Chapter Fifteen Daisy #2
“Thank you,” she whispered. “I’m a bit worried.
About having to pretend I don’t know you.
” Tom’s gaze was fixed on Daisy’s face as he listened, inviting her to continue.
She wasn’t aware she had more to say, until it came tumbling out.
Her mouth saying words directly as her brain processed them.
“That he’ll be able to tell we’re not strangers.
” She bit down on her lip, thinking. Tom waited.
“Just sometimes I think I know you so well you don’t even have to speak and I know everything.
What you’re thinking. Feeling. What you’re about to say.
Everything in your head. All of it.” She stopped, blinking.
Where had that come from? Had she messed up, somehow, in telling him that?
Tom kept his focus steady. “Then I’ll make sure I speak a lot,” he said eventually, his voice soft and his eyes warm. Daisy
breathed out, any panic at what she’d just said now gone. He’d relieved her of the worry, the way he always did.
“What’s he like?” Tom asked, just as Clara reappeared with another bottle of wine complaining about the queue at the bar.
“Zack?” It was a reasonable question for Tom to ask. She was marrying someone he’d never met and he was bound to be curious.
She just hadn’t been asked to describe him in a long time. Clara sat down, rubbing her hands together as Daisy stared hard
at the vase in the center of the table.
“Excited to hear this,” Clara said. “All I can offer you is that he loves a curry.”
Daisy shook her head, laughing. “There’s a bit more to him than that,” she replied, thinking back to what she used to say about him, when they first fell in love.
“He’s very caring,” she said finally. “He wants the best for me and anyone he loves. He’s good to have around in a crisis.
He remembers everything you’ve ever told him .
. .” Her voice faded as she trawled through her brain for more reasons, but her brain wasn’t being very helpful tonight.
It was blurting out things she didn’t even know she felt, while holding back on anything useful.
“He . . .” Tom’s eyebrows knitted together, lips parted as he waited.
Clara leaned farther forward, shoulders hunched.
Maybe it was the theme of the night. All these stories of heartbreak were making it difficult for Daisy to think about love. That was it. It didn’t feel fair.
Tom glanced quickly to Clara and back again, drinking some wine. “I can’t wait to meet him,” he said when he realized Daisy
was done.
“I’m sure he’ll be very excited too,” Daisy replied, knowing it was the opposite of the truth.
“Ooooh, let me know,” Clara said, leaning back. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him excited.” She frowned. “No, wait. Once when
he came back and he’d won that padel tournament.”
Daisy looked across at Tom who was biting down on his thumb, just as the lights faded and the host reappeared on the stage.
“Who wants to live through some more heartbreaks?” he shouted into the microphone and to everyone’s surprise, they all cheered.
Tom almost loudest of all.
At work, a few days later at just after 5:00 a.m., Daisy sat alone at her computer. She’d edited some audio Clara had left
for her from a face-to-face yesterday—an interview with a British popstar who’d just made it big in America and was teaming
up with the same producer as Taylor Swift for her next album. She’d scanned the usual websites and written up anything that
had come in overnight and she’d gone back through some other interviews in case she could create stories out of bits that
hadn’t yet been used.
There wasn’t much else out there and she had days like this, where she could probably just go home or sneak in a nap on the sofa.
She wanted more than this, and she was capable of it.
She was sure she was, so why did she find it so hard to take the leap?
Fuck it. She would just do it. She’d apply for the job and see what happened.
Tom was right, worst case she could just turn it down, but she couldn’t turn it down if she wasn’t brave enough to apply.
Zack would understand. He’d support her.
He just wanted her to be happy; he’d said as much.
She would tell him the moment she got home.
She clicked onto the intranet, a rush of energy building in her chest as she searched for the listing, her finger shaking
against the mouse as she scrolled further down. As her eyes landed on the heading, her throat tightened, her heart sinking
like a rock on sight of it.
***Closed for Applications***
That was it then. She was too late. She’d missed it. Daisy hadn’t realized how much she’d been holding on to it. Using the
knowledge the role was there as some kind of safety net. A reminder that, at any moment, she could find the courage to change
her life.
Tom had been so matter-of-fact about it; that she should just do it, and timing didn’t matter, but it did. It mattered to
Zack, and that mattered to her. Zack had to give up his entire career for their relationship. Everything he’d trained for.
It was that or wait five years to be together, and once they’d said the words out loud, they needed to act on them. Zack said
that if they didn’t, it was part of Daisy’s conditioning that meant she’d back out. Panic. Get cold feet and run, even though
it was what she wanted. That Daisy would always choose men who were unavailable if she was left to her own devices, because
she didn’t feel like she deserved more. She didn’t feel worthy of love, but Zack loved her. They’d left Manchester the following
month, moving to London for a fresh start where Zack thought he could possibly find as fulfilling a role in HR. He was interested
in people, and that job still had an element of it. Daisy knew he didn’t enjoy it as much, but he’d stopped complaining about
that just as she’d stopped talking so much about her own ambitions.
Looking down at her phone she saw it flashing with a number she didn’t recognize. It started with +1 which she knew was international. The States. Oh my God. She jumped up, her fingers rushing to answer. Dan! Daisy hit the phone so fast she had to swipe across twice to pick up, switching
it to loud speaker.
“Daisy, it’s Annabelle Fletcher. I’m here with Gretchen and Beatrice. Is now a good time to talk?”
It took a moment for all the words to land as Daisy stared at her phone, her feet fixed to the floor beside her desk.
“Hello? Daisy?”
Shaking, she started running through to the little studio in the corner of the office.
“Yes. Yes! Now is a great time. I’m at work and I’m just headed to the studio. Are you okay if I record this?” she asked,
plugging her phone into the desk and watching as the levels appeared on the monitor in front of her. She couldn’t believe
it. Three of the biggest actresses in Hollywood were on the other end of the phone and they wanted to speak to her.
“Of course,” said Annabelle. “Why do you think we called?”
“Thank you. And you can trust me with this, I promise.”
“We know,” said another voice Daisy recognized as Gretchen’s. “Annabelle has assured us of that.”
Daisy sat up straighter in her seat, a smile spreading across her face.
“Okay, first of all, can you all just say your names so I can check levels?”
Within the hour, websites, TV channels and radio stations across the UK and America were running with the story, including
the line “in an exclusive interview with Entertainment Now! Annabelle Fletcher said . . .”