Chapter Nine
Upon first sight, Claudia was absolutely fascinated by Sonny's house. Ever since she was young, she had always been afraid of her home. It reminded her of evil castles where wicked witches locked up princesses in fairytales. Even before her life had turned upside down, Claudia had preferred spending most of her time outside. Sunlight never seemed to come into the windows of her house, at least not in the rooms that she was allowed in. After her mother had left, and Maria had entered her life, the house had only seemed that much more haunted, with ghosts of the past lurking in the hallways and making noises in unoccupied rooms. Even when Johnny was born the house still hadn't lightened up. But, now that Trevor was gone and Johnny was more or less in charge, Claudia planned on doing a lot of redecorating. She didn't want her child growing up like she had, fearing its own home.
Sonny's house, even though it was almost as big as Claudia's, and just as dark, didn't have that same medieval feel, which Claudia was thankful for. It was dark, but in a more modern way, a way that Claudia didn't think would give her childish nightmares. She wasn't expecting Sonny to be living in a house that was painted bright colors; it wasn't exactly the stereotypical living arrangements for a mob boss. But anything was better than the Zacchara mansion. At least in this place, Claudia couldn't be haunted by memories.
Claudia had driven her car through a pair of tall, wrought-iron gates, just like she had at home, and up a long driveway, where one of Sonny's guards directed her to a small garage. After she got out of her car, the guard led her in the front door, through a small entrance hall, and into a room on the right, which Claudia saw was a dining room, and a very nice one at that. The dining room at her house was rarely used—at least when she had lived in the house. Christmas and Easter were really the only times the table had been dusted off. It looked like it was used much more frequently in this house. Maybe it wasn't, but it certainly looked like it was.
The table had been set for two, the plates made of fine china and the glasses shining to perfection. The guard gestured for Claudia to take a seat in the chair nearest to the dining room entrance, which she did, shrugging off her coat as she did so.
"Can I take your coat?" asked the guard. He was a big guy, over six feet and full of muscle. But, at the same time, he looked like a cuddly teddy bear.
Claudia smiled, handing it to him. "Thank you."
"Mr. C will be with you in a moment," said the guard. He turned and walked out of the room.
Claudia sat there for a minute, marveling at what lay ahead for the evening. When Sonny had invited her over for dinner, she certainly hadn't expected this: a home-cooked meal, and to be waited on hand and foot by a huge bodyguard that referred to his boss as Mr. C. Any reluctance she had had a couple days ago about letting Sonny into her baby's life was long gone. She felt completely confident that he would be a good father, even if he didn't necessarily want anything to do with Claudia.
"I'm glad you could make it," a familiar voice said behind her. Claudia turned around and smiled as Sonny walked into the dining room, his hands in his jacket pockets. "Did you find the place okay?"
"It's not exactly hard to miss," said Claudia with a laugh as Sonny walked around her and sat at the opposite end of the table, looking as sexy as ever. Stop, Claudia told herself after this thought had passed through her head. He doesn't like you that way.
"Do you like it?" Sonny asked hopefully. He wanted to make sure that Claudia approved of where he lived; after all, their child would be spending some time here. How much time, Sonny wasn't exactly sure. But they'd work that out eventually. They had nine months, after all. Well, more like eight and a half. But still. Tonight was about getting to know each other.
Claudia nodded, looking around the room with interest. "I think it's great. Totally my style. I mean, anything is better than my house. That place gives me the creeps, even to this day."
"Yeah, I've been in there once or twice," said Sonny. "Kind of reflects on your father's personality."
Claudia couldn't agree more. "Just a little bit," she said, grinning.
At that moment, a short and round Mexican woman entered through a swinging door on the side of the room, carrying two bottles: one of red wine, and one of some kind of fizzy drink.
"Lo encontré, señor Corinthos," she said in rapid Spanish, presenting Sonny with the two bottles.
"Gracias, Alameda," he said, just as quickly. He turned towards Claudia. "Ella es Claudia."
When Claudia heard her name thrown in amongst the Spanish, she looked towards the woman, just smiling. She had no idea what to say.
The woman smiled at her for a second, then turned back to Sonny. "Cuándo te gusto para servir la cena?"
Sonny considered for a second, then said, "Tan pronto como esté lista. No hay razón para esperar."
"Sí, señor," said the woman. She smiled at Claudia one more time, then scuttled back into the kitchen.
Sonny looked up from examining the bottles she had left to see Claudia's bewildered face. He smiled at her confusion. "I take it you don't speak Spanish," he said, looking back at the bottles.
Claudia shook her head. "Not a lick," she admitted. "I took French in high school and my uncle Rudy taught me Italian when I lived with him. No Spanish."
Sonny shrugged as he put the bottles down. "It's pretty much mandatory for me. I do a lot of business in Puerto Rico. I've noticed they tend to have more respect for me when I bother to learn their language. Makes business easier."
"I see," said Claudia, nodding understandingly. "And, from what I've read, your way of doing business seems to work for you."
Sonny grinned. "Tonight's not about business," he said, standing up with the bottle of fizzy drink. "It's about getting to know the mother of my child." Claudia couldn't help but blush when he said that. She was the mother of his child. Well, one of them. Maybe they couldn't work things out the way she wanted to, but the baby growing inside of her stomach would have to create some kind of bond between them. They could be close friends. Ugh, friends. Claudia shivered internally at the word, then told herself not to get upset about it, to just accept the facts and move on.
Sonny unwrapped the foil from the bottle and twisted off the cap, pouring the fizzy drink into Claudia's glass. "Sparkling cider," he said as he poured. "I remember Carly drinking it when she was pregnant with Morgan, though I'm sure she wished she could have had something stronger."
Claudia smiled as Sonny finished pouring the drink, set down the bottle next to her glass, and went back to his seat, pouring his glass of wine. "Tell me about your other kids," she said excitedly. "You have three, right?"
"Yep," said Sonny, nodding as he finished pouring his wine. "Michael's the oldest. He's twelve. Actually, I'm not his real father. I adopted him when I married Carly. But I think of him like my own son. The way I see it, he's my oldest."
Wow, thought Claudia. Now she really didn't have any doubts about his parenting abilities. If he was able to love someone else's child as his own, then he was certainly capable of loving a child that he had actually fathered. "What about the other two?"
"My next oldest is Kristina," Sonny continued. He loved that Claudia was so interested in his other children. That meant a lot to him. "She's ten. Beautiful girl…looks just her mother. I don't see her a lot, like I told you, but Alexis says she does very well in school. But, I mean, she gets that from Alexis."
"Her daddy's not exactly stupid," said Claudia, practically gushing at his modesty.
Sonny smiled to express his thanks, then said, "My youngest is Morgan. He's eight, and he is a funny little kid. God, he can just make you laugh until you cry." Claudia smiled at that, then Sonny asked, "So, how's this baby doing? Have you seen a doctor yet?"
Claudia nodded. "I went on Saturday. Everything's fine; they said this should be a pretty run-of-the-mill pregnancy. Well, biology-wise anyway." She didn't extrapolate, but she didn't have to. Sonny got the gist.
He smiled. "That's good."
Claudia smiled back, ever so slightly. "Well, I have to take all these prenatal vitamins and do all these other precautionary measures. I was looking online. No caffeine, no junk food, no fish, and no stress. I have no idea how I'm gonna make it through these nine months. Actually, it's more like eight," she added hastily, just realizing how fast time had gone by. The whole "avoiding stress" thing started to go out the window as she said, "Oh, my, God, in eight months, I'm gonna have a baby. I'm gonna be a mom to somebody." She looked directly at Sonny, her current attraction shoved slightly to the side. "Aren't you freaking out?"
In all honesty, Sonny was barely holding himself together. Between running the business, trying not to become too romantically attached to Claudia, and raising the children he already had, Sonny was having a hard time digesting that another baby was on the way. But he couldn't show that side to Claudia. No, he needed to be the strong one right now. This baby couldn't come into the world with two hot messes for parents.
"I'm sure everything will be fine," he assured, more to himself than to Claudia. "If the doctor said the pregnancy seemed stable, I believe her. And besides, nothing could possible compare to what Carly went through when she was pregnant with Morgan."
If that had been intended to make Claudia feel better, Sonny's attempt had failed. "Why, what happened to Carly?" she asked anxiously.
Great, thought Sonny. He shouldn't have said anything. Claudia was worried enough as it was. But, tonight was about getting to know each other. The birth of Sonny's only biological son was a pretty big event in his life. "My brother, Ric, kidnapped Carly while she was pregnant, and planned on taking the baby. He kept her in a panic room in his house, waiting for Morgan to come."
Claudia's eyes grew as large as the empty dinner plate sitting in front of her. "Ric is Trevor's son, right?" Sonny nodded. "Well, the apple certainly doesn't fall far from the certifiably insane tree."
"You won't have to worry about Ric," Sonny insisted, before Claudia became too frantic. He didn't want to stress her out. "We're okay right now. This was back when we really hated each other."
Claudia rolled her eyes. "I've worried about Trevor for most of my life. Now he's out of the picture, and I really don't want to worry about his spawn."
"Trevor's been with your family for awhile, huh?" asked Sonny, curious about what Trevor had done after leaving his mother.
Claudia nodded. "It seems like it's been forever. He started working for my father when I was about six or seven. Actually, I should say he started controlling my father. Even as a little kid, I knew he was a snake. But my father thought he was God's gift to the world. I remember the first time I saw Trevor." Claudia's eyes glazed over as her memory drifted back to that fateful day. "He knew my father was trying to gain power, and he knew that he'd succeed. He wanted a piece for himself. He came to our house himself one day, and was in my father's office for a good hour, showing everything he had to offer. I remember playing in the hallway when he came out, and I have never gotten a worse vibe from anyone. He gave me the dirtiest look I'd ever seen, like I was the snake. And I remember thinking about grabbing the gun that Daddy kept in a drawer in the hallway and killing him. And I desperately wish I had." As this part of the memory came back, a tear fell from Claudia's right eye, and her voice became slightly choked. "A few months later, I came home from school, and my mother was gone. Daddy said he had sent her away and that she wasn't ever coming back, and I knew that Trevor had done it. I knew that my father would never have sent my mother away on his own. He loved her. I had seen it in his eyes my whole life. And he had loved me, at one point."
Sonny began to see the toll this story was taking on Claudia and said, "You don't have to—"
"The next day," Claudia went on, ignoring Sonny, "the next freaking day, my stepmother moved in and my father insisted that I call her 'Mom.' I threw a tantrum. I just started knocking everything off the shelves in my father's office. I tore pages out of books, and ripped the stuffing out of the pillows, and even threw one of my baseballs through the window. My father found the mess and started hitting me. And Trevor? He just stood in the doorway and watched, waiting for it to be over so he could get on with business."
She paused the story for a second to wipe her eyes and clear her throat, and then said, "Trevor continued to treat me like I was nothing for the rest of my childhood. Then, I started growing up, and he decided he wanted to notice me." For the past couple minutes, Claudia's story had had control of itself. But now that she knew where it was leading, she stopped it immediately. She had never told anyone about what Trevor had done to her, what he had made her do. Maria and her father had been there to witness it. Anthony had told Uncle Rudy over the phone after demanding that Claudia live with him. Johnny didn't even know. Claudia had not, on her own, told anyone exactly what happened. No one knew her perspective. And she wasn't sure she was ready for it yet, especially not with Sonny. She had just met him, and this dinner may have been about getting to know one another, but this story would take things too far. It was gross, and wrong, and didn't put Claudia in any better of a light. She was carrying Sonny's child. He couldn't know what she had done when she was sixteen. That would make her look like an even bigger slut than the one he probably already thought she was.
Sonny watched Claudia stop, and said, "I know what it's like to have your life torn apart by Trevor." Claudia sniffled in response. "But what I went through is nothing compared to what you went through. No one should have to lose their mother like that because some sick person wants money and power. And no one should have to lose their father to the insanity that consumed yours."
Claudia gave a small smile. "Believe it or not, Daddy used to have some kind of compassion. My mom and I were the light of his life. He treated her like the typical Italian wife. She was always on a pedestal. She never had to lift a finger. My mom didn't like things being done for her, but Daddy didn't care. I always promised myself that I would find love like theirs some day. Too bad it doesn't exist anymore."
It took all of Sonny's willpower not to blurt out his feelings. He would treat Claudia like that, if she would let him. He would insist that she ride through this entire pregnancy stress-free. He'd do everything for her, so she could focus on the baby. But their situation wouldn't allow that. They weren't married. They hadn't planned this baby for months. They were strangers. They couldn't possibly fall in love. Sonny had to focus on the business, and Claudia would probably get back into it eventually. They didn't have time to worry about themselves. That would be selfish. It was about the baby, and providing for it. Love would have to wait.
A silence came over the room, and Claudia finally broke it, saying, "I'm sorry I went off on a rant like that. But my story's a little too complicated to have possibly made this a normal first date."
Did she just say date? Sonny's heart skipped with joy. She considered this a date? It wasn't just him? Maybe she was attracted to him, or at least somewhat interested. Maybe there was a chance. Who was he kidding? They could make this work, all of it. The baby, the business, and them. If both parties were willing, they could pull it off.
But Sonny still couldn't take the bait. It was too early. "I'm not that simple either. We've both been through a lot, I think, but maybe that's a good thing. We can help each other through everything, past and present. It'll take some time, but we've got time. A good eight months, in fact."
Claudia smiled. Okay, so, he hadn't jumped on her dropping of "date," but it was close enough. Even though she was totally screwed up, he still wanted to get to know her. Maybe there was something more to all of this. Only time would tell.
