Their eyes met, and in them, she saw his disappointment when the recognition hit him.
“You aren’t going back to him after that? Guys like that, Daisy…they aren’t…”
“I don’t need your opinion, Logan. If you haven’t forgotten,” she snapped, wiping her face, “you’re not my friend. We don’t even know each other.”
She regretted the words the moment they left her lips, but before she could apologise, Logan reached for her arm.
“Does he hurt you?”
“Leave, please!”
“Answer the question, and I will.”
She swallowed. Idris was jealous, a little heavy with his words, and forceful when it came to intimacy, but he wasn’t violent—not in the conventional sense.
“Not the way you think he does,” she said, sighing.
For a while, he simply stared at her, his face illuminated by the blinking fluorescent light. It was the same stare he’d given her the day they met. The one that made her feel as if he’d opened the vault to her inner thoughts and was sifting through which ones to unlock. Then, to her surprise, he took another step forward and pulled her into his arms.
“Sometimes, we settle for what we think we deserve and not what we need,” he said softly, rocking her back and forth. “Don’t do that to yourself, Daisy. Don’t settle just because. You’re far too beautiful and intelligent for that.”
She cried, soft tears that salted her lips and fell like snow. It felt almost criminal for him to see this raw version of her. They were, after all, a tier above strangers.
“I need to go,” she said, the words barely audible. “Before he comes in here.”
She could’ve stayed in that moment for hours, but they couldn’t. Even over the live band, they could hear Idris shouting at strangers, asking if they had seen her.
“Until we meet again, then,” he said under his breath, letting her go.
And with that, he left.
After that night, Logan had emailed a dozen times, checking if she was okay, but she couldn’t bring herself to respond. Whether it was shame or the sting of fragile self-esteem, someone like Logan felt like a danger.
There was no denying he was gorgeous. Men like him, attractive and educated, had never spared her a second glance, so why was he now? She turned over every possibility in her mind. Maybe he’d picked up on her lack of confidence from their emails and, like the boys at university, saw it as his moral duty to offer her a pity-fuelled one-night stand. Or perhaps it was something simpler. Maybe he just wanted to make another woman in his life jealous. It wouldn’t be the first time, she thought, and she knew with certainty it wouldn’t be the last.
A year passed, and not long after Daisy and Idris had rekindled after a temporary break, she saw his engagement announcement. She was sitting in the staffroom when her colleague Edie began flicking through the paper.
“Wait,” Daisy said, catching sight of Logan’s face. “What’s that about?”
He’d never mentioned it in their emails, then again, she hadn’t told him about Idris and her breaking up either.
Edie glanced at her, barely interested, and shrugged. “Some wedding announcement.”
“Can I see it when you’re done?”
“Have it,” she said, tossing it onto the table. “I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes anyway.”
She finished her coffee and walked to the sink to rinse her mug. Once she had gone, Daisy picked up the paper and stared at the photograph. Logan was clean-shaven in a suit, his arm draped around her waist.
She recognised the woman from the pub that night. Kate was a popular columnist forThe Star, known for her advice on unfaithful husbands and hormonal teenagers. Her wide-set brown eyes and thick blonde hair reminded Daisy of a young Audrey Hepburn. She was happy for him—really, she was.
“Love,” Russell said as he walked in, startling her. “Who’s tying the knot now?”
Daisy shoved the paper aside, sighing. “Nobody important.”
“Wait, isn’t that—” He paused, reaching for the paper. “You’re kidding. Here he was telling me a week ago, this bird wasn’t anything serious. Maybe she’s pregnant, after all.”
Daisy froze. She’d forgotten that Russell knew him.
