Sonny
turned back to her when they were again alone. He felt irrationally
upbeat for someone who was about to be indicted. Marriage…rebuilding
a closeness with Alexis…exploring the feelings he’d subdued
in his soul for far too long…Try as he might he couldn’t
feel badly about this plan.
But then he saw the panic in her expression and quashed his emotion
before she could see it.
“So?” he said. “What’s the problem?”
“So what’s the problem? How would you explain our marriage
to Michael? Or—good God—to Carly? We’d have to live
together to make it at least LOOK real, or we could be busted for
fraud along with all this other crap. It would have to be for quite
a while…at least until the feds found another bone to chew
that’s more interesting than you. Who knows when that would
be? Sonny, marriage wouldn’t be easy.”
“Nothing about you and me ever is,” he told her, a small,
wistful smile on his face. He reached up to smooth a tendril of
hair behind her ear and was gratified when she didn’t bat his
hand away. “Lexis, I told you I’d do anything to stay
free. That also applies to you: I’d do anything to keep you
free as well. And…sorry if you disagree…but it wouldn’t
be that much of a sacrifice to marry you.”
Her eyes widened as they met his and nervously she caught her lip
between her teeth. He moved towards her slowly, not wanting to spook
her, but needing to taste her once more if only for a moment. He
leaned across confident she would let him. She didn’t recoil;
that was a good sign. In fact, her eyes whispered shut and her beautiful
lips…those lips he loved...parted ever so slightly.
“There we are, Kristina, home again,” came the booming
voice of Alice as she bustled through the door with Alexis’
sleepy child in her arms. “Oh!”
Alice froze stock still in the doorway keys and bags grasped in
one hand, Krissy balanced on her opposite hip. The woman seemed
nonplussed at seeing her boss in the arms of the local crime boss.
“I’m sorry,” she sputtered, struggling to close the
door and balance what was in her arms. “I’ll just…if
you’ll excuse me...I’ll take the Little One on through
to bed.”
And that was what she did without sparing either of them a second
glance. He’d seen this woman in action when she’d worked
at the Quartermaine’s and nothing had seemed to shake her.
But the sight of him with Alexis did?
“And that’s only a small sample of the reactions we’d
get if we were to…marry,” Alexis whispered.
Sonny tilted his head, grinning. “And when have you ever known
me to care about people’s reactions?” he said. “Lexis,
I can’t make the decision for you. Just think about what’s
most important, and you’ll know what to do.”
He touched her jaw line gently with his fingertip, and then he turned
to go…leaving her with one of the most difficult choices she’d
faced in her life.
***
Hours later, when Alice had gone home, and she stood over her daughter
sleeping in her little bed, she thought. She let herself think.
She let herself consider. She let herself dream.
Marriage to Sonny? Living together? Sharing meals? Sharing talks
like they used to? Sleeping in the same vicinity? Just meeting with
him today had been brutal for her self-control. She’d let him
kiss her. She’d kissed him back. She’d wanted to do even
more.
Because you still love him, you idiot.
But he didn’t love her, she told herself firmly. He never had.
And this would only be a marriage of convenience…one designed
to save his butt and her own as well. How could she survive emotionally
intact while pretending each day that she felt nothing?
“Think of what’s most important, and you’ll know
what to do,” he’d told her.
Her eyes fell to the tiny sleeping form in front of her. Kristina
needed her mother. And, Alexis swallowed hard, she needed to know
her father, too. Alexis had always intended that one day…sometime
in the future…when things in Sonny’s life had calmed down…the
two of them could know each other…grow close.
Alexis shook her head. There might never be a one day…a sometime.
There might never be a perfect moment. She’d realized today
when he’d spoken of running that something—anything—unexpected
could happen. Something like this case could arise and suddenly
he’d be gone and there would be no more chances to make things
right. No more somedays. Then what would she tell her daughter?
“I was waiting till your Daddy was perfect before I let him
near you?”
If she married Sonny, he had a fighting chance in court. If she
married him, he could know his daughter…at least for however
long the marriage had to stay legal. If she married him… If
she married him, he could stay.
“Think about what’s important, and you’ll know what
to do…”
