The Doctor Who Has No Chance - Victoria Quinn Page 0,25

he looked at me again. Anytime his eyes made contact with my face, he stared at me for a while, his gaze absorbing my features as if I were a photograph he was committing to memory.

“Are you doing okay with it? I know that must have hurt.”

He severed eye contact. “Yeah, it hurt a lot. But that’s part of life, right?”

“Yeah, but it shouldn’t have to be.”

Her penthouse was a diamond in the sky.

It was much nicer than Dex’s apartment, but not quite the caliber of their parents’ place.

She sat across from me at the dining table, talking to me as she ate another slice of pizza. “Whatever. Fuck him. I know he’ll come crawling back, and that’s when I’ll get my revenge.”

“Revenge, how?” Dex asked.

“I’ll tell him to meet me for dinner and just stand him up.” She continued to eat.

Dex nodded in approval. “I like that, actually.”

Daisy talked about the situation like it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I could tell she was really hurt by the whole thing, like she’d shed a few tears before we got there. But she was too stubborn to look hurt, to look weak, to let someone hurt her.

I admired her attempt.

Daisy shifted her attention to me. “How’s it going with Zach? He’s super hot.”

Dex immediately rose from his seat. “I’m gonna use the bathroom.” He left like he couldn’t get out of there fast enough, like any description would make him hurl all his pizza.

I watched him go, my heart sinking.

Daisy continued to eat her pizza like she didn’t notice her brother’s abrupt departure.

“It’s not really going anymore.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, not following my words.

“I broke it off. Just today, actually.” He’d texted me a couple times because my decision was such a curve ball. Apparently, he’d never been dumped before. I wasn’t sure if he was just sad to lose me, or sad that I took a swipe at his ego.

“Oh, really?” she asked in surprise. “Why?”

Zach was a good guy and we had a great time together, so I didn’t want to talk shit about him.

“Ooh…I know why.” She ripped the crust off her pizza and ate it separately from the rest.

“You do?” I asked blankly.

“Yeah.” She nodded to the other side of the penthouse. “Dex, right?”

“Um, no.”

Now she truly looked shocked. “Really? Then why?”

“We just…I don’t know…didn’t really click. He talks about work all the time.”

“Don’t we all?” she asked with a chuckle.

“But all he talks about is how much money he makes. That’s all he cares about. He told me bought out this other company, and I asked what was so important about that company, if they had products he was passionate about, and he said it wasn’t about that—just the money. Literally, money is everything to him. If he’s not making more of it, he’s wasting his time.”

“So, it is because of Dex.”

“What? No, I didn’t mention Dex at all.”

“But Dex is the exact opposite of that. He’d be making a lot more money if he weren’t volunteering so much of his time, but that’s not important to him. His work is more important than the fattest check in the world. So yeah, I think it is because of Dex.”

Dex watched the game on the TV while we continued to talk at the dining table, switching back and forth between wine and beer like we didn’t give a damn.

Daisy ran her fingers through her long hair continuously, like she couldn’t sit still, too anxious. “My girlfriends are taking me out tonight. I’m gonna find a fine piece of man and take him home.”

Dex kept his eyes on the TV. “Do you think there’s an invisible wall separating us?”

Daisy flipped him the bird without looking at him. “I want to say I hate his guts, but I don’t. He was a bad-boy cliché from the beginning, and I stupidly thought I would be the one to change him. Lesson learned.”

“So, you kinda pressured him into this?”

“No, actually. I assumed we would never be serious, so I would just go about my life, date other guys, normal stuff, and he didn’t like that. He was actually the one telling me he wanted to be exclusive.”

“Okay…maybe you should hate him.”

She chuckled. “I look back on it now and realize he probably wanted monogamy but nothing serious. He wanted me all to himself for as long as he could have me, but he never wanted to go further than that. I told him we could either