Page 8 of Dare to Love Me

Or when I’m soaking in a bubble bath, staring at my own knees poking out of the foam, running mental maths on how many bidets I’d have to sell to scrape together a deposit for a shitty one-bed London flat, only to land on the bleak realization that it’s every bidet. All the fucking bidets in the world.

Or when I’m demonstrating garden tools to insomniacs at three a.m., my lizard brain is always there, nagging me in its most obnoxious tone:But when was the last time someone properly, thoroughly, ruined you?

Lizzie hugs me goodbye, and I can practically feel the pity radiating off her.

I turn to the mirror and meet my own gaze, those sad, hazel-brown eyes staring right back at me, searching for answers I’ll never find. Begging to understand why we weren’t enough. Why we’ll never be enough for men like the Cavendishes.

Because you’re common as muck, Daisy. Because you’re the girl they fuck before they marry the girl their mother picked out.

I inhale sharply, forcing my expression into something harder.

“Right then,” I tell my reflection. “Time to let a doctor perform a thorough examination.”

CHAPTER 3

Daisy

I blame the martinisfor what tumbles out of my mouth next. “So, how many bums do you look at per day?”

Even for me, this is breaking new dating ground. But I need something jarring to stop me from spiraling back into that pit of “my ex is newly engaged, and I had a meltdown over a bidet on live TV.”

You don’t just bounce back from that kind of emotional carnage with a cup of tea and a biscuit.

Hot Dr. Spencer doesn’t even flinch. He shifts on his barstool, running a hand through his thick, wavy hair. He’s a gastroenterologist at Waterloo East, and from what I’ve pieced together over the past hour, he’s basically James Bond with an endoscope.

His lips curve into a lazy grin. “Are we talking work-related or . . . recreational activities?”

I nearly choke on my drink. “Professional capacity,” I clarify, though my imagination is now going places involving latex gloves and compromising positions.

He laughs. “I perform about ten colonoscopies a day.”

I blink, letting the sheer volume of it sink in. “Ten bums. Every single day.”

“Is that admiration or horror I’m hearing?”

“Bit of both,” I admit, swirling the remnants of my drink. “Does it, uh, change how you see people? Like, are we all just walking . . . medical cases to you now?”

What I’m really asking is whether he’ll be mentally grading my ass on a clinical scale when my clothes hit the floor later. Because five cocktails deep, with his fingers drawing lazy patterns on my thigh, that’s very much where this night is heading.

“I can switch off doctor mode when I clock out.” He leans in, his broad shoulders cutting into my personal space in a way I absolutely do not mind.

He pauses, the playful glint in his eye sharpening. “Every bum’s like a fingerprint—no two are the same.”

A laugh bursts out of me. “You should get that printed on NHS posters.”

He chuckles, lifting his neon blue cocktail and draining it with alarming ease.

I watch him, half curious, half concerned, wondering if his liver’s made of steel or if tomorrow’s patients should seriously consider rescheduling their intimate examinations.

He’s got this baby-faced charm, the kind that makes me wonder if he still gets IDed buying paracetamol.

Too young to be a doctor, you’d think.

But then he speaks—that crisp, posh Westminster drawl, all clipped vowels and old-money polish—

And it’s like Charlie’s crawled out of my skull to slap me mid-date.

The thought stomps all over my painstakingly crafted buzz.