Page 107 of The Bonus

“What?” He screws up his face. “That’s your advice, don’t be myself?”

“You’re a rude pig. If you want them to like you, act nice.”

“I am not a rude pig.”

“Oh yes you are. And for the record, Dominic is the carbon copy of you and will not back down, he’s a lot to handle. If you want his respect, you have to earn it.”

“Well, that works both ways.”

“No. Don’t you dare pull that card.”

He stays silent and Lucy comes bouncing back to the table, she sits down and continues to eat.

Gabriel watches her for a while as if having an out-of-body experience.

“Where will I be sleeping?” Gabriel asks.

“In my room.”

“I take it that’s upstairs?” He pushes out his chair as if about to get up.

“No.” I stand in a rush. “I have to straighten things up in there. You finish your dinner and I’ll get it ready for you.”

He nods, distracted. “Thank you.”

I look between him and Lucy, do I leave her here alone with him?

He’s her father…

God, I really need to wrap my head around this.

“Are you two okay down here together if I go upstairs and organize a few things?” My eyes linger on Lucy as I wait for her reaction, she smiles goofily with an over exaggerated nod.

Ugh…traitor.

Can’t she at least act uninterested in him for my sake?

“I think we are doing just fine, aren’t we, Lucia?” Gabriel smiles over at her.

“Yes.”

The vision of the two of them blurs as my eyes well with tears. I turn toward the door so that they can’t see my face and stumble to the stairs. In the darkness, I sink down to sit on one halfway up.

I can hear my heart beating in my chest as an overwhelming panic runs through me.

He turns up here, says a few pretty words and already she willingly adores him.

Just like that…and he’s leaving.

I sit in the darkness for a while and I can hear them talking in the distance. Gabriel is asking her questions and she’s loving the attention.

She says something that I can’t hear and I hear Gabriel laugh and then she laughs too.

My beautiful little girl, so happy to be talking with her father, I smile softly in the darkness.

Okay, I need to get my act together and try and fix this situation with Dominic, I want him to have a happy memory too. I stand and make my way upstairs and knock on the closed door. “Dom.”

Silence…

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