AN: don't worry readers! keep hope! Claudia is slowly but surely finding her voice!
Chapter 17
Jason quietly went upstairs. He didn't want to wake Spinelli. He took a glance at the clock on the table by the door. Crap! It was past one in the morning. He didn't get it. he wouldn't usually be out this late having fun, and the last person he suspected to have it with was who he had just come from seeing. He couldn't believe Claudia Zacchara could make him smile, but somehow he couldn't stop smiling since he got home. He quickly walked into his room. He had made it, or so he thought. He turned around to find Spinelli standing in the doorway.
" So did Stonecold have a good evening?"
"I thought you were asleep," said Jason, instantly wiping the smile from his face. He didn't want Spinelli getting the wrong idea about what was going on between Claudia and him, or maybe he didn't want him to get the right idea about what was going on between them. He hastily pushed the thought from his mind.
"Well, the Jackal was regrettably not asleep. He had tried to go to bed but could not maintain one position which is usually a sign of distress and restlessness resulting from too much brain activity so I got up to ponder on why it was I couldn't sleep and I came to a conclusion. It was because of the color of my regrettably pink room, so I started to do some research searching for some more masculine colors when he heard Stonecold making his way to his room. Which, may I compliment, has a very masculine paint job." Jason shook his head as response to Spinelli's rambling. Spinelli, finding the silence unnerving, continued his quest for conversation.
"How is Vixinella?" Jason fumbled with his motorcycle boots at the sound of Spinelli's name for Claudia. He cleared his throat stiffly.
"she's fine," he said curtly.
" You enjoy her company, correct?" Spinelli pressed. Jason was starting to get annoyed.
"I guess you could say that. She doesn't bug me as much. We've decided to set aside our differences. It's all strictly business."
" I don't mean to intrude, but this is the happiest Stonecold has seemed since fair Elizabeth broke Stonecold's heart. Maybe Vixinella is helping him through the healing process without knowing it."
"Spinelli, we have to get something straight here. I will never have something with another woman as I did with Elizabeth. As for the reason things hadn't worked out it was because of me. I had a strange but very real connection with someone who Elizabeth reminded me too much of. I-" he stopped short. He didn't want to go into that topic. He chose his words carefully and continued. " She had perfect reasons why to ask me to stay away from Jake. I am not good for him. He would be in too much danger. That's not Elizabeth's fault. It was mine. It's my choice to be in this business, I have to suffer the consequences. As for things with Claudia, they are all strictly business." He shooed Spinelli out of his room. As soon as he left he laid down on his bed and put his hands to his face. What was happening to him? This was not like him. He didn't get tongue tied. He stayed quiet. He didn't talk about things. He had been letting things slip out about almost everything lately. He needed rest. That was it. He needed to calm down and just rest. He pulled back the sheets, changed into sweats and got into bed. he turned out the lights and laid in the dark, waiting for sleep to overtake him.
...
Claudia woke up the next morning to find her neck extremely sore from sleeping in an awkward position. She had cried herself to sleep and had forgotten to move from her mother's chair to her bed. She got up rubbing her neck and walked over to the French doors that led out to the balcony. She stared out over the lawn where the rose beds were. She remembered Maria working out there all day, and then coming back inside to pretty herself up for her father. she looked a little ways past that to the fountain.
She used to sit on that bench with her mother talking about how she wanted to go see the world and then she would get married to a prince that lived on a far away island so that only she and him would be living in the huge mansion in peace and quiet. She chuckled to herself on this. If Nickolas and she were to get married her childhood dreams would actually come true.
Of course, he was just her friend. She was the one who told him it wouldn't hurt to think of loving another woman again. She also was the one who put it plain and simple to him that Nadine had the hots for him. She looked out towards the back door where she and her mother used to sit down and eat popsicles during the summer. She wiped her tears away with her sleeve. She had to leave. This house had too many reminders of her mother. She still remembered how lonely she was after her mother left. She sat alone talking to the tree next to the bench by the fountain about her fantasy prince, she would eat popsicles alone when Johnny couldn't eat them just yet, she would sit in her mother's chair remembering her favorite stories that her mother used to tell her telling them to herself or her doll before she went to bed. then it all changed when she was ten. Then her life revolved around her brother. Then she got to tour the world, but she didn't want to tour for roughly twenty years.
She put on fresh clothes and picked up her phone. She dialed the number of a realtor she had met a couple weeks before. She had to find a place. Home didn't feel like home anymore, or maybe it felt too much like home. Whichever it was she had to leave.