Page 86 of The Bonus

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?”

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