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“That’s all I am to you, isn’t it? I’m a contract. And what you ask doesn’t have to be reasonable or human. It simply has to be in the contract. You don’t care at all why I might want to leave.”
“You said yourself. You have no desire to be an assistant forever.”
“I don’t. But most especially, Luca, I have no desire to be your assistant forever.”
He smiled. He couldn’t help himself. “Is that supposed to wound me, Polly? Do you think you’re the first person to remark that I’m difficult? That I am unpleasant? I know that. I don’t care. What I care about is that I accomplish the work that I have set out to accomplish. I don’t want friends. I don’t want a wife. I don’t want children. I want none of the things that would require I managed to find the sort of personality that makes other people comfortable. What I want is to save lives. That is what I do. If within that realm you find me unfeeling, then I must accept it.”
She looked conflicted. But she did not argue. “You have your two weeks. But don’t expect me to be cheerful about it.”
“I don’t require your cheer, cara. I simply require your compliance.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE NEXT WEEK at work was a study in willpower. Luckily, Polly was in ample possession of willpower. But it was almost like Luca was going out of his way to be difficult. She would have thought that if it was anybody else. That he was doing his level best to make everything as unpleasant as possible to punish her for daring to leave him.
But Luca didn’t do things simply for the sake of them, and she could say that she’d never once witnessed him being petty. It just wasn’t him. He was a man who did things as and only when they were strictly necessary. At least, they had to be necessary in his mind.
The trouble for Luca was that what seemed necessary to him did not always seem necessary to other people.
Her included.
Hence the blowup over his midnight suit selection.
But where another person might have gone out of his way to be tirelessly accommodating to make her think that she had made a mistake, or would have gone out of their way to make the last week miserable, Luca was simply Luca. But in the lead-up to the summit, he was more of himself than he often was, which was a particular sort of difficult that really should almost be categorized as its own thing.
The Luca Salvatore Effect.
Perhaps she could get medical studies done on her brain after she finished with the job. Maybe it would become an officially recognized condition.
What happened to a person when they were subject to Luca over long periods of time.
If it became a recognized medical condition Luca might actually care about it, and learn about it. Perhaps that was the path to personal growth for him.
That made her smile. She suppressed it.
She was run ragged. She was absolutely resolved in her decision to leave.
She was fantasizing about the new job. About the freedom she would have there. The freedom to work normal hours. Or maybe just slightly extended hours rather than being on call twenty-four hours a day.
The freedom to leave her job and not think about her boss.
Constantly. Continually. Every moment of every day.
Even now, she wasn’t in the office, she was at her own apartment making phone calls and working on the details with the hotel in Singapore, and she was thinking about Luca.
About getting his room ready when they arrived in Singapore, about exactly what he would need. About how his mood would turn even more rigid upon arrival because he would be anticipating giving a speech, being out of his element, the necessary evil of stepping away from his research.
Of course, it was to talk about his research. So there was every chance he would glory in that.
Then, her thoughts turned to how he had looked the night she had quit. His bare chest. And the anger in his eyes.
It was a confusing combination of things, things that continued to occupy her brain space in spite of herself.
But that was the problem. This wasn’t just a job. There were too many things tied up in it. It had been a matter of survival. Realizing her dreams, and then eventually it had been...her attachment to Luca.
That was the problem. He was the worst. She acknowledged that. She knew it. She felt it. He was unreasonable. He did things that no normal person would ever do, and he expected her to do things that no sane human being would expect their employees to do. And yet, she found herself anticipating him. She found herself in some ways feeling even strangely protective of him and his eccentricities.
Then there was the fact that he was really effing hot. Which kept her from imprinting on any other man. So here she was, suspended between a raft of uncomfortable feelings, none of which she wanted.