Page 278 of The Bonus

I smile as I listen, he’s so good at his job, I’m not surprised.

“At the time, I thought it was because he believed in me…but now I know he was just…” He pauses. “He was training me to take over from him when he left. He had planned what was going to happen long before it ever did.”

I kiss his forehead as I listen.

“At first, he would go to Italy for a few weeks at a time…the visits became more frequent and longer.

“I ran the company while he was gone, the staff and processes were all in place, I could handle it.” He falls quiet for a moment as if thinking back. “Then the fighting between him and Mom began and I could see what was happening.”

What the hell is he talking about now?

“I was right there…I saw everything. Then he went to Italy for a month. He was helping his brother run Ferrara Industries over there, but the truth was…he could be who he wanted to be over there…with her.”

Okay, I’m lost…

“I hated her, I hated everything about her and what she had done to our family. That he chose her over us.”

My heart sinks, his father had an affair.

“I swore I’d never be him; I would never be that weak and give in to temptation.”

I hold him in my arms just a little bit tighter.

“But then…it happened,” he whispers. “When you started.”

“What happened?” I ask softly.

“I’m not the first Ferrara man who wanted his PA.”

My eyes widen…oh, fuck.

His father had an affair with his PA and left the family for her.

“And I fought it with everything I had, I was mean and horrible to you. I blamed you for making me feel weak and out of control.”

My heart sinks as I remember the time I worked for him.

“I paraded other women, did everything in my power to show you the worst of me. To make you hate me so that I could hold my mother’s honor and be the man to head my family, the one thing my father couldn’t do.”

I get a lump in my throat as I listen, my heart hurts just remembering it.

“And through every one of my flaws…you loved me anyway.”

32

Grace

I fluff the pillows as I make the bed, I can’t stop thinking about what Gabriel told me last night about his father. When I started at Ferrara all those years ago, I knew his father had gone to Italy and that Gabriel had recently taken over from him, but I never knew that he had taken off and left his family for his PA.

Just what the hell, how wasn’t I aware of this? Did anyone know, or was it an in-house secret? A million scenarios are running through my head as I remember the things Gabriel did and said to me back then.

The women he paraded, the hurtful dismissive comments.

The pain I felt.

All this time I thought he was the devil, when all he was trying to do was not follow in his father’s footsteps.

It’s literally a miracle that we found our way back to each other.

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