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“You cannot quit,” he said.
“It’s too bad. I am quitting. I have another job, and I don’t need yours. I’m getting into marketing. I’m not going to be your sprightly little gofer, running to and fro doing whatever you want.”
He looked incensed. Outraged. She had never seen precisely that look on his face before. She had seen him inconvenienced. She had definitely seen him angry. But this was something else. “We have a massive exhibition happening in Singapore next week.”
“I am aware. I have planned nearly every detail of the exhibition because I’m the one that’s had contact with every presenter, every person involved at the venue, everyone managing food, lodging—”
“You cannot quit before the exhibition.”
“I can. And I will.”
“You will not. You will give me two weeks’ notice as your contract dictates.”
The exhibition was all he cared about. Not her upset. Not what he’d done. And she found it sparked a fury she couldn’t quell.
“You and your contract can go to hell.”
She turned around. And she was just about to walk triumphantly out of the room. Finally. She ignored the tugging in her chest, she ignored the feeling of being bound to him. She ignored the pang of regret that she was never going to see Luca in person ever again, and she was just about to crow her victory, her freedom, when he spoke again.
“If you do not give your proper two weeks’ notice, I will ensure that you never work anywhere else ever again.”
She turned around. “I already have a job.”
“Cara, if you think that I do not have the power to remove you from that position before you even begin, then these last five years have been for nothing. Because you have never truly known me. Two weeks. Or your professional life is over before it even begins.”
CHAPTER TWO
RAGE WAS A red haze over his vision. A sliver of ice in his gut. Worse, because it was Polly that had made him angry. And that was not Polly’s purpose.
She was his assistant. Efficient, perfect in every way. Polly Prescott fascinated him, as no woman ever had.
She had been nineteen when he had first given her the job. And her innocence and inexperience in all things had been visible in those wide blue eyes every time she had looked at him.
He could never understand why other people treated her like she was older. Perhaps more experienced. It was apparent to him that she was fresh off of whatever plane she had arrived on, likely from a small town, having never been in a major city in her life.
But she was hungry. And it was that hunger that had made her such a valuable assistant. She also lacked fear.
He wanted things done exactly as he wanted them done. More than that, he needed it. He did not allow for mistakes. He did not coddle the emotions of others. She seemed to understand that instinctively.
She managed everything in his personal life that required managing. And she did so with ease. At this point, she did so without him even having to ask. The idea of having to train somebody else to do what Polly did on instinct was unthinkable. Particularly this close to the Medical Technology Summit, and to the unveiling of all of his upcoming research that was entering clinical trial stage.
His mother had been the only person in his life who understood him. Who loved him as he was. When she was gone, he’d lost everything. He’d nearly lost himself.
Where his mother had accepted him, his father had sought to change him. To fix him.
He’d always been a person who had obsessions and hyperfocus. His mother had fostered that. She’d helped him learn everything about a topic he found interesting, had added toy cars to his collection whenever possible, along with facts about different engines, makes and models.
His father had hated it. He’d thought it a sign of a weak mind to be so tunnel-visioned when it came to interests. He’d thought it embarrassing that Luca had no friends at school. His mother had told him that people who did not fit in were destined to change the shape of the world, to make it better fit more people.
He’d liked that. When he felt himself not fit, he’d imagined the shape of everything changing around him and he had felt better.
He had been a source of tension between his parents, and he knew it.
When he was nine his mother got sick. Diagnosed with a late-stage cancer that had no hope of being cured. She’d been ignored by her doctors when she’d brought her symptoms to them, and when the illness was discovered it had been too late.
It had destroyed his life. Until he’d found a new focus.
A new purpose.