DON’T STOP (Lila and Darrell) novel Chapter 93

Chapter 93

Norman

I knew before she even opened her mouth

The scuffed heel The loose strands escaping her ponytail The flush cross her cheekbones dat had nothing to do with emotion and everything to do with exertion The slight heave of her shoulders as she pulled in breath and tried to make it look casual.

She ran

Daisy Wright, CEO of Wright Dynamics, ice queen of the California tech corridor had run throught the wrents in get here I that blazer. In those heels. Under the July sun.

Something moved in my chest that I wasn’t going to name.

I set Evelyn down slowly, hands dropping from her waist. Evelyn had gone very still beside me, her smile carefully neutral her eyes moving between Daisy and me with the quiet alertness of someone doing rapid calculations

Smart girl.

Daisy’s eyes were locked on mine.

‘Norman.” My name in her mouth. It sounded clipped, loaded, and dangerous. Like a safety being clicked off

‘Daisy,” I said. Easy. Unbothered. “You look-”

“Don’t.” The word landed like a blade on the table. She stepped fully into the room, letting the door swing behind her, her chin lifted despite everything, despite the heat still radiating off her skin, despite the flyaways, despite arriving twenty minutes too late to a battle she’d already lost. “Where is the committee?”

‘Gone.”

Her jaw flexed.

The contract-”

“Signed”

I watched a hit her Watched her absorb it the way Daisy absorbed everything she refuses to lechee controlled breath, a slight stillness, a recalibration so fast most people would miss it.

I wasn’t most people

“You undermined us by twelve percent” she said her voice dropping to something low and pick the and absomit farends “You leaked our specs to the press before the bud even closed that is not competition. Norman that is cabecagal

know it-

“It’s business”

“It’s dirty”

“It’s effective.” I said calmly. “There’s a difference”

Her eyes flashed “You haven’t changed at all

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Chapter 93

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Neither have you Luilted my head slightly. “You still run toward every fire instead of around it Laterally apparently

The words landed. I saw them land. Her chic lifted another fraction of an inch and it meant I’d gotten under her skin, and she was furious about it

that told me she’d never managed to hx.

Evelyn cleared her throat softly beside me

Daisy’s gaze cut to her. It was brief but very sharp. Then she looked bark to me

“This isn’t over,” Daisy said.

“It never is with us.” I held her stare. “But for today – yes, Daisy. It is.”

The silence stretched between us like a live wire.

Then she turned on her scuffed heel and walked out.

No slammed door this time. Just the quiet, deliberate click of it closing behind her, which somehow was worse

I stared at the empty doorway for a moment longer than I should have.

‘Norman.” Evelyn’s voice, quiet.

‘Mm.”

‘You were smiling.”

I turned away from the door and reached for my water bottle.

‘No. I wasn’t.”

EVENING**

The penthouse was quiet, the way I liked it.

City lights spread out beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, many floors of distance between me and everything below Up aere the noise didn’t reach. Up here everything was still and controlled and exactly as I’d arranged it

Evelyn was curled on the couch with a glass of red wine, heels off, legs ucked beneath her, looking criture, whose SW3 changed into one of my shirts at some point. It was oversized, sliding off one shoulder and was flipping tough on th on her phone with the easy comfort of someone who’d stopped performing for the eventing

She looked good.

She looked happy

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I stood at the kitchen counter, jacket off, sleeves rolled pouring myself a drink I didn’t particularly want the appartenen smelt like the Thai food we’d ordered an hour ago. containers still scattered across she collec table, the soutionabir wreckage of an easy night in

This was good. This was exactly what I’d wanted

I set the glass down

“You’ve gone quiet,” Evelyn said from the couch, not looking up from her phone

8:44 am P

Chapter 93

#ui always quiet

3 vouche

“You’re usually a different kind of quiet” She glanced up ther,, studying me with those careful eyes. This is the thinking

kind.”

I picked up my drink and crossed to the window. The city glittered. Somewhere out there, across town. Dansy Wright was what? Debriefing her board? Calling Steve? Sitting in her immaculate apartment, rebuilding her walls hark by bedo the w she always did after something got through them?

Not that anything had gotten through them.

That flicker in her eyes had been nothing. A half second. Barely even-

“Norman.”

I turned.

Evelyn was watching me from the couch, wine glass balanced on her knee, expression patient and unreadable in the way that meant she was reading everything perfectly.

“Come sit down,” she said. “You didn’t call me here to just overthink, huh? Besides, what are you even thinking about whet you got what you wanted today?”

I crossed the room and dropped onto the couch beside her. She immediately swung her legs across my laprast comfortable, like we’d been doing this for years instead of hours. I rested a hand on her ankle.

Better. This was better.

She went back to her phone. I looked at the window.

“She’s not what I expected,” Evelyn said.

I went very still.

“Daisy Wright.” She said it lightly, casually, like she was commenting on the weather. Her eyes stayed on her phone det pictures. Read interviews. But in person she’s-” she paused, choosing carefully- “different.

“She’s exactly what she appears to be,” I said.

Evelyn made a small sound. Not agreement. Not disagreement. Just acknowledgement, the way she bd when she decided not to push

I took a slow sip of my drink

The flashback of Daisy running across the city in the heat and still walking to that room like she owed it came licha

mind I hated that I’d noticed

I hated that I was still noticing now, fifty three floors up with my gulfwod’s legs across my lap and a drink in my hart absolutely no reason to be thinking about Daisy Wright at all

Evelyn shifted closer, her head dropping to my shoulder

“Hey,” she said softly

“Hey”

1:44 am

Chapte

PP

Wherever you just were.” She tilted her face up toward mine Come back

I looked down at her and gave a warm smile

Leaning forward. I pressed us to her forehead.

I’m here,” I said

She smiled against my shoulder.

looked back at the window.

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