The Seduction Of Claudia

by Chauvet, Antoinette

  Claudia charged up the stairs to the bedroom, intending to grab her things and get the hell out of there. Then she remembered that she wasn't dressed and that her clothes were in Andrew's car. Goddamn it! She charged back down the stairs, almost losing her footing, and stormed up to Andrew.

  "Get my things out of your car. I want to get out of here."

  "Honey, wait. Just calm down."

  "Don't 'honey' me! I'm through with being calm. I've been calm all my life! I've tried to be the calm, dignified person people like you and Patrick Gates would accept and look where it's gotten me! I'm done with it! Fuck you. And fuck Patrick Gates! How dare you stand there and tell me 'Paddy would never do that'?!" she asked him, throwing his words back in his face. "Get my things!!" she screamed, beyond all control.

  "No! There's no reasoning with you when you're like this. I'm going for a run."

  *****

  After hearing about Gates, Andrew had walked away from her, leaving her trapped in his apartment. Fury boiled in Claudia's veins. She wanted to tear her hair out, break things. She was seething with fury and outrage, felt that doing damage to something or someone would soothe some of the hurt she was feeling. She wanted out – out of the apartment, out of Andrew's life. Out of her life. She was sick to death of being Claudia Beaumont.

  She paced furiously, thinking about how she would get out of there before Andrew got back from running. Suddenly she remembered that Andrew had a spare set of keys in his studio. She ran down the hallway situated beneath the stairs, skidded across the hardwood floor into Andrew's office and ransacked his desk drawers until she found them. She left the contents of his desk a shambles, but she was beyond caring. She just wanted out.

  She knew she would look like a lunatic running through the building wearing nothing but a men's shirt and a pair of socks, but she'd risk it if it meant escaping. Besides, if she was lucky, she wouldn't run into anyone; it was the holiday weekend, after all, and it was likely that most people were out of town. Or so she hoped.

  She hopped in the elevator, praying that she wouldn't see anyone. She was lucky for once in her life and made it to his car without being seen. She unlocked the trunk and began rifling through her bags until she found the pair of jeans she was looking for. Without stopping to think, she yanked them on, then stuffed her feet into her running shoes. Shit! She'd left her coat upstairs. There was no way she was going back up and risk running into Andrew. She checked her bag again and found a pullover sweater. It would have to do. She struggled into it and grabbed the rest of her things out of the trunk. Loaded down with bags and boxes, she tossed the spare set of keys into the trunk and slammed it shut. Take that, you asshole, she thought with grim satisfaction as she hightailed it out of the garage toward home.

  *****

  Running along the Charles River now, Andrew continued to puzzle over what Claudia had told him. Gates was obviously a master of deception. He was manipulative, cunning and secretive. He felt a fool for having believed in the man's goodness his whole life. He was livid with Gates for trying to interfere in his and Claudia's relationship. How dare the man try to bribe the woman he loved in order to get her to exit stage left? What if Claudia had actually been scared off by him and walked out of Andrew's life without a by-your-leave? Thank God she was made of sterner stuff than that. She was mad as hell, but he'd go home after he'd had time to process all of this and deal with her.

  Andrew wasn't fooled. He knew that Gates's attempt to remove Claudia from his life had had nothing to do with wanting to protect Andrew. No, Gates had wanted Claudia gone so that he could protect himself. Gates had too much going for himself to allow a mistake from his past to come blasting into the present and expose him for the creep he was. Andrew wondered what else Gates was hiding. Hell - if he could hide the fact that he had a daughter, he could hide anything.

  In fact, what was real about him? Which persona was the real Patrick Gates? Did such a man even exist? Will the real Patrick Gates please stand up? he thought bitterly.

  Questions. All he had were questions, it seemed. Did his parents know about Gates's illegitimate daughter? He doubted it. Not that his parents were uptight about that kind of thing. Quite the contrary. But he thought that they would have at least encouraged Gates to have a relationship with his daughter. They were of the school of thought that parents were responsible for more than the financial upkeep of their children. A parent was a teacher, a guide, a confidant, a protector. Gates had been none of those things for Claudia. Claudia especially had needed someone to look after her and care for her, considering her sorry excuse for a mother. Knowing that Gates had been an excellent parent to his other children, but not for Claudia, made Andrew angry. Claudia deserved better than to be thrown away.

  He couldn't imagine that his parents would have remained bosom buddies with Gates if they had known. They would have – surely they would have – subtly distanced themselves from him if they had even an inkling of what the man was capable of. He hoped so. But then, he thought he'd known Paddy. Did you ever really, truly know a person or did you only know what that person wanted you to know? He had to wonder. God, was he honestly doubting his parents' integrity? he thought, shaken by the possibility that he was doing exactly that.

  He was on shaky ground if he was thinking that way. He was unaccustomed to the idea that he couldn't trust them. Yes, of course, he knew that there were untrustworthy people in the world and those were the people he avoided like the plague. He had always surrounded himself with genuine people, just as his parents had taught him - both through what they said and did - to do. His breath came a little easier when he reminded himself of that. Iain and Maggie weren't hypocrites or phonies. They wouldn't tell him one thing and do something entirely different. There was no way they knew about Paddy and Claudia.

  Now, the question was, should he tell them? It didn't take much more than a second for him to decide that of course he would tell them. They would be as shocked as he was, but they would deal with it. They would help him - and Claudia - deal with it. He could think of no better allies to have in this situation. They would easily see that none of this was Claudia's fault – that went without saying. She'd been a pawn her whole life, since before she'd even been born.

  He was under no illusions about Claudia's mother, Marcheline. She had probably gotten pregnant on purpose, hoping to secure a cushy future for herself. Goddamn it. He was growing weary just thinking about it. Claudia had lived it; it was no wonder she was skittish.

  With that thought, he changed direction and headed back toward home. He realized that he needed to get to Claudia. She would need him right now. It was time to circle the wagons. He would call his parents, maybe go back up to their house so they could figure out what to do. Between the four of them, five including Brian, they'd figure something out. Right now he needed his family – all of them, including Claudia – around him. She needed them, too, whether she would admit it or not.

  When he got to his apartment, he called out for her. She didn't answer. He checked the downstairs bathroom, then ran upstairs to see if she had gone back to bed or if she was in the bathroom up there. She wasn't there. He ran back downstairs to check the closet and saw her coat still hanging there. He was becoming alarmed. Where could she have gone with no clothes and shoes? He checked his office and saw the mess on top of his desk and it hit him – she had found his spare keys. He left the apartment at a sprint, racing to the garage to see if he could catch her.

  She was gone. He ran back inside and, too impatient to wait for the elevator, took the fire stairs up to his floor. Frantically, he dialed her phone number. No answer. Again he dialed; no answer. He let the phone ring until her voice mail message came on. He hung up and called her over and over again, hoping that the constant, insistent ringing of the phone would annoy her so badly that she would finally answer.

  *****

  Claudia had taken a taxi to her apartment and once there, had called and booked a seat for herself on the evening
flight to London and from there, to Paris. She called her cousin, Marie-Josée, who lived in Paris and told her that she would be there the next day. Marie-Josée had been delighted that she was coming for a visit, but had known that something must be very wrong if Claudia was taking a trip on such short notice. Claudia hadn't had time to explain. She threw a few things into a bag and left for the airport.

  Her life had suddenly gotten a great deal more complicated. In the space of only a few days, she had met Andrew's parents, encountered her biological father in person for the first time in her life, fought furiously with Andrew and parted from him on bad terms. Mixed in with all the stress, she had had an all too fleeting glimpse of what it meant, what it felt like, to be happy and hopeful. She had realized that Andrew was the man for her, the man to whom she wanted to commit, to spend the rest of her life with. He had stripped her bare and made her take a long hard look at what had been revealed. Her love for him, her need for him, her devotion to him had come blazing forth.

  She had been shocked at the intensity of her feelings. She had always kept them buried, denied them because acknowledging them - sharing them - meant vulnerability. She hadn't realized that vulnerability was one of the things that defined loving and being in love. Trusting a lover to love, protect and cherish was part of what it was all about. Andrew did all of that for her, always had, but she had been unwilling to admit it.

  So, she had told him. Patrick Gates was her father. They had finished breakfast and were sitting around when his mother called. Gates, in order to explain his presence at Andrew's apartment that morning, had concocted a story that Maggie had sent him there to check up on Andrew and Claudia. Maggie had denied it. Andrew had been suspicious already, having walked in on what could only be described as a heated standoff between Claudia and Patrick Gates. He had let them think he was satisfied with their excuses, but he had known something wasn't right. Finally, he had forced Claudia to tell him the truth about what was going on between her and Gates.

  She had equivocated, hoping he would just let it go. Of course he hadn't. They had gone back and forth, countering each other's arguments until he had said that his parents had made up their own minds about her and wouldn't care what anyone else said.

  He was right about them. Iain and Maggie were smart people. Her conscience wouldn't allow her to sell them short. They were standup people who knew their own minds and she could tell that they were the kind of people who weren't afraid to speak up when they knew a wrong had been done. Andrew was just like them in that regard. In light of admitting that to herself, she realized that she had been stupid to withhold Gates's identity from Andrew. If he was half the man she knew him to be, he'd be OK with what she told him; understandably, he'd be upset and shocked down to his bones, but ultimately, he'd be OK. To love, to be loved, meant to trust. She would just tell the truth.

  She had then made a leap of faith, had decided to trust in him. When he had reacted with disbelief, she had been shocked, angry and scared. Angry because how dare he not believe her? Did he think she was capable of making up such a wild story? Scared because she had leaped off of a cliff and was in a free fall waiting for him to catch her. And he wasn't there. Instead of holding his arms out to catch her, he had stepped away at the last second, causing her to fall flat on her face.

  How had she misread him, misjudged him, so badly? He kept telling her over and over again that she needed to trust him and as soon as she had placed full trust in him, he had deserted her. It's like it was all a game to him. Dupe poor little Claudia in to falling in love, then dump her. The old dupe and dump. She felt like such a fool. Much more a fool than her mother had ever been, because at least Marcheline's relationships with men hadn't been based on anything but sex and money.

  Claudia passed the hours before her flight pacing the international departures terminal. She felt reasonably sure that Andrew wouldn't be able to find her there. She had turned off her cell phone, knowing that he would try to reach her. She knew that no one could get into the terminal without a ticket or boarding pass, so no problem there. The airlines wouldn't give out any passenger information if he called to ask if she was on a particular flight, so she was safe there, too. She was anxious to get underway, nonetheless, because the longer she was in town, the more time Andrew had to figure out where she was.

  She was sure that Andrew would have expected her to be waiting for him when he came back from his run. Arrogant swine! she thought, As if I'm stupid enough to sit around waiting for him to come home so he could berate me and call me a liar! What a surprise it must have been when he'd returned to find her gone.

  Claudia wasn't above feeling a tiny bit of glee when she thought of him looking for her, frantically calling and going to her apartment. How long before he realized she was really gone? Not just hiding out in her apartment, but gone far away, out of his reach?

  She needed time away. This impromptu getaway would wreck her budget, but she just couldn't deal with this latest spate of trouble. Paris always made her feel better. Being broody and depressed was almost impossible in the City of Light. The beauty and permanence of the city always made her realize that she could endure even the toughest of circumstances. Historically, Paris had seen war and plunder, yet had survived to become a world capitol, a center of art and culture, one of the most beautiful places in the world. If Paris could survive, so could she.

  She only had one week in Paris in which to avoid reality. After that, she would return to Boston and face the music. She knew that leaving town was only an interim solution. Actually, it wasn't a solution at all. Her little sojourn in Paris would only delay the inevitable showdown with Andrew. Or maybe there wouldn't be a showdown, she thought, as doubt sprang into her mind, maybe he would be glad she had left and would just pretend that she had never existed. It was possible that he would feel nothing but relief that she had removed herself from his life.

  Tears welled in her eyes at the very thought. Though she was angry with him for walking out on her, she couldn't really blame him. She knew she was a complicated person. This latest revelation about Gates being her father may have been the straw that broke the camel's back. Andrew was unused to drama in his life and it seemed like she had brought nothing but drama to their relationship from day one. Her fear of commitment, her inability to trust people, her aloofness... All had contributed to the constant push and pull within their relationship. While Claudia had done everything she could to eliminate the drama in her life, the last few months hadn't been what she would call placid. Andrew deserved to have the peaceful life he wanted. She would allow him to have it.

  *****

  Andrew arrived at Claudia's building and rang the buzzer. There was no answer and no way to tell if she was home and deliberately not answering or if she were truly gone. He sighed in dejection, hoping that she was there. If she was there, he had a chance of talking to her, of reasoning with her. He stood in the vestibule for a few more minutes, then buzzed her unit again. When he got no answer, he decided to sit in his car where it was parked in front of her building, just hoping that she might come home from wherever she was or, if she was inside, maybe she would go out and he would catch as she left.

  He sat in his cold car, desperate to see her. His eyes never left the door of her building for fear of missing her as she came or went. As he watched and waited, he tried to figure out what she might be thinking. Knowing her, she had probably jumped to a wild conclusion about what his response to her 'news' had been. Hopefully she hadn't done anything rash.

  She had been very angry with him when he'd left to go running. He had never seen her like that. Screaming and swearing at him in a way that was wholly uncharacteristic of her – she'd been totally out of control. In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have left her. He should have stayed to find out precisely why she was so upset. It's not like she hadn't known all along who her father was, though. She couldn't have been upset about only that. Which only left one explanation: she was upset with him for some reaso
n.

  He called her best friend in town, Fifi, to see if she had gone there. Fifi was out of town until after the New Year, he remembered when the only answer he got was her voice mail. She was out of the country, so it was unlikely that she would have heard from Claudia. He called Peter, the Claudia horn player in her quintet. It galled him that he had to call the guy; they had never gotten along because Peter held a tendrefor Claudia and made no secret that he thought Andrew wasn't good enough for her. Claudia considered him a good friend, though, and she might have gone to him if she had wanted to avoid Andrew.

  "Peter, it's Andrew Conal. How are you?"

  "Fine, Andrew. You?" Peter responded guardedly.

  "I've been better. Have you seen Claudia today?"

  "No," surprise was evident in his voice. "I haven't seen her since the last gig we played together. Isn't she with you? Is something wrong?"

  "She was with me. We had an argument and I left in the middle of it to go for a run. When I got back, she was gone. She won't answer her phone, her cell is turned off and she won't answer her door. I'm sitting in front of her place and, since there are no lights on up there, I'm guessing she's not there," Andrew finished, his tone bleak.

  "An argument, huh?" Peter asked, no doubt dying to know what it had been about. "Must have been a doozy for her to run away from you..."

  "Look, she didn't 'run away'," You twit, he thought. "I was just wondering if you had heard from her. Since you haven't, I'll let you go."

  Peter took pity on him. With a long-suffering sigh, he said, "Oh all right. I'll try her cell and her home phone to see if she'll take my call."

  "That would be great, Peter, thanks. Call me if you hear anything. I'm pretty worried about her."

  "Yeah, me too. I'll call you back."

  Hope grew in Andrew's heart that Claudia would talk to Peter and then he would at least know that she was OK. He'd looked up at her apartment, seen the dark windows and felt desolate thinking that she might be up there, sitting alone in the dark. Aside from him, Fifi and Peter were the closest friends Claudia had. If Peter couldn't reach her, he didn't know what his next step would be.