I picked up the desk phone first.
"Mia Harlow."
"My office." Luca's voice. Flat and immediate. "Now."
He hung up.
I set the phone down and looked at my personal phone still buzzing on the desk. Daniel's name on the screen. I let it ring out, watched it go to voicemail, and stood up and smoothed my blouse and walked toward Luca's office with my chin level and my stomach doing something unhelpful.
I knocked once.
"Come in."
He was standing when I entered, not sitting behind his desk the way he usually was. Standing near the window with his hands in his pockets and his back partially to me and that particular stillness about him that I was learning meant he was managing something he felt strongly about.
I closed the door.
"The leave request," I said, getting ahead of it.
He turned a
