The Bonus

I sit in my car for a moment as I try to will my heart rate to drop back down, it’s beating so hard in my chest that I feel like I’m about to have a heart attack.

I dropped the kids at school and grabbed a coffee on the way, all the while about to go into cardiac arrest.

It’s fine, he doesn’t know anything, and knowledge is power. While he doesn’t know anything we are safe.

He will, though…

One day soon I’m going to have to tell him, in fact I think I already kind of admitted it. I close my eyes, overwhelmed with fear. I know how postal he is going to be and…damn it. I can’t believe I’m living this lie; this was never who I was.

Maybe it’s better if he does find out…maybe then I can finally forgive myself for it and move on.

With one last look in my rearview mirror, I drag myself into work.

“Good morning, Ruth,” I say as I walk through the front doors.

“Good morning, Grace.” She looks up at me over the top of her glasses. “Everything all right? You look frazzled.”

“I’m great,” I lie with a smile as I walk through the office. “Everything is just great.”

I’m a disaster, Ruth, and my children are the spawn of the devil…literally.

Why wouldn’t I have just politely declined? What on earth was I thinking that I was going to achieve by screaming down the phone? All I’ve done is made him angry, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that Gabriel Ferrara when angry is a catastrophic force.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I get a vision of Gabriel sitting at his desk in New York and I can feel his rage from here. Complete with the red sky, the lightning, the earth splitting in two and swallowing me whole in true horror movie fashion.

I inwardly kick myself. Shit.

Why did I curse and carry on like an immature child on the phone?

Damn it, I need to be smarter about this.

Something about that man brings out the absolute worst in me.

Ugh… So stupid.

I storm into my office and dump my briefcase on my desk. Now, to top off my morning from hell, I have to organize home loans all day.

Ugh, I hate my job.

I work at a bank as a loan manager, it’s a good position, great pay with hours that I can work around the kids. I should be grateful for the opportunity, and I am…it’s just… Mindless, boring, and crappy working out how much debt people can go into all day long.

As much as I hate to admit it, I miss the exotic days in New York of wearing six-inch heels and tight pencil skirts to work and staying back and having drinks with my work friends in cool bars. I get a vision of back then and Gabriel in his black briefs making me coffee every morning while I went through his day.

Stop it.

“Good morning,” Mervin calls as he walks past my office.

“Morning, Merv,” I reply as I open up my computer.

He sticks his head back around my door. “Do you want to buy some brownie cookies?”

Ugh…

“I guess.” I grab my purse. “How many fundraisers do you do exactly? I swear I need to loan myself some cash just to support your kids’ sporting activities.”

“I know, right, I’m sick of selling this shit too.” He walks into my office and puts the box of cookies on my desk.

I pass him over ten dollars. “You know I buy these things from you with the full intent of taking them home and sharing them and then, next thing you know, I’ve eaten the lot of them.”

“Same.” He takes the money and looks through his wallet for change.

I scrunch my nose as a waft of something bad surrounds me, and I look around. “What is that god-awful smell?”

“I don’t know?” He looks around.

“Oh…it’s disgusting.” I wince.

“The hell is it?” He shrugs and looks on the bottom of his shoe. “Hopefully my office doesn’t smell.” He disappears down the hall.

“Ruth,” I call. “Do you know what that smell is?”

“Not really,” she calls, disinterested. “I smelled it before when I walked in the door, though.”

Fuck’s sake.

“Oh yuck, it’s putrid in my office, I think there must be a dead rat in the ceiling or something,” Merv calls down the hall.

“Eww.”

This day just keeps getting better.

4 p.m.

An email pops up on my screen,

Your next appointment is here.

Mr. Don Johnston.

Don Johnston, what kind of name is that? I glance at my watch, I hate having appointments with new clients this late in the day. I reply to Ruth.

Send him in please.

I close down my email and take a sip of my water and stand and open the door.

Gabriel Ferrara is striding down the corridor toward me, and my eyes widen in horror.

“Hello, Miss Porter.” He sneers as he walks past me into my office.

Shit.

Fake appointment.

Diabolical.

I glance around my office for an escape route before closing the door.

He’s towering above me, wearing a perfectly fitted suit; his black hair has a bit of a curl to it and his animosity is encapsulating the room, making everything else feel so small and insignificant.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

He sits down at my desk. “You told me to make an appointment.” He points to my chair. “Sit.”

I drop into my chair, my nervous heart hammering. “What do you want?”

He sits back and crosses his legs, arrogance personified, and his dark eyes hold mine. “I would like to know a little bit about you.”

I shrug as I act casual. “There’s nothing to know.”

“Cut the bullshit, Grace,” he fires back. “Do you have something to tell me?”

I swallow the bucket of sand in my throat as my eyes hold his. I imagine him flipping the desk and smashing the windows or something equally dramatic.

“Like what?”

“Do. Not. Play. With. Me.” He bangs his hand on my desk and I jump.

I swallow the nervous lump in my throat.

“Are they or are they not my children?”

His silhouette blurs.

His jaw tics in anger. “Answer. The. Fucking. Question.”

I nod. “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“You…” I try to say the words out loud, but my dry mouth betrays me, I can’t even form a sentence.

“You what?” he spits angrily.

“Yes. You are their biological father,” I say quietly.

His haunted eyes hold mine, and he sits back in his chair.

Silence…

I wait for him to say something, he doesn’t. He just sits there, shocked…or perhaps he’s just counting the ways to hurt me. He doesn’t need to count them, I already know it’s an infinite number.

“You…we…” My voice trails off.

He drops his eyes to a spot on the carpet, he can’t even look me in the eye.

“You didn’t wear protection, Gabriel.”

His eyes rise to meet mine, his hatred for me dripping from his every cell.

“I’d been on antibiotics that month, and…” I roll my lips as I try to compose myself, I can hardly see him through the tears. “You told me…”

His eyes drop back to the carpet, his silence is beginning to scare the hell out of me.

“What was I supposed to do?” I stammer. “You told me you didn’t want to see me ever again.”

Silence…

I watch him, waiting for the explosion, waiting for some type of reaction, even an overreaction is better than this.

“Do they know?” he eventually asks.

“No.”

“Who knows?”

“Nobody, I told everyone that they were conceived through IVF using donor sperm.”

His eyes drop back to the carpet.

Say something.

Gabriel Ferrara doesn’t do silence.

“I don’t want anything from you, you don’t have to worry,” I stammer. “You can live your life as normal; we will never bother you.”

His dark eyes rise to meet mine, and this time they flicker with fury. He sits forward in his chair. “Do you honestly think that you can keep my children from me?” He sneers.

Fear runs through my system.

“I cannot believe…” His voice trails off as if stopping himself from elaborating.

Why is he not exploding? He’s acting weird and out of character, it’s very unsettling.

“What were you going to say?”

His eyes hold mine. “You are the most selfish person I have ever met.”

What?

“You let your feelings for me betray your own children, preventing them from having access to their father.” He swallows the lump in his throat as if overcome with emotion.

“You have a fiancée. You will have more children, Gabriel,” I whisper.

“I will.” He tilts his chin to the sky in defiance as he sits forward, his anger returning loud and clear. “Did you really think I would never find out?”

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“I thought the day you left me was your biggest betrayal,” he whispers.

You forced me away.

“Just because I didn’t want you never meant I didn’t want them.” He sneers.

Oh…

A knife straight through my heart. I stare at him through tears.

There’s the Gabriel I know. Cold and heartless.

“Here is what is going to happen,” he says in a cold and calculating voice. “Today I am sending a medic around to your house, and they are having a paternity test and you—” he glares at me, “—are finally going to do the right thing by your children.”

I open my mouth to say something.

“If you try to stop me from seeing them…even once. Prepare yourself for the consequences. Do you understand me?” he growls.

“Is that a threat?”

“Push me and find out.”

My stupid eyes fill with tears of fear. “You haven’t changed, still the self-centered bastard who only thinks of himself.”

A trace of a smirk crosses his cold, hard gaze. “I think you know me well enough, Grace, to know why I’m angry.”

“You didn’t want anything to do with me.”

“This has nothing to do with you,” he spits. “I have missed six years of my children’s life. Six birthdays. Six Christmases, six fucking years, Grace.”

My stomach twists, I’m on the edge of a full emotional meltdown.

“Do the paternity test,” he warns.

“And if I don’t?”

“Prepare yourself.”

My eyes hold his. “For what?

“Armafuckinggeddon.” He stands, and without another word, walks out of my office. I stare at the back of the door he just left through.

Oh no…

Emotion takes over, and I put my head into my hands and cry.

I sit in my car around the corner from my house as I try to pull myself together.

I was so rattled that I had to leave work, I told them that I had just been told an old friend had died.

I’m just a dirty liar now.

My eyes are red and swollen, and damn it, I feel so unstable.

Terrified.

His words come back to me: “If you try to stop me from seeing them…prepare yourself for the consequences.”

My god, how has it come to this?

Last week, my life was normal, my biggest drama was finding ballet slippers, this week it’s like a bad dream.

A living nightmare.

The worst part is, I already know their paternity, there isn’t even a need to do the test. There’s not one seed of doubt in my mind. Gabriel Ferrara is their biological father and there is nothing I can do about it.

“Just because I didn’t want you never meant that I didn’t want them.”

“Oh.” I screw up my face in tears. His words still hurt. I went straight back to being that woman who was madly in love with him, the pitiful woman with my heart on the bottom of his shoe, taking his hits blow by blow.

“Stop it, pull yourself together. You have to go home.”

I pull down the sunshield to fix my face in the mirror and I catch sight of a black car pulled over to the side of the road and parked about two hundred meters behind me.

What?

I turn around and my heart sinks for the thousandth time today, he’s having me followed so that I can’t disappear. And if I were a better person, I would tell you that going on the run with his children has never occurred to me.

But it has…especially today.

“You are the most selfish person I have ever met.”

He’s right, I am…but it takes one to know one.

And he’s the fucking king.

I pick myself up and dust myself off. I wipe my eyes and put my sunglasses on. I know I have to play by the rules, but fuck him. We’re doing this on my terms.

I pull out and drive down the road until our house comes into view.

I can do this.

I sit on the couch as the doctor walks the kids through the paternity test. “Just like this.” He shows them how he swabs his mouth. “It’s easy, see?”

Two security guards are waiting out on the porch, and a doctor and a nurse are inside with us.

I’m remaining silent because, I mean…what is there to say?

They know or at least suspect that I’ve been hiding his children, and I can only imagine what they must all think of me.

He told me to leave.

I watch on as they swab Lucia’s mouth and then Dominic’s, they take a strand of each of their hair and put the swabs into test tubes.

“There you go, all done.” The doctor smiles.

“How long will the results take to come in?” I ask.

“Around twenty-four hours, tomorrow sometime.” He replies.

I nod, and I want to blurt that I already know the result and that I’m not some sleep-around swindler who is trying to take him for millions, but damn it, I will only look like more of a loser.

“Thank you.” I open the front door in a cue for them to leave.

“Goodbye.” The nurse smiles softly as she walks past me. “Good luck.”

Seriously?

I don’t need luck, bitch. I glare at the security guard standing outside the door.

“Goodbye.” I close the door behind them with a sharp snap.

I look down at my two beautiful babies who are looking up at me through their perfect innocent eyes. “Let’s go out for dinner, get something yummy and delicious.” I widen my eyes. “Chocolate cake for dessert.”

“Yay,” they squeal.

“Go get changed.” I smile.

They bolt over and disappear up the stairs.

Momma needs a drink.

Gabriel

“You ready for lunch?” Alessio says from the door of my office.

“Yeah.” I concentrate on the email in front of me. “Give me a minute.”

He flops onto the couch in my office and takes out his phone as he waits. “Did you see the new accountant on level three?”

I keep typing. “No.”

“Ridiculously hot,” he replies. “Blonde hair and big, fuckable tits.”

I raise my eyebrow as my eyes stay glued to the screen. “You think everybody’s hot with fuckable tits.”

“There’s a lot of talent in this building at the moment, let me tell you.”

“Keep it in your pants.” I sigh, uninterested. “Where is Ricardo?”

“He’s meeting us there.”

I send the email and read the next one that’s marked urgent.

“Hurry up.” He looks at his watch. “I have an appointment I have to be back for.”

“Fine.” I stand and grab my wallet and stuff it into my suit pants. “Let’s go.”

We walk out into the foyer, get into the elevator, and stand to face the doors.

The elevator stops two floors down and I exhale heavily. “Fuck me, we need a private elevator.”

“No way. I do my best talent spotting in these elevators.”

I roll my eyes and the doors open. Two girls in their mid-twenties are standing and waiting to get in. Both dressed in pencil skirts that leave nothing to the imagination. One has dark hair and one is a sandy blonde. Their eyes widen when they see us.

“Ladies.” Alessio smiles all seductive like. “Going down.”

My eyes flick over to him. You wish.

He smirks, knowing exactly what I’m thinking.

“Hello, Mr. Ferrara.” The brunette smiles shyly up at me as they get in, her eyes linger on my face.

I nod. “Hello.” I keep my eyes on the doors as they close.

“Beautiful day outside,” Alessio says.

“Isn’t it?” The blonde smiles. “I just love the sun, I wish we had a beach in New York so I could work on my tan.”

“You could always work on your tan in the park,” Alessio replies. “Park tanning is a thing, you know?”

Good grief.

I inwardly roll my eyes; fuck…his pickup lines are so bad.

“Cold weather makes me miserable,” the blonde continues.

Who cares?

“Sounds like you need a big injection of vitamin D,” Alessio replies as he casually adjusts his cuff links.

I twist my lips; I know what vitamin D he’s referring to.

The one in his pants.

The elevator comes to a stop on level ten. “This is us.” The blonde smiles up at Alessio. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Ferrara.”

“Call me Alessio.”

She giggles on cue. “Okay…Alessio.” The doors go to close and he puts his hand out to stop them. “What is your name?’

“Misha.”

They stare at each other for a beat, and I exhale heavily. Hurry up, fuck it.

“Nice to meet you, Misha.” He dips his head.

The doors close and he smiles, all proud of himself.

“Seriously?” I curl my lip.

“She’s going to get it.”

“Vitamin D is the best you’ve got?”

“Works every time.” The door opens again and he smiles sexily. “Good afternoon, ladies.”

I roll my eyes. Ugh…here we go again.

We walk into the bar and see Ricardo is sitting at a table in the corner on the phone, and we make our way over to him. “Yes.” He listens and narrows his eyes at us as we sit down. “This is unsatisfactory.”

“Who’s that?” I mouth.

He clenches his fist and points it to his phone.

“Can I get you a drink?” the waitress asks as she walks over.

“I’ll have a mineral water, please.”

“Same,” Alessio says.

Ricardo holds his hand up in question and points to his beer.

“Some of us have to work, you know?” Alessio mutters.

Ricardo listens to the person on the other end of the phone. “Okay, I understand that.” He listens again. “I don’t believe that for a moment.”

“Who are you talking to?” I frown.

“Because no parking lot is that big, my speedometer doesn’t lie, and when I drop off my Lamborghini for parking, I do not expect your fucking valet driver to go joyriding around New York in it.”

Alessio’s eyes widen and I chuckle.

“Because there are fifty extra fucking miles on the clock,” he snaps. “How do I know?” His eyes nearly bulge from their sockets. “Because this is a collector car worth two million fucking dollars. Of course I know the speedometer reading.”

“Holy…” Alessio mouths, wide-eyed. “What the fuck?”

“Here you go, two mineral waters,” the waitress says.

Ricardo holds his hand up again when he sees our drinks arrive.

I sip my drink and stare out over the restaurant; I get a vision of Gracie sitting at her desk. Her long hair was in a ponytail and her big pouty lips were…

My heart sinks.

You think you know someone…

I think back to all those years ago and the night we spent together; I see us rolling around in my bed.

On my desk.

In the shower.

A collage of naked skin and orgasms, the uncontrollable fire that burned between us.

The look on her face in the morning…

My stomach twists.

“Earth to Gabe.” Alessio waves his hand in front of my face to bring me back to the here and now.

I glance up at him. “Huh?”

“What the hell are you doing?” He frowns.

“Huh?”

“What’s wrong with you this week?” Ricardo asks. “You’re off with the fairies.”

“Nothing,” I snap. “I’ve got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

“Like what?”

“Like how many ways there are to break your ugly face,” I snap as I open the menu. “Mind your business.” My phone vibrates on the table and I answer as the boys go back to their conversation.

“Gabriel Ferrara.”

“Hello Mr. Ferrara, this is Dr. Granger.”

My heart stops. “Yes.”

“The results of the paternity test are in, sir.”

I close my eyes as I brace myself.

“It’s a positive match, it’s confirmed without a doubt that you are the biological father of both children.”

Unexpected emotion fills me and I get a lump in my throat.

They’re mine.

I sit in the back of the car as Mark drives me home from work.

You could cut the air with a knife; my heart is heavy and we are both silent.

How do you tell someone you are about to marry that you have two illegitimate children?

Ariana is going to be heartbroken.

I’m heartbroken…but not for the same reason.

I’ve missed out on so much of my children’s lives, time I can never get back.

And Grace…

I get a vision of her at her workplace, her auburn hair, and a face that I knew so well. The deep sense of familiarity I got from her, the one person on earth I trusted with my life.

So evil… And yet, still an ethereal creature.

My mind is buzzing with a million scenarios, none of them good.

The car pulls to a stop out the front of my building and we both sit still in the car.

“Good luck,” Mark says softly, he knows I’m walking into the gallows to hurt the person who loves me the most.

“If I could change it…” I whisper.

“I know.”

I drag myself out of the car and take the elevator to my floor, the double doors open and the scent of something delicious instantly fills my senses.

My heart sinks and I close my eyes.

How is this happening?

I walk into the apartment and put my briefcase in my office and then I find Ariana in the kitchen. I lean on the doorjamb and watch her for a moment.

She’s doing what she loves, the best damn cook in New York city if you ask me.

Wearing an apron, she’s putting something in the oven while things are cooking on the hotplates, a million things on the go.

“Hello.”

She looks up and sees me and smiles. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“But I did.” I smile as she kisses me. I see her glass of red wine. “Drinking on a school night?”

“I’m celebrating.” She pours me a glass.

“What are we celebrating?”

She passes me my glass of wine and holds hers up to mine. “Thirty-five days until we get married.”

I force a smile and clink my glass with hers. “Something smells delicious. What is my chef serving tonight?”

“We have a kingfish ceviche followed by a ragu with creamy polenta and tiramisu for dessert.”

“How do you have the energy to cook a three-course meal for me every night?”

“Looking after you is my favorite thing to do.”

My heart sinks. “We need to talk.”

She smiles and goes up onto her toes to kiss me. “I know, but first the suits.” She takes me by the hand and leads me to a stool by the kitchen counter where I sit down. “Now, I know that you wanted the black…”

I stare at her as I pretend to listen, but my mind returns to Gracie in the bank. Cut the bullshit, Grace. Do you have something to tell me?

The tears welled in her eyes, and by the look on her face, I instantly knew it was true.

The way it put a hole in my heart.

How could she have done this? How could she have hidden my own children from me for six years? My mind returns to us in the shower that night, naked and kissing in each other’s arms.

The level of intimacy that ran between us was like nothing I’ve experienced before or since.

I grieved for her for years, and to think that… I get a lump in my throat.

She had my babies the entire time.

“Gabriel?”

I glance up with no idea what Ariana has been saying. “I’m sorry?”

“Are you not listening to me at all?”

“Forgive me, I’m… Busy day.”

“What did you have to tell me?” she asks.

She looks up at me with her big brown trusting eyes.

Tell her.

“I…”

Do it.

“I have to go away for work tomorrow.”

“Oh,” she replies. “How long will you be gone?”

“A few days.”

“Okay.” She smiles. “Do you want me to come?”

“No.” I sip my wine. “I’ll be working the whole time,” I lie.

“So anyway, back to the suits.” She changes the subject and once again my mind goes back to the unfolding catastrophe.

My life is a mess.

Grace

The sound of their cries echoes through the silence, wings flap against the water as they take off.

A bird in flight is a beautiful thing.

I sit on the back porch and stare out over the lake. My life is a mess…and at a time when I should be frantic, I feel eerily calm.

The truth is out and damn it, it feels cathartic.

He knows.

I’m not carrying the secret alone anymore.

I always knew that one day the truth would come to light, and as every year ticked over, I got a little more terrified.

Not only of Gabriel…but of the children hating me for not telling them the truth about the donor sperm and IVF.

I’m glad it’s out.

The children are still young, and I haven’t had to have the conversation with them about who their father is yet, hopefully they’re young enough that they can forgive me.

“Mom,” Dom calls from inside. “A car just pulled up.”

I close my eyes as I prepare for battle.

“He’s here.”