Emotional Turmoil - Part 3 (Troubled Heart of the Billionaire)

by Sierra Rose

  “Saturday Corinne has a birthday party at noon,” she said, “and they’re not ready to go with you alone. I guess I could come.”

  “I said I wanted them. I’m their father.”

  “We will see you Saturday.”

  “The zoo.”

  “Caden’s scared of tigers.”

  “Then it’s time he learned about them and got over that,” Harvey replied huffily.

  “Stop judging them and trying to change them! That’s why they didn’t warm to you. You were telling them they weren’t good enough!” she messaged back.

  “You don’t get to tell me how to relate to my kids after you hid them from me.”

  “Try being nice to them. They’re kids, and they’re confused.”

  “They’re picky and rude,” he shot back. “I would’ve never raised my kids to be this way.”

  His phone rang. He answered, knowing it was Bella and she was pissed, “How DARE you call them rude and picky when you were so critical and unkind to them, and they are only five.”

  “You have no right to keep them from me.”

  “You have no right to act like a nasty little shit because you expect them to leap into your arms and do whatever you say.”

  “They should behave and listen.”

  “If you want to get into ‘should’, I’d be happy to give you some suggestions. I’ve seen you be a better person than this and I felt so guilty so many times because I thought you’d be wonderful with the twins and relate to them, and make them feel safe, and now here you are making them feel bad and criticizing them. You need to listen and be calm and kind and take an interest in them if you want a relationship, not just demand that they fall in line. Gosh, Harvey, how have you succeeded in business if this is how you really treat people? I thought when you were a jackass to Dave Gibbons that you were just off your game. Maybe I was wrong to think you were a good guy.”

  “I’m not some boy next door you can push around. You have to share these children, and you don’t get to dictate how and when and what I do.”

  “Actually, since I’m the one interested in their physical and emotional well-being, yes, I do get a say in what is done. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, Harvey.”

  “Then we’ll have to do something about that. I’ll have my attorneys look into a temporary custody agreement. I won’t be supervised like some criminal who should not be alone with children. I have a right to be with them.”

  “What about their rights? To feel safe and secure, to be comforted by a familiar adult instead of snatched away by some egomaniac. I don’t think there’s a family court judge who will give a pair of five-year-olds to a stranger for the weekend. If you calm down and think you can manage four hours on Saturday with the three of us, let me know. Otherwise, this conversation is over,” Bella said and hung up.

  Harvey stared at his phone. It was time.

  Chapter 12

  On Saturday, they met him at the park. He pushed Corinne on the swings while Caden stayed close to his mother and played on her phone. Harvey tried to get the kid to go down a slide or climb something, but he only clung to Bella more.

  After about forty-five minutes, he suggested a change of venue and ushered them into a cab. They arrived at his gym where there was an indoor pool.

  When Bella mentioned that they didn’t have suits, he handed her his credit card and pointed to the shop. With a reluctant shrug, she took the kids in and emerged with suits and water wings. His kids couldn’t even swim? He’d been swimming since he was three! His brother had swum even earlier. This was beyond absurd, that she would neglect such an obvious skill. He told her to take off the water wings, he’d be teaching them to swim today. She set her jaw, and he knew the look.

  “You are not throwing them into a swimming pool without floaties. I don’t care if you were raised in goddamn Sparta to be a competitive swimmer. Forget it,” she hissed, “You wanted to bring them to the pool now let them play.”

  He glared at her, questioning his judgment again. He changed in the locker room and joined them at the pool. Caden, normally clinging to his mother and either whining or ignoring everyone else, was splashing happily and chasing his sister. Corinne squealed and splashed away from him. Bella was close enough to referee if the splashing got out of hand, but she was clearly enjoying this.

  She had the most beautiful smile. And she was so good with the children. He stopped and stared, watching them laugh and play, having so much fun.

  He threw the kids up in the air, and they laughed as they splashed into the water. Bella splashed him, and he playfully dunked her. She burst from the water in a fit of laughter. They were having a blast and connecting.

  She laughed. “That’s it! Kids, we’re taking down Harvey!”

  Ganging up, they all jumped on him and dunked him. When he came up for air, he tickled them.

  Corinne smiled at him, and he about melted. She was so adorable.

  He could almost pretend they were his family, playing joyously and waiting for him. He could almost pretend he was part of it. But he wasn’t.

  When they got out of the water, Bella smiled at him.

  “I’m having a great time,” he said.

  “Me too.”

  As he put his shirt back on, his phone bleeped and he saw a text from his mother that said, “Carlson Billionaire Spotted with Love Twins” with a tabloid link. Bella took the kids to the bathroom. Sighing, he called his mother.

  “Who is this blonde child? She looks exactly like you!” his mother shouted into the phone.

  “Hello to you too, Mother. How are you today?” he said facetiously.

  “Don’t change the subject. Who are those kids?”

  “Children of an employee.”

  “Nonsense, Harvey. She’s the image of you right down to her stubborn mouth. Are you telling me you’ve fathered twins?”

  He gripped the phone tightly. “Yes, Mother. I have. I didn’t know it until recently.”

  “What legal steps have been taken? Are they in your custody?”

  “No, of course not. I’m pursuing a temporary custody hearing to secure regular visitation and establish child support.”

  “This is absurd. Who raised you, boy? You do not pander to whatever slut you impregnated. These children should be in a top flight private school and keep only the most elite company. A public park is hardly the appropriate place for a Carlson. They might have been sold crack!”

  “No one sold them crack, Mother.”

  “This gold digger will not get a dime of Carlson money. The children, however, will reside in the family compound within the next twenty-four hours, mark my words. What is the girl’s name?”

  “Corinne.”

  “No, the mother.”

  “Bella James. She’s a marketing executive, and she’s never asked me for money.”

  “So you say. You and your father, never able to keep your trousers buttoned and populating the earth with your stray seed,” she clucked her tongue. “Thank goodness your brother knows how to use a condom, at least. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Mother, no—”

  Harvey looked at his phone in disbelief. His mother was even now mobilizing the incomparable Carlson legal team to secure custody of the twins. Bella would be furious. Hell, he was furious because it wasn’t his mother’s business. It was his. He got in the pool with the kids and made himself focus on them. He congratulated himself for encouraging Caden who was positively playful and carefree in the pool. The kid would do great in swimming lessons. He was already beating everyone at Marco Polo.

  Sure, the people swimming laps might complain about the noise, but then he’d buy the whole damn gym and cancel their memberships. He watched with satisfaction as Corinne paddled toward him and he caught her, lifting her up out of the water and swinging her around as she squealed.

  Bella looked on, smiling, and he realized he had to tell her his mother was on a rampage. He put Corinne down and strode over to Bella. “The tabloids
are onto us. We’re all over the web. My mom just called. She saw a picture of me with Corinne. She’s called her lawyers.”

  “What? Call her off, Harvey! It’s not her situation to figure out. It’s ours. We can have play dates like this and get the kids comfortable with you, and then tell them you’re their father. There’s no rush, and we don’t need a legal team!”

  “I’ve told my mother I don’t want her involved, and I have no intention of letting her dominate the custody negotiations. However, I’m not sure I can trust you—who deprived me of these children for over five years—to decide what we do and do not need.”

  “That’s not true, Harvey. You know why I did what I did. It was wrong, and I admit that. I also know that we have to be reasonable and do what’s best for the kids.”

  “Well, I don’t know that you’re the authority on what’s best for them since you thought a life without a father was the best thing.”

  “I know you’re angry—”

  “You’re damn right I’m angry, Bella. I’m leaving.”

  “It was going so well,” she pleaded.

  “No, it was going slowly, the way you wanted it. Don’t think this is over.”

  “Do you see how your mother is behaving?” she asked. “This is what she would’ve done when I was pregnant. Now you see why I ran! You and I both know that if I hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have my children.”

  “Goodbye,” he said.

  “Bye, Mr. Harvey!” Corinne called after him. He shook his head, to think that his own child called him mister.

  He got dressed, called his lawyer and instructed him to file an injunction preventing his mother from acting on his behalf in any legal proceeding. Then he told the man to accelerate the bid for visitation rights. His mother called and he let it go to voice mail. Then he called his brother, Ryan.

  “What?” his brother said.

  “You get your phone manners from our mother,” Harvey said.

  “Whatever. Why’d you call? I’m at a club.”

  “I can hear that. Look I need you to do something really stupid and public, get Mom off my ass for about a week. She’s on the warpath, and I need you to do me a solid favor.”

  “I don’t know. Mom’s a total pain in the ass. Why would I want to do that?”

  “Because I bailed you out in Montenegro and she’s none the wiser.”

  “Blackmail? My perfect little brother? You’re a charmer, not a blackmailer. I never would have believed it from you. It’s about fucking time. I’ll do it.”

  Harvey hung up and wondered why his life had fallen apart this way. He could be on a yacht with the delectable Catherine, her perfect breasts straining against her bikini top, but, no. He was begging favors from his evil twin to protect a woman who hid his children from him. It was insane. It was so far from what he wanted his life to be.

  Chapter 13

  Bella let the kids swim for a few minutes before ushering them to the locker room to dry off. As she dressed the skinny, shivering children, she thought of what he’d said about his mother, and about not doing things the way Bella wanted them done. It was scary as hell. She dressed her kids, took them home to get Corinne ready for the birthday party, and all the while she imagined getting some kind of court order to surrender them to Harvey.

  It was with a heavy heart that she let Maria take Corinne to the birthday party and Caden to a movie so she could email her lawyer with the latest developments. It was painful to be separated from her children even for so short a time, and she hated laying bare all her actions for an attorney, but it would be necessary to protect the twins.

  She spoke with the lawyer on the phone as well and answered his questions, emailed him a copy of the diary she’d kept recording all interactions with Harvey and the children as well as any attempts he made to contact them. The lawyer was encouraged that Harvey had complained more than he’d actually tried to see or take the twins, and said it was probably just a threat he was making rather than a serious bid for custody.

  Even so, she savored her time with them, cuddling with them and reading extra stories at bedtime. By Monday morning she was a nervous wreck, barely able to face going to work because he would be there and because the children would be out of her sight. It would only take a matter of minutes for her to be served with papers and the children swooped up by Harvey or his mother, taken someplace she couldn’t get to them. Her hands trembling, she kissed them goodbye and went to the office. She did her job, avoided Harvey, and kept her head down. She was frightened and angry. It was like that all week.

  Every night, she clutched her children in her arms and kissed them, and as they talked about their day at school, she looked at their precious faces, their blue eyes and pale hair, and ached at the thought of losing them. It was agony to consider spending days without them, missing out on the funny things they said, missing the chance to comfort after a scraped knee or hurt feelings.

  After they were in bed, she’d pace, checking on them dozens of times, kissing their foreheads, picking up a fallen stuffed toy, tucking them in one more time. It was torture to anticipate this battle. She resorted to Googling Harvey and saw pictures of his brother instead—Ryan Carlson spotted table-dancing with a transsexual burlesque performer in the Netherlands. Ryan Carlson photographed dropping his pants in queue at an exclusive Amsterdam club. It seemed his brother had a spate of headline-snagging antics suddenly. She hoped that tabloid crap was keeping the mother too busy to make a grab for the twins.

  Chapter 14

  After days of waiting for his next move, she stalked into his office and confronted him. Tired of the anticipation and fear, Bella barged in before Greta could even buzz the intercom. Harvey was pacing the room, talking into his cell. When he saw her, he hung up the phone.

  “What?” he said shortly.

  “What the hell are you doing? Are you going after custody? Is your mother going to make a grab for my kids?”

  “It’s interesting to me that you feel entitled to private legal information after withholding some crucial information for six years,” he said.

  “You’re torturing me. Fine. I get it. But don’t use the twins as pawns in your revenge game. All you have to do is lay your cards on the table, and we’ll figure out how to handle this. I don’t want drama and acrimony around the kids. Please, Harvey!” She said, her desperation, her pleading plain in her voice.

  “It isn’t a game, and it isn’t about revenge. It’s about claiming what’s mine. You’ll receive a court order for DNA testing to cement putative paternity within the week. My financial manager is drawing up paperwork on a trust for the children and my attorneys will be in touch with a preliminary custody agreement soon.”

  “Are you going to serve me with a court order demanding that I surrender the children?”

  “If I were, why would I tell you? So you could run off and hide with them again? I know they exist now. You’ll never succeed in keeping me from them again.”

  “Just tell me!”

  “No. I won’t satisfy your curiosity and reassure you that everything is fine. Because nothing could be further from fine. Now, if you’ll do me the courtesy of getting the hell out of my office, I do have a company to run.”

  “No, I won’t do you the courtesy because I have a family to take care of and your inaction is holding us effectively hostage. State your intentions. If you just want visitation, that’s fine. If you think they need a trust fund, I’m sure it’ll help with college. Otherwise, we don’t need money, and we don’t need any major interference with their routine. Saturdays, for example, are usually pretty full, but I think Sunday afternoons would be convenient for visiting you. We can set up play dates, or you can brainstorm some activities you’d like to do with us.”

  “There is no us, Bella. There’s the kids, and then the woman who kept them from me and still thinks she can dictate everything that happens. Good luck with that, honey. Because I have no intention of letting you relegate me to three hours on Sundays.”


  “So you want to become the central figure in their lives? Primary caregiver? Which one is allergic to cinnamon, then? What antihistamine is the only one they can tolerate? Tell me the brand of underwear I have to buy Caden so the seams don’t hurt and where the dance leotards have to come from for Corinne. Prove to me that you’re ready to take over and do everything I do for these children.”

  “That information would be nothing more than the contents of a single email. All of your so-called crucial knowledge about these kids and what they like and what they don’t like, you could make a simple list, and I’d have what I needed to know.”

  “It’s that easy? You think it’s that simple? You’re just ready to raise twins on your own now?”

  “Not on my own. I will have an excellent staff at my disposal. As it is, one of the bedrooms in my penthouse is currently being refitted as a playroom while another will be decorated for them to share.”

  “So you’ll just move them in and install a nanny?”

  “I intend to have child care in place when they’re with me in case I have to work or have a previous engagement. Surely, I don’t have to explain the need for reliable child care to a single working mother.”

  “Do you think you’re going to have them overnight without Maria or me there? Because I don’t think it’s time for that yet.”

  “You seem to have misunderstood my level of interest in what you think about all this. Your judgment isn’t my top priority.”

  “The twins need me, and they need to know they’re secure, safe. That I’m always there for them.”

  “They need to learn that there are other adults they can depend on as well. You’re no longer the star of this show, honey.”

  “Why are you being so mean, Harvey? I want to help integrate you into their lives smoothly, but you won’t let me. You have to have it your way.” She shook her head sadly.

  “Mean? I’m mean?” He stalked over to her and took her by the shoulders, “I’m in hell, Bella. The only woman I’ve ever loved kept the biggest secret because she didn’t trust me. Which means I can’t trust her. And I can love you, but still not know if I can ever forgive you. Can you imagine what that feels like? Then throw in two kids you’ve never met before.” He raked a hand through his hair and took a long breath, “Just get out.”