that count as betrayal?”
His words froze Carly’s tirade but only for a second. “Yeah,
Sonny, that counts,” she conceded bitterly. “But shooting
your wife in the head and almost killing your child isn’t exactly
an act of LOVE either, is it?”
His eyes fell to the tabletop again as he relived the insanity of
that action. He would never forgive himself that idiotic choice,
yet he knew that the lunacy of their marriage had pushed each of
them to do reckless things since Carly had “returned”
from the dead. Their union was a train wreck that kept amassing
casualties, he acknowledged to himself.
When she next spoke, there was only hurt in her quiet voice, and
that reached him more than her anger ever could. “Sometimes
having an affair means confiding your innermost pain to someone
other than your spouse. Trusting your soul to someone other than
the one you married. Baring secrets with Alexis that you’ve
never shared with me. That’s a love affair, too, Sonny. And
if that’s the definition that we’re gonna go by, then
you and Alexis have been having an affair since you met.”
Carly leaned across the table towards him, her eyes narrowed with
venomous anger and pain. “SINCE YOU MET, you bastard. And I’ve
been trying to compete with her since we married. The only time
I thought I had a shot was when she stopped talking to you. Now
that the silent treatment is over, I guess I’m out in the cold
again, huh?”
He sat there looking at her, feeling shell-shocked. Had he really
made her feel like she had to compete with Alexis all this time?
He knew very well what it was like to feel inadequate and powerless…both
Mike and Deke had done that to Sonny quite effectively in his youth.
But he couldn’t believe that he, himself, would do it to another
person. Least of all the woman he’d made his wife.
Her confession made what he had to say next all the more difficult.
“This—I didn’t call you here to talk about you versus
Alexis. There was something I needed you to know.”
He swallowed and made an effort to get to the heart of the matter.
“Alexis and I…we have a child.”
Carly’s mouth gaped. That had not been at all what she had
expected him to say.
“Kristina?”
“Yeah, she’s mine.”
“The DNA tests—”
“Ned tampered with the results.”
“With Alexis’ approval?”
“She kept silent about it afterwards,” Sonny said, lifting
his shoulders in a shrug. When he and Alexis had had a moment alone
in her room the night of the kidnapping, she had explained how the
DNA tests were faked. It had been all he could do to maintain a
pretense of calm instead of going directly to the Quartermaine gatehouse
to beat Ned silly.
“So now she wants what from you?” Carly demanded. “Forgiveness?
Money? That’s it, money because the Cassadines are broke, right?”
Sonny frowned. “She would never use me like that. Will you
just listen to me? Helena Cassadine has taken my daughter, and I--we
are desperately trying to get her back. That’s why I’m
at Wyndemere.”
Carly frowned as she assimilated all this information. He found
himself praying that the little girl's plight would mean something
to his wife, that she’d say she understood, and they’d
leave whatever animosity there was between them here at this table.
But her next words told him he’d set his hopes too high once
again when it came to his wife.
“So now that she needs your help she tells you about your kid?
Isn’t that a bit convenient, Sonny? And you’re falling
for it, of course.”
“Damn it, I’m not falling for anything. I’m trying
to be there for my child—”
“You have other children, too, if you haven’t forgotten
them. But I’m sure Alexis wants you to do that!”
“I would never abandon any of my kids!”
“You already have. You’re at her side at Wyndemere, holding
her hand right now. But when she gets her daughter back, she’ll
kick you aside like yesterday’s garbage. Because she’s
always thought she was too good for you. She’s always looked
down her nose at you! You’ve just been too lovesick to notice
it!”
“This isn’t about my feelings for Alexis—”
“Oh, well at least now you acknowledge you have feelings for
Alexis—”
“I brought you here to talk about my daughter, to tell you
why I need to be there for her mother. Like an idiot I thought you’d
understand!”
“I understand that there’s a police department here in
town. Why didn’t she go to them?”
“You know how the Cassadines work. Do you think the PCPD can
keep up with them? We can’t go to the police. And Carly, I
mean this, neither can you.”
“I can do whatever the hell I want!” she avowed.
Sonny almost stopped breathing, looking at his wife as if he’d
never met her. “You do and I’m done with you. I’ll
deal with you like I’d deal with a stranger.”
The words hit her like a blow, but she didn’t back down. “Threats
again?”
“A promise,” he said. “I can’t believe you’d
endanger this child just because she belongs to me and Alexis.”
Carly stood up before him, chest heaving, eyes flashing something
akin to hatred his way. “I’m sorry about Kristina, Sonny,”
she said. “No kid deserves to be hurt. But don’t you dare
ask me to feel a damn thing for a lying witch like Alexis who wants
to take you away from me.”
She grasped her purse and prepared to flounce out of the place melodramatically,
but he reached across the table with lightning quickness and grasped
her wrist.
“Not so fast,” he said. “I need your assurance you
won’t tell the police about my daughter.”
“I don’t owe you anything, Sonny!” she snapped, and
wrenched her arm from his. In her haste, she dropped her purse onto
the table and the contents spilled out. Both sets of eyes fell to
the items strewn across the linen tablecloth, but one stood out
amongst the rest. A key. A hotel key. To the most exclusive place
in this town. The type of place powerful people frequented. People
like Alcazar. In fact, Sonny knew that Lorenzo kept a suite on the
top floor of that very hotel.
His eyes lifted to her face, and for a millisecond it was there.
The truth. Her eyes gleamed with it before she was able to obliterate
it behind her usual façade of denial.
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she declared.
“Oh really?”
“I haven’t done anything more than you did to me with
your little lawyer!”
“So what, Carly…you’re sleeping with my enemy NOW
to get back at me for being with Alexis TWO YEARS AGO? When you
and I WEREN’T EVEN MARRIED?”
She had no answer for him. She just stood there confident that her
reasoning made perfect sense. She’d wanted revenge since that
day…the day that soft, sexy music had called her up the stairs
to Sonny’s room…the day that she’d seen their images
reflected in his mirror…the sight of the man she loved holding
another woman so tenderly…staring into that woman’s eyes
with such a fiercely protective look that it had burned an impression
into Carly’s brain…because he had never looked at his
wife that way…never once…
“You told her it would all be okay,” Carly whispered now,
a feline smile crawling across her lips. “And as you said those
words to her, I vowed to myself that life would never be okay for
you or that slut again. Not as long as I was around.”
He sat there frozen in shock at her words. “All this time,
you been eaten up by this and you pretended everything was fine?
You told me you forgave me…that you were past all that,”
Sonny whispered. “That was a lie, too?”
“You told me that night with her was a mistake…that you
were past it,” she countered. “Was that the truth?”
In that instant, he realized that too much had been done and said;
there was absolutely nothing to save here. Not a thing. Sonny sprang
to his feet and tossed some bills onto the table. “If I ever
made you feel like you weren’t enough, I’m truly sorry.
I take responsibility. That was wrong of me. But it was my doing,
not Alexis’. You don’t get to put this on her. You don’t
get to talk about her any way you please.”
“How do you expect me to talk about a woman I saw you making
love with in my bed? When will you get that?!”
It seemed the whole restaurant had paused and taken a collective
breath during their confrontation. Sonny closed his eyes. He was
sick of scenes, sick of apologies, sick of guilt, and—he was
sorry to say—sick to death of his wife.
When he spoke, it was whispered between clenched teeth. “That’s
it. We’re done here. I’ll call Michael as soon as I can.
You’ve got Max and Marco on you at all times. Goodbye.”
“Don’t bother protecting us,” she sneered, grabbing
her belongings from the table and tossing them back into her large
trendy bag. “Just go on and hold Alexis’ hand. It’s
what you want anyway.”
When he didn’t respond, she tried to bait him further. “You
know, you might as well be having sex; you share everything else,”
she mocked. “Alexis’ll throw you some crumbs of affection.
But don’t be surprised when Ms. Neurotic Davis eventually cuts
you off again. Bensonhurst doesn’t exactly fit in at the Cassadine
table, Sonny, know what I’m sayin’?”
Sonny stared right through her, refusing to admit even to himself
that Carly’s attack had struck him square in his heart…that
secret corner of himself that believed he wasn’t good enough
for someone as refined and intelligent as Alexis.
In the end, it was Carly who turned and left the Grille first. He
watched her exit, full of fury at her and at himself. But more than
anything he was infinitely sad that he’d wasted years trying
to make an illusion of love become real.
