The Convenient Wife
by Kelly

chapter 56

Jason stepped off the elevator at the same moment Sonny jammed his
fist into the call button.

Hands on his hips, Jason gawked at Sonny, watched the older man pace
the hallway like a tiger in a cage, eyes wild. Agitation radiated off
of Sonny in waves; his eyes were red, his jaw tense. He was about to
blow sky high; Jason knew well to be wary.

Sonny made to step by him into the elevator, but Jason grabbed his
arm.
"Wait a minute--"

"Get off o' me!" was the shouted reply, Sonny jerking his arm away,
too far-gone for reason.

Jason held up his hands in front of his body. "Whoa, man, I'm just
tryin' to figure out what's wrong with you. I don't want a fight. But
if you need one, we could take this to the gym and do it right. You
look as if you could use a few rounds to get that aggression out."

Sonny uttered a bitter laugh. "I'd need a lifetime to get rid of the
aggression I feel towards that bitch," he said, jerking his head in
the direction of the penthouse.

Jason recoiled. He had seldom heard Sonny use that term against a
woman unless it was someone beneath contempt like Faith Roscoe. It
wasn't a word he'd ever expected the man to use about Carly.

"What the hell happened in there?" he asked.

Sonny was pacing again. "Go ask your best friend what happened," he
sneered.

"I'm askin' him right now," Jason parried, his eyes narrowing. "Don't
attack ME for something she did. I'm tryin' to help. Just talk about
it."

Sonny shook his head. "Talk isn't gonna change a damn thing."

"Okay, fine. So at least tell me what she said to you."

"She's nuts! She's lost it! She wants me…she expects me to leave
Alexis…just give up on a happy life AGAIN and come back to this…this
hellish marriage with HER."

"You love Alexis, Carly knows that. So…you told her no?"

"Hell yeah, I told her no!" Sonny repeated bitterly. "And then she
told me I can't ever see my kids!"

Jason stared at him for a long while without blinking. "Are you
kidding?"

"Would I joke about something like that?"

"Sonny, she's angry. She's hurt. She doesn't mean it. She'll come
around."

"Nah, Jason, she's been sayin' this since the beginning of this whole
mess. She threatened me with it when I married Alexis. Now it's
official: either I leave the best thing that has ever happened to me,
or I lose my kids. How do I make that choice, Jason? My boys are my
heart…but so is Alexis. My boys are my family…but Alexis is my home.
How the hell do I choose and still live with myself?"

Sonny had paced all of his energy away, his rage suddenly deserted
him and left only this look of quiet anguish on his face. He leaned
against the wall by the elevator, utterly defeated.

"There is no damn choice," he said. "I left Alexis on her own two
years ago and it shattered both of us. I walked away from her out of
guilt and duty. And guilt and duty got me nothing but misery. Guilt
and duty almost cost me my daughter and the love of my life. Well,
there'll be no more of that. I promised Alexis a future, and damn it,
this time I'm gonna make sure I keep my word to her."

The younger man eyed him solemnly. "No matter what it costs you?"

Sonny looked at Jason for a fleeting moment, long enough for his
friend to see the fresh rush of tears that welled in his eyes. But
then his dark gaze swung to the penthouse door staring as if he could
see the small children who lived behind it.

"I'm never gonna be the same without them in my life," he avowed, his
voice husky with emotion. "Never. But I guess there's nothin' I can
do about that right now."

He reached across to press the call button again. And within seconds
the elevator doors opened for him to step inside. Jason watched his
friend struggle to maintain composure, but he knew from the way
Sonny's hand shook as he pressed the Ground Floor button, from the
way his chin wobbled just before the doors closed again…

Sonny was a mess.

And once again Jason found himself wondering how Carly could be so
cruel to someone she claimed to love.

***

The front door shut softly, and Alexis looked up from her position on
the couch where she had been pretending to read a book. She had
actually been waiting for him, had been checking the clock
incessantly from the moment she'd watched him drive away. She'd been
on page five of the biography of a great legal mind for at least the
past half hour and couldn't recall a single word of it.

She deeply regretted their argument. Yes, she'd had a point. She
still believed that he should defend himself against Carly. But she
acknowledged now that she had gone too far in her accusations…that
she had pushed him too hard in a direction in which he didn't want to
go. That hadn't been fair. Especially given what he had been about to
face with his son.

He looked like hell, and because of that she felt even worse. The
talk with Michael had clearly been rough on him.

His dark eyes found her, and—mercifully--there was no anger in them.
Only a great gaping wound left by emotional weaponry. Hers,
Michael's, Ned's, Carly's…he had been targeted by quite a few today.

Alexis stood and faced him, her face the picture of contrite concern,
her hands twisted tensely in front of her. She breathed in deeply,
and pressed a palm flat to her abdomen as she strove to keep herself
together through the words she needed to deliver.

"I'd like to throw myself on the mercy of the court, Your Honor," she
whispered, "and plead Not Guilty by reason of extreme emotional
distress. You see, I fell in love with this man…this dark haired,
beautiful man with these deep, intense eyes that look straight into
my heart. And I'm so in love with him that sometimes I make a
complete idiot of myself. Today was one of those times.

"I'm afraid I was guilty of the crimes of jealousy and insecurity,
two qualities I normally despise. I doubted my lover and I questioned
his motives when I should have trusted in his love.

"So I ask the court's mercy for my foolish mistake. But I have to be
honest: I can't promise it won't ever happen again because I quite
often believe I'm right in my opinions…actually I usually am…and I
feel the need to share them more than most people do. Plus I seem to
love the sound of my own voice. And—um--I also can't swear that I
won't want to rip the head off of that Barbie doll ex-wife of his
when I think she's abusing him. I'm kinda funny that way. But I CAN
humble myself…and ask the court's indulgence for my wrong doing…and
plead for a light sentence…and maybe another chance."

Sonny's gaze softened as he looked into her eyes. He moved close
enough for her to feel his warm breath on her cheek. With tenderness,
he took her waist in his hands, spanning it with his fingers and
drawing her to his chest.

"I'm afraid the court can't grant you a light punishment for your
crimes," he demurred softly. "Nothing will do, Ms. Davis-Corinthos,
except a life sentence of being committed to this man you love and to
building a future with him."

He touched her mouth lovingly with a fingertip. "What do you say to
those terms?"

She looked up at him, her eyes misted with emotion. "I say I'm lucky
you're still offering them."

He leaned his forehead to hers and sighed deeply. "I'm guilty,
too, `Lexis…of being a proud, stubborn ass."

She gave a throaty chuckle. "Shall I get the tape recorder and make
you repeat that for the record?"

"You probably should, cuz I won't be admitting that again any time
soon," he quipped. "Seriously, you know I love you? You know it for
sure, right?"

"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I do."

He closed his eyes. "I just…when I make up my mind and my pride gets
involved…I get upset and dig my heels in. Today, I didn't want to
prove anything to you. I wanted you to just believe me about Carly.
To just trust me."

She closed her eyes, too. "I'm trying, Sonny. This trust thing is
harder than I thought."

"Yeah, for me, too," he confessed. "There's just…there's one thing I
should have explained to you today. I—uh--I guess I thought you'd
figure it out on your own."

Alexis looked up at him, hearing the seriousness in his tone. "Tell
me."

He swallowed, his eyes darting away from hers, finding a point on a
distant wall on which to focus. And she knew that whatever he was
about to say was painful and it came from his heart.

chapter 57