Chapter Fifteen
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
P OLLY WENT TO a hotel, because she had to believe that he would come to his senses. He would find her, she wasn’t worried about that. He was resourceful. She wasn’t exactly trying to cover her tracks.
But as the days passed, she genuinely began to worry.
That she had perhaps overplayed her hand strongly.
That she had perhaps overestimated the connection between them.
Though she hadn’t.
She knew that he cared about her. More than that, he loved her, or he had the potential to.
But it scared him.
Her heart broke for the boy that he had been. And it broke for herself.
Because she was still being strong. She didn’t know how to be anything else. She had tried. She had put herself out there. She hadn’t managed his feelings. And look where it had gotten her.
She had thought that it was growth, and that growth would bring happiness. But she wasn’t happy now.
She lay in bed, a king. She ordered room service.
She went to work virtually. Because she did still have a job. A job that she loved.
Anyway, he was still her husband, so it wasn’t like they were broken up entirely.
She wanted to ask him what he thought was going to happen. Because they were still having a baby whether he wanted to be with her or not, and the way it had all dissolved...
Surely he wasn’t thinking that he wouldn’t be part of their child’s life?
Poor Luca.
He wasn’t a liar. Or a manipulator. All the things he had said he really believed. That he might not be enough for her. That he might hurt her.
But she also knew he was genuinely mostly afraid of being hurt himself. How could she blame him?
His father had been cruel. Outrageously so.
She couldn’t be wholly angry at him for his inability to let that go instantaneously.
But he was right. She believed on some level that he would love her. Someday. And he had tried to tell her that wasn’t the case.
Like it was a kindness.
“I still don’t believe you,” she said, mostly for her own benefit. Mostly for her own heart.
“I still love you.”
And that, she did believe. Even though it made her cry so hard she could barely breathe.
He was trying to work. And he couldn’t. And it infuriated him. He needed to keep everything separate.
This was what he was good at. This was his purpose. His mission. This was what mattered.
And yet... She was in everything.
She was even in his motivation to do work. Because medical discoveries made the world a safer place for her too. And he could so easily recall the terror he had felt when he thought that she was sick.
Lately, his research brain had been thinking about maternal mortality rates around the world.
He had been thinking about complications and pregnancy, childbirth. Ways that they might be mitigated. Tests that could be implemented.
His focus was split.
His heart was...
He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t compartmentalize. That he needed to. He felt like...like he imagined other people must feel, except he was certain it was stronger. More powerful. Nobody could truly understand the way that he felt.
Not even Polly, for all that she showed him sympathy. What did she know. What did she know about him. Even if she gave him sympathy, she didn’t really understand.
And when did that become a good thing to you? This idea that you can’t be understood.
Protection. The word whispered across his mind. The landscape of all that he was.
For all the good it had done him.
He could feel her. Even now. She occupied him. She obsessed him.
He...
Suddenly, that temporary sealant he had managed to get over the crack inside of him began to burst.
He loved her.
The realization was harsh. Swift. And that was the gong.
Not her love for him resonating inside of her, but his own. But he was afraid to speak, afraid to acknowledge. Afraid to know.
He loved her.
He loved her, and he wanted her. He wanted her to love him. But if he failed her and she left then he...he would be reduced to nothing yet again.
And it would be worse, so much worse than anything else he had ever endured.
Why did people want this? Why did they write endless songs about it? Why did they...luxuriate in the glory of this feeling that felt like dying?
He loved her.
He loved her, and he wanted her to stay with him forever, she wanted to have this baby, and more besides.
He wanted a life where he could love more than one thing.
He wanted everything.
He wanted to be there for his child, no matter who that child was. No matter how they thought and felt. He wanted to change himself in his own perceptions to meet them where they were.
And he wanted to do the same for Polly. What he had been trying to do was control everything. Yes, he had done a great many things to try and give her what she wanted, but only within the bonds of control. When that control began to slip, when she was more consuming than the day-to-day work, or the rules that he had set out for himself, he had run.
He had run. Because what he felt for her was bigger than anything else that had ever existed inside of him.
And he had to go to her. He had no choice.
He had to.
Because what was the alternative?
He knew this life. It had sustained him for a very long time.
But something she had said had hooked into him. Into the truth of it all.
She wouldn’t accept half because she wanted him to have everything.
And he wanted to know.
He wanted to know what that was like. And he wanted her.
There was no pain on this earth that was so strong it was worth hiding away from her.
All he had to do was surrender.
And there was nothing on earth more difficult than that.
But Polly was worth it.
Polly was waiting for room service. So when there was a knock on her hotel room door she got out of bed and opened it without checking.
And froze. It was Luca.
With the wild look that he had in his eyes in Milan. And somehow right then she saw the truth of it all. From the beginning.
“Luca,” she whispered.
“Don’t speak,” he said. “I need to. I love you. I love you, and I am very sorry that I couldn’t admit that before. I’m sorry that when I began to feel it, really feel it, what I did was run away. I made excuses. And I was right. I was. Because I could not have loved you in the way that you loved me if I hadn’t stared down the fear inside of myself. And fear is all it is. I have been afraid. Afraid of what it would be like to lose you. Of what it would be like if I loved you with everything I was, and lost you anyway.”
“Luca,” she said, her heart twisting. “I can’t believe that I ever thought you didn’t have feelings. Because I began to realize that you love everything. Everything that you have done since losing your mother is you putting love out into the world. Rather than keeping it to yourself, rather than hiding it. You are one of the most generous, good men to ever exist. And certainly the best one I’ve ever known. And I’m okay with this not being perfect. I’m okay with it taking work. For both of us. Because I have never been more free in my life than I am when I’m with you. I have never been happier. I’ve never been more myself.”
“It’s the same for me,” he said. “I have always been made to feel ashamed about...”
“Right. Even I’ve said things. Things I shouldn’t have.”
“I deserved it.”
“No. Nobody should ever be made to feel like who they are is a detriment. Who you are is a gift. And it’s why I love you. Not in spite of. Because of.”
“I feel the same. You... You bring a balance to my life I didn’t know I needed. What I didn’t think was especially possible.”
“You don’t really like it that much.”
He chuckled. “I love you. That’s enough.”
She looked up at him, and she felt her heart swell.
She had been wrong. All this time. Being in love with him was the key to everything.
He was a wonderful man to love.
“You are amazing, Dr. Luca Salvatore.”
“As are you, Polly Prescott.”
Luca could definitely be a difficult boss. But he was the best husband. And over the years he proved that he was also the very best father.
To all six children that they had.
And when he was finally able to announce a definitive cure for the cancer that had killed his mother, all of the children were present to pay tribute to the grandmother they had never known, but the grandmother whose love had shaped their lives every day.
Because she had been Luca’s reason. And that reason had led him not only to change the world, but to the most glorious, joy-filled life anyone had ever known.
And when each of the children presented him with a small car in front of a crowd of thousands, nobody understood why.
But Luca and Polly looked at each other and smiled.
Everything he had ever lost had been given back in greater multitudes than he could’ve ever imagined.
And the love between them was more powerful than anything else ever could be.
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