Page 121 of The Life Daisy Devlin Designed
“We’re not back together, James. He’s with Kayley.”
“So why didn’t you just tell me that the last time I asked?”
“I didn’t know about Kayley. But would it have made any difference? I tried to tell you nothing had happened between us, but you didn’t believe me.”
When James said nothing, Daisy tried to organise her thoughts.
“Remember when you said before that it was my fault that Matt bought that app? The thing is, I didn’t tell him, but Ididtell Laura and she mentioned it to Brian. Matt told me earlier this evening.”
She met James’ eyes, and half-wished she hadn’t said anything. Too late now. She might as well go on.
“Matt said he bought the app as payback for you buying his and Charlie’s airline software five years ago. He said you’d ripped them off by giving them a fraction of what it was worth.”
James’ face had lost all its colour, and Daisy felt her heart break a little.
“I told him you wouldn’t have done anything like that.”
“So, let me get this straight.” James’ voice sounded strange. “Your ex-boyfriend is taking revenge on me because of something that happened five years ago?”
“Something he thinks happened, obviously.”
He shook his head. “Maybe if he’d tried harder to get some seed money for his idea, instead of just blabbing to everyone about it.”
“Well, yeah.” Daisy frowned. “But that’s nothing to do with you. I mean, you gave Matt and Charlie a decent price, didn’t you?”
He sighed. “It was early days for me and the others, Daisy. I had to get the company up and running, and I gave them what I thought I’d get away with. Charlie signed a contract. What else do you want me to say?”
“That you didn’t stiff them?”
“For fuck sake, Daisy!” He gave an angry laugh. “It was business! Matt was shooting his mouth off – all I did was go to his brother with an offer.”
Daisy felt a bit sick. “Do you know that he and Charlie fell out over that? Matt didn’t want to sell – he said you screwed them over.”
“Charlie wanted out!” James said tightly.
“What?”
“Charlie only helped Matt develop that software because Matt asked him to.”
Daisy stared at James, wondering what else she didn’t know about him.
“How come you never told me you bought that software from them?” she said finally.
“Because I barely knew you at the time,remember?” James sounded exasperated. “I mean, I knew you’d dated Matt, but it didn’t seem that important that I’d had some business dealings with his brother!”
Daisy felt her eyes closing, as a fresh wave of tiredness hit her. “Well, I guess he never forgave you. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about the app.”
“Is that it?” James said.
Was that what?Her brain seemed to have shut down. She just wanted to sleep, and wake up tomorrow morning with this whole evening behind her.
She’d had no idea what closure looked like, but she could never have foreseen what had happened tonight. If there were any loose ends on Granary House, she’d get Fionn to look after them. She’d send Matt the final bill. She and James had already paid heavily for everything else.
CHAPTER 55
A total of seven people have died as a result of Storm Iris, including an elderly driver and two passengers, who were killed when a tree fell on their car in Galway city.
Meanwhile, American country singer, Kayley Lynch, was forced to cancel her first Irish gig at Granary House, County Wicklow, when the car she was driving overturned in heavy flooding. Ms Lynch dislocated her shoulder, but in a dramatic rescue was airlifted to hospital in Dublin by the emergency services, along with her Irish fiancé, Matt Deveraux, and two other people.
