Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
O BSESSION WAS L UCA ’ S strength and weakness. It was what enabled him to put his head down and work tirelessly to find a solution to whatever problem was pressing against him in the world of medicine. It was what had delivered his success to him—both financial, and in terms of scientific discovery.
It was also what crippled him now.
He could think of nothing but her. After launching the greatest medical discovery of his career, he could not think of medicine. He could think only of Polly.
It was unacceptable. Never in his life had a woman bewitched him so. Never had a woman commanded his mind and his body in such a fashion. It should not be so. And yet it was.
He could not account for why he was so obsessed with her. It had been sex. Nothing more. It was extremely common for him to not be able to remember the physical details of his lovers after the fact. He could remember the rush of release, but not the specifics. His brain simply released them, because they were not important.
The details of Polly’s body, of the way she had cried out his name, the way that she had clung to him, haunted him.
He could not forget.
He had never wanted to forget quite so much.
He cursed his brain, and the way that it was put together, which was not something he had done since he was a very small child.
He had taken all of his weaknesses and turned them into strengths. He had dominion over them. Except in this. Except with her.
It was good that she was gone. It was good that she had gone to Milan, to marketing. And he had done as he had promised. He had written the most sterling recommendation letter for any person that had ever existed. Because he was a man of his word.
He was. In spite of what she thought about him. In spite of what she had said about him seeing her only as a thing.
He fought the urge to sweep everything off of his desk. His brain was cluttered, and his surroundings were not, and yet, he found that everything bothered him right now. Even his notebooks.
Because of her. This was all because of her. Her breasts, her lips. Everything. The way that she cried out his name, the way that she had clung to him after.
Then she had run away.
Her audacity. She could have stayed.
Yes, he had told her that she would have to make her own way home, but clearly in the aftermath of their sexual encounter, he wouldn’t have held her to that.
Clearly.
Clearly.
But then, she didn’t want to feel anything for him. She thought the absolute worst of him. And perhaps he had no right to feel unhappy about that. He found that he did. He swept his notebooks onto the floor, picked up his coffee cup and threw it at the wall. It broke. The mess was not satisfying. The broken mug was not satisfying.
Nothing was Polly.
Nothing did anything to ease the ache inside of him, not even his research. If he saw her again he would...
Why leave it to chance? He should offer her her job back. Offer her twice the amount of money. He couldn’t function without her. It had been eight weeks. And he was no closer to feeling like he could manage himself than he had been when she left.
Yes.
He would go to Milan and offer her her job back. He would not call. He would show up in person. And then he would be able to work out his obsession with her easily. Because she would not be a fantasy living like a ghost all around him at all times.
She would be back in her physical form. And she would be his assistant again. Which would put up a barrier.
That was the problem. The lack of rules surrounding Polly anymore meant that his mind was free to dwell on the sex. He would simply restore her as his assistant and all would be well. Yes. That’s what he would do.
He had chartered his private plane for Milan only moments later.
It would take no time at all to get there.
Luca didn’t even fill one notebook on the flight. Granted, it was a short flight, but the behavior was out of character. When he had attempted to write, he had only managed one word: Polly.
It was unbearable.
Unendurable.
She had taken his brain and she had done something to it. Hijacked it.
And then she had left him.
He was a mass of teeming energy by the time he disembarked from the plane. By the time he got into the waiting car to wing his way down to the fashion house.
It was across a large, crowded square, a massive historic building that stood proud and tall, and inconsequential as far as he was concerned. It was nothing compared to the work that he did. And nothing compared to the work that she could do with him. If she needed to feel more appreciated, if she needed him to learn a new way of speaking with her, then he could do so. He could learn.
He had made efforts to do so before, and he could do it with her.
He was determined in this.
He walked across the square, and he saw a door open at the top of the massive stone steps. His gaze was drawn there, to the flurry of movement, a red scarf, blond hair.
It was her.
His body recognized her on a cellular level. It was not visual. It was visceral. He felt her. To the depths of himself.
It had always been so. It wasn’t just her movements that fascinated him, he realized now. It was the movement that she created within him, different than any other human being.
Different than anything.
His.
It was so clear then.
She belonged with him. Together, they would make massive advancements in medicine, and if she needed a new title, promotion, if she needed to be second-in-command of the company then she could be so.
Because she was what made him work.
He strode up the steps, without pausing, without thought.
She saw him.
She felt him. He knew it. Because he could see it there in her eyes. That recognition. The shifting of the tides within her soul, he knew it, because he felt it.
He felt what another person felt. He was confident of it.
It was a novelty.
Something he had been told he was incapable of. Something many people had said he did not possess the ability to do, and he had done it. Without even trying. Hell, he didn’t even want it. But there he was, standing there, making eye contact with Polly, absolutely certain that what was happening inside of him was the same reckoning inside of her.
She shook her head. And he nodded as he approached her.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve come for you.”
“No,” she said. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“There is nowhere else that I ought to be. I think you know that.”
“I don’t know that.” There was something fearful in her expression now, though in the past he knew that she had said she was afraid of him only because of the degree to which she wanted him. Maybe it was the same now, and yet he didn’t think so.
He did not like that.
“I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to offer you a job.”
She blinked. “A job?”
“This past month has been hell. I cannot function without you. I need you.”
“You... You need me?”
“Yes. I have tried. I have been through one assistant every week since you left. Nothing works as it should. My life is disordered, and I cannot afford to have a disordered life. I need you.”
“You need me to do things for you,” she said.
Yes. He did. And yet, she made it sound as if it was inconsequential. It was not. It was everything to him. His work, his life, the way that it functioned. He felt as if he was crawling out of his skin without her there. As if he was going to have to unzip the essence of what he was so that he could find release by expanding to fill the room, escaping his human form.
It was terribly uncomfortable, and something he had not experienced since...her.
“I need you to come back and work for me.”
“I don’t want to come back and work for you. I have a job.”
“I will give you a promotion. I will double your pay.”
“Double?” She looked stunned.
“Yes.”
“That’s outrageous and astronomical.”
“It is not. I will make you second-in-command of the company if that’s what you wish. I will give you shares. Whatever it is you want, but I need you back.” He was on the verge of debasing himself, did she not see that?
“Luca,” she said, her gaze sparkling with fractured light. “We slept together. And you have come to my place of work to tell me that you need me...to come back and do a job for you.”
“Yes. I have thought of nothing else since you left.”
“You have to be kidding me. I’d... I gave my virginity to you, and you have been thinking of nothing but how I...used to bring you coffee?”
He didn’t know what to do with the first part of what she had said, so he let it filter past, and dealt with the comment about the coffee. “It is not only coffee. My notebooks are in disarray, no one has been able to anticipate—”
She howled. Like an enraged beast. “You have got to be kidding me!” She stepped away from him.
“Wait,” he said. He returned back to what she had said. About her being a virgin. “I didn’t know,” he said. “That you had not been with anyone before.”
“Well now you do.”
“Why?”
“Because my boss was such a demanding, controlling pain in the ass that I never had time to go on a date, never had time to get a kiss, much less get penetrated. The hilarity is, it had to be you.” She shook her head. “It had to be you because you’re the only man that I know, because you...” She stared at him, her breasts rising and falling as she seemed to be grappling with what to say next. And then she simply turned away from him. “I can’t do this, Luca. You’re you. And I have always respected that. You are a man who is infinitely complicated. A man who is meant for bigger things than getting his own coffee. I understand that. You’re trying to save the world. But I’m not. I’m just trying to save myself. I have to live. And I can’t do it with you. I cannot be your assistant.” She started to walk away, and he gripped her arm, stopping her, turning her to face him.
“Don’t leave me,” he said.
He saw all the color drain from her face, and then he noticed the circles under her eyes. That her lips were the wrong color. That her body had changed. Yes, her body had changed. She was wearing a sweater, different than the stark skirt suits that she had worn when she worked for him, but he could still see that her breasts were larger. There was a hollowed-out look to her, and yet her waist was not smaller. He frowned. “You don’t look well.” Terror overtook him. She looked exhausted. She looked... She could very well be a woman with the disease that he feared most. The disease that he...that he had spent his life fighting against. “You must go to a doctor.”
“I’m not unwell,” she said.
“Yes, you are,” he said. “You look remarkably unwell, and in fact you look like...” He found himself struggling to say it, and he was a man who was nothing if not matter-of-fact.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” she said.
“You look as if you might have cancer,” he said.
She covered her face with her hands, and he could see that she was pressing hard against her eyes. “I don’t have cancer, Luca. I don’t... I’m pregnant.”