The Convenient Wife
by Kelly

chapter 53

Like one of Medusa's unlucky victims, Sonny felt as if he'd been
turned to stone.

Perhaps that was indeed what had happened to him. One fateful day, he
had been bewitched by a beauty…had joined his life to hers believing
that she was beautiful inside as well…only to find that she was as
evil and self-serving as Medusa herself. And like that classic
mythological creature, every time Carly touched his world, she turned
it to a pile of rubble.

This time, she had outdone herself.

His little boy's words surged through his heart, hot and sharp like
the blade of a dagger. And with sudden vicious force, his fist closed
around his phone in a viselike grip, so tightly that the display
window cracked and the colors bled together madly.

"Daddy, don't you…don't you love me anymore? Did I do something
wrong?"

The damning words reverberated against his skull caught in some
sickening echo. Michael was nine…nearly ten, but he'd sounded like a
toddler, his voice high and uncertain and shaking with emotion. He'd
been crying; a sob punctuated each sentence. Sonny had felt each one
like a blow.

"Why haven't you come to see me?"

The rejection in the boy's voice twisted Sonny's stomach into knots.
This was what Mike Corbin—his own father-- had made him feel all
those years ago. Brokenhearted. Alone. Like some unwanted
afterthought. A cast-off. The Cerullo family's charity case. Sonny
gritted his teeth against the remembered indignity and pain. He'd
felt betrayed and abandoned.

And now his little Michael felt the same way about him.

"Mommy told me you're too busy for me. She said—she said Kristina's
your real daughter and that you live with her now. Does that mean…do
you love her more than me, Dad?"

Red…the color of murderous rage…flashed before his eyes and blinded
him to everything else. It stiffened his spine until he was coiled as
tightly as a spring, every muscle in his body tensed against the
almost savage ache that stole his breath. He had sworn never to hurt
a child, his child. Never to make his offspring feel an ounce of the
pain he'd experienced in his own youth. And now here was the evidence
that he had failed at what he considered a man's most sacred duty.

"What did I do to make you stop loving me? Tell me Dad and I won't do
it anymore. I promise."

No…oh God, no, his heart cried. He saw Michael's eyes in his mind,
full of the hero worship that all little boys reserved for their
daddies. That child could never do anything so wrong that Sonny would
turn away from him. Ever. He'd raised him to understand that…or so
he'd thought, but Carly had destroyed that understanding with her
bitter, selfish garbage.

"Sonny?"

He felt Alexis's concerned gaze upon him, saw her reach out to touch
his arm, heard the worry in her soft voice. But for long moments he
couldn't look at her; he couldn't even speak. He struggled against
the tears standing in his eyes, brimming angrily, his fury so deep
his body wouldn't even let him shed them.

He had to swallow several times in order to get words past the lump
in his throat. And when he could finally do it, they were raw and
hoarse and so soft he was sure she had to struggle to hear them.

"It was…it was Michael," he said. "Carly told him Krissy's my
daughter…my real child…and that she's more important to me than he
is. She told him…she told him I don't love him like I love Kristina.
She made him feel like NOTHING just to get to me. God, Lex, how
could any mother be that cruel?"

He looked at her and saw her face contort into lines of
rage. "Because she's selfish and petty and has the mind of a child!"
she flashed. "But don't you worry: she will NOT win this one! You'll
go see Michael…right now…and you'll fix this!"

His eyes closed on his despair; a few tears squeezed between his
lids. "I don't even know what to say to him. I-I don't know how to
undo it. You didn't hear the pain in his voice…"

"You'll know what to say when you see him. When you hold him. Your
heart will give you the words, Sonny. It always does."

His eyes opened, his doubt shining there. "You have so much
confidence in me. You make me feel like I can do anything."

His heart swelled as she stared at him, faith shining in her
eyes. "Because I think you can. I know you're a good father. I never
doubted that. Michael knows you are, too. And once he sees you, he'll
remember what being with you is like. And he'll know that you'd never
ever abandon him."

Sonny was silent, nodding as he rubbed a hand wearily over the corner
of his eye.

"You just have to tell him, you know. The whole truth."

He looked at her questioningly.

"That it was Carly who prevented you from seeing him."

"No."

"You have to make him understand it's not that you didn't want to be
with him, but that his mother was angry and wouldn't allow you to…"

"I said, no," he repeated, his voice flat and definitive.

She frowned at him, clearly taken aback. "What do you mean, no?"

"I won't discredit his mother in front of him."

"But that's what she's done to you, Sonny!"

He shook his head, certain in his resolve. "It'll hurt him even more
if I tell him that."

"And it'll also hurt him if you don't. If you let him believe you
just don't want to be with him."

"Lex, you don't…you don't understand," he told her gruffly.

She shook her head. "No, apparently I don't. So make me."

He sighed, then softened his voice, tried to explain it
differently. "Carly and I and our messed up marriage have already
scarred him enough for ten lifetimes. I can't add to that, Lex. I
can't dishonor his mother in his eyes. It would only make things
worse."

Alexis' head tilted as she regarded him with an odd look. He almost
tangibly felt the racing energy in her over-analytical brain and knew
the next question would not be one he wanted to hear…or to answer.

"He's lived through divorce and custody battles and his parents with
other partners, right?" she asked him.

"Yes," he answered and waited for the other shoe to drop.

"Then obviously he's a mature and strong little boy who can face the
truth. So why can't you tell him the truth about his mother?" she
fired. "What's the real reason?"

Sonny frowned. "I told you the real reason. I don't wanna change the
way he feels about her. No matter what she did to me."

"Is that it? Is it really because you don't want Michael to stop
loving Carly? Or is it because YOU can't?"

chapter 54