Deals with Daisy // LN4

20 ~ Paradox

Lando's POV

Oooh success!

I honestly didn't think that was going to work.

I watched carefully as she sorted through her thoughts to put them in order. It was the same look on her face that she used to have when translating her thoughts from Italian into English... it was always so... sweet.

Anyways... I gripped the t-shirt in my hands, holding it up lightly to signal to her that I wasn't going to start packing until she started talking.

"Hmm... where to begin? He was the popular, rich, well connected guy. The kids we would make fun of at the race track or in class. I know you've always been stupidly rich but you had good parents. Luke didn't, or still doesn't. His dad is part owner of Birmingham and we met at an event for the club. I was there for work - my boss at the time repped Jude Bellingham and Luke... well, he came over to me, immediately there was just... I guess an attraction. He was sweet, kind... he made me feel like the centre of the universe and he pulled this crazy move as we were leaving that just... it drew me in. He just... he felt like he was the best thing that was ever going to happen to me..." she says, a ghost of a smile on her face as she got lost in the memories.

I couldn't help but smile a little as I saw her like this, hugging a pillow to her chest as she smiled with a blush dancing across her cheeks. She was so... soft and sweet. It was innocent, cute and kind of made me sad as I think over all the missed opportunities to do this with her over the last ten years. And although I knew the story didn't really have a happy ending, the only other story I was interested in was why we fell out.

I'd even asked my mum and Max repeatedly but they made it clear that I had refused to talk about it with them so they didn't know. All I knew was that it was bad and... it was my fault. That much I was sure of...

Anyway, I knew that I wouldn't get her to open up about that but if she would talk about Luke... that was a huge step for her and for us. I was aware that it was probably only happening because she was about seven cocktails deep... and that wasn't including the shots I knew she had ordered separately at the bar when she excused herself to the toilet. It should have been enough to have her plastered... she wasn't that tall and she was pretty skinny... but she wasn't. She just seemed buzzed and open to being chatty.

"Anyways... we found out we had mutual friends and we started hooking up regularly. Eventually he would whisk me around the world with him on these great trips and we never really discussed what we were to each other until one day he just asked if I wanted to move in with him?... I said yes and I've lived there ever since... well sort of. I have my place in the New York with work as well and I guess I've lived their primarily for the last two years but anyway... the cheating..." she sighs and when I look up to see her, she isn't looking at me but into thin air. She's back to sorting through her thoughts like a picture book. When she tells the next story I can tell that in some way she's compartmentalised it. She's separated the first guy she's just told me about and doesn't equivocate him to the same guy who is cheating now. "I thought I was going to be sooo... angry..." she whispers the last word, a frown on her face which is mimicked on mine?

"You weren't?" I ask her and she shakes her head before sighing again, bringing her eyes to mine with so much intensity and so many emotions that I stop moving. I'm trapped as I try not to shock her out of talking to me. Her emotions were always so strong and it's clear again now. I want to kill Luke for doing this to the her, for ruining her happy little story by being an asshole but I knew I couldn't do that. I also couldn't comfort her because that would likely result in her trying to kill me.

"I thought I would be the type to blow up if it happened to me? You know? I'm a hot head..." she whispers, voice shaking and all I can do is nod because she's right - part of what didn't make sense was that this guy was still alive. I would expect to see her in jail if a guy cheated on her, not shacked up with him. "I didn't get any anger with the first one. It just sort of made sense," she trailed off, no longer looking at me but instead looking through me. "She was random, just a girl in a club and she didn't matter. I was still the one that he called his and yeah he's done it a lot but it's never been the same person twice... they all don't matter. They're one offs... they just..."