The Life Daisy Devlin Designed

CHAPTER 5

She wasn’t ready. Four days of radio silence and now he called? He was deliberately messing with her head.

“Are you going to answer that?” Laura asked.

Daisy met Laura’s eyes. “It’s Matt. I’m not sure if I’m ready, Laura.”

“What did you expect? You messaged him!”

“I know.” Daisy’s mouth dried. She reached out to grab her bottle of water, accidentally hitting it off the table and sending it rolling across the room.

Laura went and picked it up and unscrewed the top before handing it to her.

“Thanks.” Daisy gulped some down.

“He’s persistent,” said Laura. “Still ringing.”

“Okay, what do I say to him?”

“You could try hello.” Laura shot her a quick, sympathetic look. “Or maybe ‘Hello, fucker’?”

Daisy was too nervous to laugh. This had been such a bad idea.

The phone stopped ringing.

Fine. She could just ring him back. She’d phone him back when she could breathe properly again. But if she left it too long he’d think she was doing that because he’d left it for ages to phone her.

“ Shit .”

Laura sighed. “Are you going to call him back?”

“I can’t! Not now! Or maybe I should, should I?”

Laura sighed. “Fuck it, it’s like first year in college!”

Daisy’s phone started to ring again, and she dropped it onto her desk, where it moved towards her, buzzing like a small, angry animal.

“It’s Matt again.”

“Are you not going to answer again?”

“You’re not helping, Laura.”

Daisy took two deep breaths and swiped.

“Hi, Matt.” She sounded breathy and tried to quietly clear her throat.

“Hi, Daisy.”

His voice sounded too intimate so close to her ear. “Hang on. I’ll just, um , put you on speaker. I can actually hear you better like that. And I hate having a phone clamped to my ear, don’t you? I’m in the office. Laura is here.” Shit, she was babbling! And Laura was glaring at her.

“Oh, right. Hi, Laura, how are things?” Matt’s disembodied voice filled the room.

Daisy batted her hand frantically at Laura, who simply shook her head.

“Sorry, Matt, she’s just uh , had to step out for a minute.”

Laura made a rude gesture at the phone, and Daisy turned her chair towards the window to help her focus. She took a deep breath.

“Thanks for getting back. And welcome home.” She dug the nails of her right hand into the fleshy part of her left hand in an attempt to steady her voice.

“It’s good to be home. And to hear your voice. How have you been?”

“Me? Great, yeah, the business is doing well. Um , how about you?”

“I’m fine.” Matt paused. “Look, I’m really sorry it’s taken me four days to get back to you, but I’ve been really busy.”

She heard Laura walk out of the office and turned to check that she was alone.

“Daisy? You still there?”

She swallowed hard. “I’m here.” He sounded genuinely sorry. Maybe he hadn’t been playing with her. Maybe he had a good reason for waiting until today to phone. Why did you message him, Daisy? “So, Granary House? Congratulations!”

“Thank you. Look, I’d like to talk to you about your ideas, maybe get a look at some of the other work you’ve done? I could meet you for lunch.”

Matt sounded brisk, and Daisy brought herself up sharply. He might have no intention of renewing a friendship with her – but he mightn’t even want to hire her either. Which meant she probably had one shot to persuade him to let her redesign the house.

“Actually, I got to look at the place when it first went up for sale, and I made a couple of sketches.” She hurried on. “It’s such an amazing house, I couldn’t resist it. They might give you some ideas.”

Matt chuckled deeply, and Daisy’s stomach clenched hard.

“In that case, maybe we could meet today? I’m coming up to town anyway. We could meet somewhere close to your office?”

Daisy hesitated. He’d ignored her message for four days, and now he expected her to drop everything for him. But she had said she had some drawings to show him. And if Matt wanted to get straight to business, she didn’t want to play games. She turned her chair slightly as Laura came back in.

She knew how Laura felt about her pitching for this job and she wouldn’t change her mind – but this was what she had been hoping for and she wasn’t about to change hers either.

“Why don’t you choose somewhere really good?” Matt was saying.

“Somewhere really good?”

“For lunch.” There was a trace of amusement in Matt’s voice. “It’s on me.”

Potential clients never paid for lunch. Then, again, she rarely took a client to lunch. It wasn’t how she did business. But Matt was more than a potential client.

As if he’d read her mind, he added, “I’d really like to see you again.”

A nervous excitement shivered through her. “Would one o’clock suit? I’ll text you the name and address.”

“That’s perfect. See you then, Daisy.”

She hung up and took another long drink of water, as she tried to calm her breathing. She didn’t look in Laura’s direction.

This was good, she told herself firmly. This was the sign she needed.