Chapter 2 Daisy #2
"I should find my husband," I say instead. "Nice seeing you, Kendra. See you Thursday."
"Definitely." She's still staring as I walk away. "This is so cool."
The penthouse is dark when I get home.
I kick off my heels in the entryway and pad barefoot through the living room, the cold floor sharp against my soles. The city lights paint everything in blue and gray shadows. Empty and quiet, like always.
Adam's office door is closed, but light leaks underneath it. He's home, then. Back from whatever Zurich crisis demanded his attention while I stood alone at his company's party being condescended to by professional wives.
I should go to bed. I should take off this dress and wash off this makeup and lie in the guest room (my room, still, after five years) and stare at the ceiling until I fall asleep.
That's what I usually do after these events.
That's the pattern. But tonight the sting is too fresh.
Tonight I need him to hear me. I knock on his office door.
"Come in." His voice is muffled, distracted.
He's at his desk, laptop open, the blue light picking out the dark circles under his eyes. His jacket is thrown over a chair. His tie is loosened. He doesn't look up as I enter.
"The party," I say.
"Mm." Still typing.
"You missed the whole thing."
"The call ran long. I apologize."
I stand there in my expensive dress, my bare feet, my careful armor cracked and leaking. He still hasn't looked at me.
"I was alone for the entire event," I say. "Standing by pillars. Making small talk with people who don't think I'm worth talking to."
"I said I apologize."
"The wives asked what I do. When I told them, they looked at me like I'd said I collect roadkill."
He types something. Pauses. Types again.
"One of them asked if I get paid," I continue, my voice rising despite myself. "Like it's a hobby. Like five years of building a community and a brand and a career is just something I do to fill time between charity galas."
"Daisy—"
"And then they talked over me. Literally over my head, like I wasn't there. About gala planning and foundation photography and whatever else matters in their world. And I just stood there. Smiling. Being the CEO's wife who somehow isn't good enough to be part of the conversation."
Adam sighs. He stops typing. But he still doesn't look up.
"It's just a book club, Daisy."
"What did you just say?"
"The party." He waves a hand vaguely. "Those women. Their opinions don't matter. You let them get to you because you care too much about something that's ultimately recreational."
Recreational.
"Adam." My voice is very calm. The flat calm right before an explosion. "Look at me."
He finally turns. His expression is tired, distracted, the same polite attention he gives to items on an agenda that aren't priorities.
"I run a business," I say slowly. "Three hundred thousand followers across my platforms. Paid partnerships with six publishers.
A subscriber base that generates enough income to fund the book club at The Margin, which has been running for five years: five years of me building something, creating something, while you were in Singapore and Seoul and Zurich and everywhere else that isn't here. "
"I know you work hard—"
"Do you?" I step closer to his desk. "Do you actually know what I do?
Have you ever read one of my reviews? Watched one of my livestreams?
Do you know that authors send me advance copies because my recommendation can move ten thousand units?
Do you know that my readers have formed their own communities, their own friendships, their own support systems based on something I built? "
He's quiet. His face has gone very still.
"Or is it just a book club to you?" I ask. "Something cute I do while waiting for you to come home? A hobby, like Carol's daughter reads on planes?"
"Daisy—"
"You don't know." The realization hits me like ice water. "You actually don't know. You've been married to me for five years, and you don't know what I do for a living. You don't know that it's a living at all."
"That's not—"
"What's my subscriber count?"
"What?"
"How many paid subscribers do I have? Ballpark."
He opens his mouth. Closes it.
"Which publishers do I partner with?"
Nothing.
"What's the name of my blog?"
He knows this one. I can see him grasping for it, relieved to have something to offer. "Dog-Eared Daisy."
"And what does that name mean? Why dog-eared?"
His relief fades. He doesn't know. After five years, he doesn't know why I called it that, doesn't know about my mother's paperbacks with their folded corners, the physical proof of pages she loved. He's never asked.
"I dog-ear pages," I say. "The ones that matter.
My mother did it too. All her romance novels have little folded corners marking the moments that hit her hardest: the confessions, the reunions, the places where love actually landed.
She wrote notes in blue ink. She believed stories could teach us how to be human. "
I feel tears building and blink them back. I will not cry in front of him over this.
"You built me a reading room," I say. "Custom shelves. A window seat. The perfect space for everything I love. You used to ask about the books. You used to notice my mother's notes. Until last week, I couldn't remember the last time you had."
"I've been busy—"
"You're always busy. That's not an excuse anymore. That's a pattern."
He stands abruptly. "What do you want from me?"
"I want you to know me." My voice breaks on the last word. "Five years, Adam. Five years, and you don't know what I do. You don't know why it matters. You don't know who I am beyond being a solution to a problem you had half a decade ago."
"That's not fair."
"Isn't it?"
We stare at each other across his desk, his laptop still glowing between us. The city sparkles outside his window, all that expensive glass offering a view of a world that keeps spinning no matter how much you hurt.
"I'm going to bed," I say finally. "My room. Not yours."
"Daisy—"
"Goodnight, Adam."
I turn and walk out before he can respond. My bare feet are silent on the cold floor. The penthouse stretches around me, vast and beautiful and empty.
The reading room is dark when I push open the door, but I don't turn on the lights. I curl up on the window seat in my evening gown, my mother's paperbacks surrounding me like old friends, and stare at the city until my eyes burn. He built this room for me. He's never understood why I needed it.
And somewhere in the silence, I realize the truth I've been avoiding for months: Adam doesn't dismiss what I do because he thinks it's unimportant.
He dismisses it because he doesn't know it exists.
To him, I'm not a creator or a professional or a voice that matters to hundreds of thousands of people.
I'm just his wife. A role I play. A box on a checklist.
He doesn't know I'm anything else.