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“Me?” Allie’s eyebrows dipped. “I’m fine. Why?”
“You’ve just seemed a little distracted yesterday and today … and kind of sad.”
“Oh.” Despite the constant ache in her chest and the incessant need to check her phone to see if Hugh had been in touch, Allie had thought she’d done a good job of hiding her feelings.
Apparently not.
“I’m okay,” she said, not sounding convincing even to her own ears,
“It must be stressful for you with the whole thing with Kevin and taking over the running of this place. Your dad was ill too, wasn’t he? Is he all right?”
“Yes. He seems to have recovered well.” That was at least one thing to be thankful for.
“It’s not the easiest time for you though?” Daisy prompted.
“Hugh broke up with me,” she said, her chest tightening around the words. She also felt a little foolish for confiding in Daisy. Given her ridiculous reaction on Saturday night, she hadn’t even told Bella what had happened. It felt too humiliating to discuss.
Daisy gave her a sad smile. “I thought something was going on with you two, but I wasn’t sure and I didn’t like to ask.”
“I met him right when I arrived and we’ve been dating. It felt pretty serious, but then on Saturday he ended things …” She paused and covered her face with a hand. “At least he tried to.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s so embarrassing.” She pushed her hip against the counter. “He said he didn’t think things would work out between us and I essentially told him he couldn’t end things … that I didn’t accept that.”
“Oh. Well.” Daisy pressed her lips together.
“You’re not supposed to laugh at me!” Allie said, keeping her voice low so the customers couldn’t overhear.
“Sorry,” Daisy giggled. “That’s pretty funny though. What did Hugh say?”
“Not much. I said he needed to go away and think about it properly, so he did. He must think I’m a complete nutcase.” She drew in a breath. “In my defence, I do think he might just have been having a temporary freak-out.”
“How so?” Daisy asked, then sipped her coffee.
“Because everything was so easy between us to start with. His daughter was away for the school holidays and I was only working part time with the waitressing. Now everything has changed and I suspect he’s just not good with change. He likes things to be neat and ordered, so it kind of makes sense that he’d panic. Especially since he looked me up on the internet.”
“Oh!” Daisy’s eyes lit up. “I wanted to ask you about that. I saw a photo of you with Alasdair King. Is he as good looking in real life as he is in photos?”
“Yeah, he pretty much is.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to get off topic. What are you going to do about Hugh? Have you heard from him since his attempt at breaking up with you?”
“I haven’t heard from him.” She pouted. “I’m not sure what to do. I was hoping he’d get in touch.”
“Yes,” Daisy said. “Wait to hear from him. I’m sure he’ll call you.”
“I hope so.”
“There’s something else I wanted to ask you about,” Daisy said, eyebrows pulling together. “I was sort of waiting for a good time.”
“What is it?”
“I was just wondering how things will be when Cynthia comes back to work. How we’ll split the workload and responsibilities.”
“I’ve been thinking about that too,” Allie said. “To be honest, I’m not sure how it will work considering you both now have the same level of experience. You possibly have more than her now. I was hoping the three of us could sit down together and chat it through sometime. I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”
“I have an idea, but I’m not sure you’ll go for it.”
