Page 48 of Her Impossible Boss's Baby

He had been controlling this, from the beginning. And he logically knew the way that ultrasounds work, but he hadn’t fully considered what that might mean to Polly, or that she might find it invasive. He did sometimes shut off the full implications of things. He knew that to be true.

And he felt regretful that he had perhaps inadvertently caused the situation when what he had been trying to do was make himself feel better.

“I do want to see,” she said. “But I need you to turn around right now.”

He did, though he didn’t understand why she was being shy now when he had seen her naked.

He was struck then by a completely unexpected arrow of lust. He had done a very good job not thinking of her that way. She had been poorly. And he had been obsessed with the idea of having her back at his side. Of sorting out all of these things pertaining to the baby. Pertaining to them.

He hadn’t thought of that night. Deliberately. Because he had been intent on hiring her back. But suddenly, it was replaying itself in his mind. Vivid. Intense.

He curled his fingers into fists, and waited. Listening for the sounds of her disrobing.

This feeling, of course, was exactly why they were in this situation.

This feeling and May twenty-fourth.

And that night.

He really hadn’t used a condom.

He still couldn’t... He couldn’t quite believe it. He couldn’t remember it. Couldn’t even remember thinking about it. And that was completely outside of his experience. Contraception, protecting both himself and his lover had always been paramount rules.

But he hadn’t thought of rules when he was with her.

Not even a little bit.

“You can turn around now,” she said.

He did. She was lying on the table with a sheet draped over her knees, and the angle he was at prevented him from seeing anything.

“Sorry,” the tech said. “This part is always cold. And a little bit uncomfortable.”

He couldn’t see what was going on beneath the sheet, but he knew. Because he knew the procedure well.

He found that he could not entirely find the doctor in the scenario though, and that was odd.

He felt a knot of worry, concern about her potential discomfort.

These were things he had never felt when he had done residency. And while he didn’t practice medicine in the traditional sense, he had learned to do it.

He had always felt disconnected from the experience the patient was having, but not now.

The black-and-white screen flickered, and then, he could not tear his eyes away. It took a moment, but then he was able to see a fluttering. The amniotic sac. The embryo itself. “There he is,” he said, unable to hold back a smile. Unable to be rational. Because this was such an early stage of development. Anything could happen. And yet he didn’t feel detached. He didn’t feel as if he knew he should. He felt something broad, expansive growing inside of him.

Love.

Deep and intense, along with it the desire to protect.

Fiercely.

This was beyond the scope of anything he had ever known before. It was beyond him.

“Incredible,” he said.

Even though it wasn’t. It was run-of-the-mill. It was average. People did this every day.

But he could not find a single thing that felt commonplace about it.

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