Chapter 8 Daisy
DAISY
The Brandt renewal dinner is held in the same private room at Aurelius where I fainted in the hallway eight days ago. I try not to think about that as I walk through the door on Adam's arm, wearing a dress Lorraine picked out and a smile I practiced in the mirror for twenty minutes before we left.
The room is full of lawyers and executives.
Klaus is beaming at the head of the table, resplendent in a suit that probably cost more than my father's truck, talking animatedly with a woman I don't recognize about supply chain logistics.
Victor is seated near the middle, Ingrid beside him, and when she catches my eye, she offers a small nod that might be encouragement or might be apology. I can't tell anymore.
Adam guides me to our seats with a hand on my lower back, the same gesture he's made a hundred times at events like this, proprietary and impersonal at the same time. The chair he pulls out for me is cold leather. The table is set with three forks. One more performance.
"Daisy, you look lovely," Klaus says, raising his glass in greeting. "As always, the brightest light in the room."
"Thank you, Klaus. You're too kind."
"Never too kind for the woman who makes my business partner human, ja?" He winks at Adam. "Without her, you would be nothing but spreadsheets and phone calls."
"She does keep things interesting," Adam says, and his voice is smooth and warm and completely disconnected from anything real.
The dinner proceeds the way these dinners always do: courses served in elegant succession, conversations about shipping routes and profit margins and expansion opportunities.
I smile and nod and ask the right questions at the right moments, playing my role with the precision of someone who has done this for five years. Adam toasts me during dessert.
He stands at the head of the table with his glass raised, and his voice carries over the assembled lawyers and executives, and every word is Lorraine's script. I know because I saw the draft. She emailed it to him this morning, along with a note about emphasizing partnership and gratitude.
"To my wife," Adam says. "For five years of patience and support and grace under pressure. None of this would be possible without her."
The table applauds politely. Klaus beams. Victor offers a thin smile that doesn't reach his eyes. I lift my own glass and drink and try not to notice that my husband hasn't looked at me once during his speech about how indispensable I am.
I never promised her that.
The toast ends. Dessert is cleared. Klaus announces that Lorraine's team has prepared a brief presentation on the renewal terms, and one of her assistants moves to the screen at the front of the room.
"Just the highlights," Lorraine says from her seat near Victor. "The full contracts are with legal, but this will give everyone a sense of the scope."
The assistant (young, nervous, clearly new) connects her laptop to the room's display system. The screen flickers to life, showing a folder structure: financials, projections, legal summaries, press releases.
"Let me just—" The assistant clicks through folders, looking for the right file. "It should be in here somewhere—"
She clicks one folder too far. The screen fills with text.
For a moment, I don't understand what I'm looking at. It's formatted like a press release, professional and clean, but the words don't make sense. I read them until they register.
MERIDIAN CEO ADAM SMITH AND DAISY SMITH ANNOUNCE AMICABLE SEPARATION
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Adam Smith, CEO of Meridian, and his wife Daisy Smith have jointly decided to end their marriage after nearly five years. The separation is amicable, and both parties request privacy during this transition.
"We entered into this marriage with clear intentions and mutual respect," Mrs. Smith said in a statement. "While our paths are diverging, I wish Adam nothing but the best in his future endeavors."
The release is dated three weeks from tonight. Our five years aren't up until October. Someone has scheduled an early exit without asking me, and there's a quote from me that I never gave.
The room has gone very quiet. I'm aware of people looking at me, at Adam, at the screen still displaying their proposed end to my marriage in neat corporate font.
Klaus has gone pale. Ingrid has her hand over her mouth.
Victor's expression hasn't changed at all, which tells me everything I need to know about who approved this document.
"That's—" The assistant is fumbling with the laptop, trying to close the file, her face red with horror. "I'm so sorry, that wasn't supposed to… I don't know how that got in there—"
"It's fine," Lorraine says smoothly. "Technical error. Let's move on to the actual presentation."
But it's too late.
The whole table has seen it. The lawyers, the executives, Klaus with his romantic heart and his belief in love stories, they've all just read my divorce announcement before I did. One tear gets out.
I feel it slide down my cheek, hot and traitorous, and I wipe it away with the back of my hand.
My chest is tight. My hands are shaking.
But underneath the shock and the hurt and the humiliation, a rage is building underneath, clean and bright, and it feels almost like clarity. He was going to end it.
He was going to end it in three weeks, with a press release and a fake quote and a strategy session I wasn't invited to.
He's been planning this for God knows how long, while I've been trying to save a marriage he was already walking away from.
Fuck it. For once in five years, I'm going to be angry.
I turn to Klaus, who is still staring at the screen with an expression of bewildered hurt.
"So," I say, and my voice comes out steady, which surprises me. "Do you want to hear the real story?"
"Daisy." Adam's hand lands on my arm. "This isn't the time—"
"No, I think it's exactly the time." I pull away from him, turning back to Klaus. "You've heard the pretty version a dozen times. The coffee shop, the rain, the book with the terrible cover. Did you know none of it was true?"
Klaus's brow furrows. "What do you mean?"
"I mean we didn't meet in a coffee shop.
" I'm aware of the whole table watching, of lawyers exchanging glances, of Lorraine's face going carefully blank.
I don't care. "We met in a conference room at this company's headquarters, five years ago.
I was there because my father was being sued, a lawsuit Meridian initiated after a fleet-maintenance failure that was going to cost him his house, his truck, everything he owned. "
"Daisy," Adam says again, and now there's an edge to his voice, a warning I'm choosing to ignore.
"I went to that meeting to fight." The word tastes bitter, but I say it anyway. "To defend my father. And Adam, your business partner, your friend, he looked at me and said he had a problem I could solve. He needed a wife. A real one, for business reasons. His German partners preferred family men."
Klaus's face has gone from pale to white.
"He offered to drop the lawsuit and clear my father's debts if I married him. A five-year contract with a prenuptial agreement that made sure I'd have nothing at the end except what I came in with. And I said yes, because what else was I going to do? My father would have lost everything."
"That is the contract," Klaus says slowly, "that was leaked."
"That was the contract." I nod. "Every detail of it.
We got married the same afternoon, at a courthouse downtown.
He tried to carry me across the threshold and hit his head on the doorframe.
That part was real. The blood was real. But the love story you've been asking about all these years?
" I shake my head. "That was written by Lorraine. Every word."
The silence in the room is absolute. Adam hasn't spoken. He's sitting beside me with a stone face, hands flat on the table, and I can't read anything in his expression.
"I fell in love with him anyway," I say quietly, and this is the hardest part, the admission that makes everything else worse.
"That wasn't in the contract. That wasn't part of the plan.
But I did. I fell in love with the man who asked permission to kiss me, who let me read him romance novels, who moved between me and doors like he couldn't help himself.
I thought if I loved him enough, it would eventually be enough for both of us. "
I turn to look at my husband for the first time since I started speaking.
"I don't think that's enough anymore."
His eyes meet mine. Dark, unreadable, giving me nothing. I push back from the table and stand.
"Excuse me," I say to the room at large. "I think I'm done here."
I walk out. I make it halfway down the hall before I hear footsteps behind me, fast and urgent.
"Daisy, wait."
Adam's voice. Adam's hand reaching for my arm.
"Let me explain—"
"No." I spin to face him, and the rage is still there, bright and clean and righteous. "I'm done."
"There are things you don't understand—"
"Then you should have told me." My voice cracks, and I hate it, but I keep going. "You should have talked to me instead of planning my divorce with your father and your PR team while I was upstairs trying to figure out how to make you love me."
"Daisy—"
"No." I step back, out of his reach. "I'm done waiting for you to show up. I'm done being managed. I'm done."
The elevator arrives. I step inside and hit the button for the lobby.
"Daisy, please." He's standing in the hallway, one hand raised like he's going to stop the doors. "Just let me—"
"Go back to your dinner, Adam." The doors start to close. "Your business partners are waiting."
The last thing I see is his face (stricken, finally human, finally cracked open) and then the doors close and I'm alone in the elevator, descending. The car is waiting in the parking garage, the driver standing at the ready.
"Mrs. Smith." He opens the door. "Where to?"
I slide into the back seat. My hands are shaking. My face is wet with tears I don't remember crying.
"Away from here," I say. "Just drive."