Page 46 of Her Impossible Boss's Baby

“And thank you,” she said. “For taking care of me.”

“Of course.”

CHAPTER TEN

LUCA DID RETURN to work the next day. There were things to see to, and they were of utmost importance. But then, everything in this job was. Still, he’d had to put everything aside out of concern for Polly’s health and well-being for the past few days. At first it had given him no small measure of discomfort. To discard his routine. To be away from his work for an extended period of time—not that he hadn’t checked in, or completed tasks in his home office—but eventually, he had realized that it was a good thing.

He wanted things to be as Polly had said.

He wanted to rearrange his life.

He felt a powerful connection to this child. This child who wasn’t yet born. He could already feel the desperate pull to rearrange everything so that he could be a good father.

Not the sort of father who would reject and shame his child. A father who would care for them no matter what.

He found himself thinking about Polly, back at the penthouse. He found his mind more there than in the office, and given that he had not been into the office for some days prior to this, it surprised him. More than that, he found he wanted to hold on to this.

It was a rare thing, this sort of moment when he could hold multiple thoughts in his mind. Multiple concerns.

Yes, single-minded focus got a fair amount of things accomplished. But he wanted to be single-minded in his parenting as well. He wanted to hold his child with him, even as he went about his day.

In many ways, he did that with his mother.

She was his motivation. His reason.

But practically, she required nothing of him.

She was a memory, and nothing more. Living for a memory of a person was much simpler than figuring out how to foster a relationship with a person who was here.

She had a doctor appointment scheduled for later that same day, and he made a call down to the office. He let them know that he would be attending, and that he wished to help conduct the tests and exams. No one argued, even though it was unorthodox, because he was Dr. Luca Salvatore, and his reputation in medicine preceded him.

He was eager for Polly to return to the office, because he did not like her absence. Even though she would be taking another job, she would be here, and things would feel better. They would feel right. He did decide to call her and let her know that he would be at her appointment.

“I should’ve thought to include you,” she said.

She had been extraordinarily different with him these past days. When she had apologized to him, because she had hurt his feelings, and not to make herself feel better, it had shifted something inside of him.

No other person had ever treated him that way. Not since his mother.

His mother had known and understood that he had so many feelings, and that they were complicated. That he didn’t know how people expected him to express them, nor did he care.

But she had seen him. And he didn’t think that Polly had this entire time, but she certainly did now.

He hadn’t thought he cared about that.

It hadn’t occurred to him that it might be a nice thing to have someone understand him.

He had decided that he by and large didn’t need emotional connections with people, but he was going to be a father, and that meant he was going to have to forge an emotional connection with his child. So perhaps it was only a good thing to practice by forging emotional connections with other people.

And trying to get a sense for what it felt like when they had them with him.

“I was happy to include myself,” he said.

“Yes. Well. I suppose that’s not surprising.”

“I will see you in an hour.”

“See you then.”

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