ChapterOne
Daisy Scott, current owner of The Daisy Chain Flower Shop, was just one Daisy in a long line of Daisies. Her mother was Daisy. Her grandmother was Daisy. The literal chain of Daisies went back for at least a hundred years. The women in her family passed down the name and the flower shop as diligently as they tended to their blooms. It was all very quaint, and she had quit fighting it years ago. But as far as Daisy knew, she was the first one to be cursed.
Not that she actually believed in curses, at least not at first. Mostly because it wasn’t 1850 and she had a working brain. She had rejected the notion completely. Sure, three weddings she had done flowers for had ended in divorce within a year, but as far as she knew Jeanie and Logan were still going strong. Didn’t that count for something?! And yes, she did have an ex-husbandandan ex-fiancé, but there was no way her own unlucky love life was somehow rubbing off on to other people, right? That would be crazy.
The whole notion was crazy, and she wasn’t even sure the town would have cared if Mayor Kelly hadn’t mentioned some foggy notion of a dream he’d had at a packed town meeting six months ago. He’d apparently seen a dark cloud hovering over the flower shop, and that was enough for the townsfolk to run with. Tales of her own sordid history and of the trail of broken relationships she left in her wake had been greatly exaggerated, and naturally, had spread like wildfire. Daisy had booked nothing but funerals ever since—with the exception of Jeanie and Logan’s wedding—but that had been all Annie’s doing. That woman could make anything happen. The mayor had felt terrible about her loss of business, and he’d been buying mixed bouquets every Saturday to make up for it. But a bouquet once a week did not make up for lost wedding revenue.
That man was a menace.
Still, she refused to believe she was actuallycursed. She blamed small-town gossip and her own inability to pick a good partner for her current situation. Not a curse. But much like how she had tried to reject her name in the fourth grade, trying desperately to convince everyone to call her Jade, her denial of the curse didn’t stick. In her head, or in reality.
And as she stood behind the counter of the shop with the early April sun streaming in through the stained-glass window above the door, leaving a kaleidoscope of colors on the worn wood floor, her ex-fiancé waltzed in with his new fiancée and confirmed once and for all the existence of curses.
A dark cloud, indeed.
Son of a bitch…
‘David, hi!’Well, that sounded far too perky. Tone it down, Daisy. You shouldn’t be nearly that eager to see your ex.‘What brings you in?’ she asked, casually brushing petals and leaf bits off the counter from the giant funeral wreath she’d been working on.
This was fine. Totally fine that her ex, who she hadn’t seen since the break-up and didn’t even live in this town, was showing up in her shop on a random Tuesday afternoon. And that he was looking as handsome as ever; blond hair artfully sculpted away from his defined cheekbones and incredible jawline.Totally fine.
‘Hey, Daisy.’ Her ex, the man she had planned on spending the rest of her life with, tipped his head to the side as he looked at her. It was a pitying look. A look that said he felt sorry for her, like some horrible tragedy had befallen her. But the only tragedy was him dumping her a month before they were supposed to get married. Via text. And she really wished she could say she hated him. That she was over the whole fiasco. That it didn’t cut her to her very core that he was already engaged again after only a year of them being broken up when she hadn’t even managed to go on a single date. But she couldn’t say any of those things.
Daisy wished she could be a ‘Jade’. She wished her entirely black wardrobe transferred to her insides as well. But Daisy was actually still the little girl her mother used to dress in yellow dresses until the age of nine. Daisy was soft. Daisy was still in love with David. And she hated herself for it.
‘Hi, Daisy! It’s so nice to finally meet you! You have such an adorable shop,’ the woman on David’s arm cooed as she looked around at the stuffed-to-the-brim store.
Hailey.
Daisy only knew her name from the copious amount of internet stalking she’d done after she and David had ended things. Hailey, who worked in marketing for a firm in the city, was a Leo, loved brunch—and from what Daisy could tell—spent all her spare time at the gym or drinking matcha lattes and posting about it. Hailey, who had a much cooler name thanDaisy.
Daisy would really like to hate her, too, but Hailey was smiling so genuinely as her eyes flicked from the refrigerated roses to the dried bouquets to the potted plants in the window, that Daisy was having a hard time with that one. She seemed nice. She was cute. Honestly, Daisy could see the appeal.
‘It’s nice to meet you, too. Uh… what brings you guys in?’
Translation: what the hell are you doing in my town and have you come into my store just to remind me of how shitty my life currently is?
Daisy’s face hurt from the fake smile she’d contorted her mouth into. She absolutely would not let David’s pitying look get to her.
Hailey looked up at David, beaming with perfectly straight teeth, and David,Daisy’s David, smiled down at Hailey with hearts in his eyes. Daisy thought she might be sick. ‘We are scouting wedding venues, and I remembered how quaint Dream Harbor was,’ he said, as though this was all perfectly reasonable, as though he wasn’t infiltratinghertown,herlife. ‘We’re checking out the inn this afternoon and The Christmas Tree Farm tomorrow.’
‘They both look so lovely!’ Hailey continued to beam, and Daisy’s breakfast burrito rose higher in her throat.
‘Of course, even if we get married in town, we’d find someone else to do the flowers. That would be a bit too awkward,’ David said with a laugh.
‘Right, of course, totally.’ Daisy forced herself to laugh, too, but it came out as more of a bark. Hailey’s eyes widened in concern at the sound.
This was surely a new level of hell. She didn’t know what she was more upset about: her ex possibly getting married to his shiny new girlfriend in her hometown, or that she wasn’t even going to get any business out of it. It was almost enough to make her choke out another insane laugh. Which, apparently, she did, because Hailey was looking like she was preparing to call the emergency room to have her checked out.
‘Unless this all makes you uncomfortable…’ David tipped his head again like he was looking at an injured puppy. ‘I just figured it’s been a year and we’ve both moved on…’
‘Totally! Totally moved on!’ Dear God, was she yelling? She seemed to have lost control of her voice. She did another hyena-esque laugh, and Hailey took a few steps back from the counter.
‘I’m just going to browse over here…’ she said, wandering away, but not before shooting David a look that clearly said she wanted him to take care of his mess of an ex.
‘Look, Daisyboo.’ David leaned closer, his toned arms on the counter, the smell of his expensive cologne overtaking the earthy smell of flowers.
‘Don’t call me that,’ Daisy whispered, even as her heart leapt at the old nickname. She really was cursed. Cursed to pick men who didn’t love her.
