Page 70 of Her Impossible Boss's Baby

“I do understand. I understand how difficult it is to open yourself up, to try to...clear away all the debris that gets stocked up inside of us because of life. Because of the ways that other people have hurt us, because of the way they make us feel about ourselves. I understand. I understand that this is you, being trapped in the pain that you’ve experienced, and maybe even pain you feel you’ve caused. But if you care about me at all, then listen to me. Believe me. When I tell you that I am willing to be in this marriage as long as it takes for you—”

“As long as it takes for me to learn how to love you,” he said. “Come now, Polly. Do not play these games. You have no intention of being in a marriage where you’re not loved. You want me to change. You need me to change.”

“You need you to change,” she exploded. “Because you want this. I know you do. You want to be a good husband, and a good father.”

“I can’t do it,” he roared. “Because... Because it never stops echoing in my head, because I can’t make it stop. Because I’m trying to do my job, and it’s you. It’s only you. And the things that you said to me, and the way that it makes me feel when I look at you, and I cannot turn it off. It’s with me all the time. All the damned time, Polly. And I cannot... I don’t know how to be this way. I don’t want to be this way. I want to be myself, however incomplete that is.”

“Who told you that you were incomplete.”

“You know who did. Do you want to know what happened to my cars after my mother died?” He suddenly felt charred. Hollow. He was going to give her this memory. But she wouldn’t understand why it was so terrible. Except... She had told him. About the things her parents had done to her, and how nobody had listened.

“He packed them all up in big black garbage bags. And he took them away. He said that my preoccupations, my obsessions were not healthy. My mother was gone, and then my cars were gone. And I had nothing. Nothing to hang on to. I knew everything about them. And they were... They were like a point on a map to me. A way for me to see my place in the world, and I understand that they were toys. I understand that it shouldn’t have eroded something inside of me, not the way that my mother’s death did. But it was like my world wasn’t safe. It was like I could trust nothing. And all I could do was cover my ears and cover my head, and lay on the floor and scream. And I didn’t know how to come back from it. I hate...that feeling. I hate caring like that. And I can’t ever do that again. I can never be that boy who lost everything. Ever.”

She reached out and put her hand on his arm. “You aren’t afraid for me. You’re afraid for yourself. And that is why I want different for you. It’s why I want better. Because you remember the loss so severely. But what about the love?”

She righted her clothes, and moved away from him.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m leaving. For however long you need me to. You are right. It is a good idea for us to exist in the middle. It would be best if we...figure this out all the way. I’m so sorry that those things happened to you.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me they don’t matter?”

“No. They do. But I’m asking you to try and care anyway. I’m asking you to try to love anyway. Not because I don’t think those things wounded you. But because I know they did. Because I think we both deserve more. And better.”

She didn’t shed a tear. She didn’t cry or beg. He knew that she wanted to. Because he had always seen beneath her mask. But instead she smiled, a sad smile. A constellation of happy and sad. Layers. Complexity.

And then she walked out of his office and closed the door behind her.

And something threatened to break apart inside of him. Something threatened to put him right back on the ground where he had just said he never wanted to go. So he took a breath, but he thought of his purpose.

He thought about medicine. And how his life had been complete before Polly Prescott had walked into his life and shown him he might be missing something.

He would think about what was next. He wouldn’t think about her. His life had been just fine before.

And it would be just fine again.

He would see to that.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

POLLY 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.

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