The Guy To Be Seen With (Valentine's Day Survival Guide)

by Harper, Fiona

  He’d thought she’d wanted that too. Something with no complications, no dramas. Definitely no wedding rings.

  He should have known. If a relationship lasted more than six months, that diamond encrusted time bomb was always there, ticking away in the background. And Daniel knew just how deep that glittery shrapnel could embed itself.

  He started climbing again. ‘That’s not all, though,’ he said, glancing at Alan, who was now keeping pace. ‘She told me the radio station is holding her to the contract she signed with them.’

  Alan looked shocked. ‘What? How can they do that? There’s no wedding to cover. You said no.’

  Daniel nodded. ‘That’s what I said. But, for some unknown reason, she feels the need to reinvent herself, and they’re going to follow her around all year while she does it. The Year of Georgia, they’re calling it.’ As if he didn’t feel enough of a heel already.

  Alan’s gift for expletives made itself known again.

  But it wasn’t really the extra media coverage that warranted such a well-timed word. It was a horrible feeling that, by saying no to Georgia, he’d somehow broken her and now she thought she needed to fix herself.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. This was the very reason he chose women carefully, avoided commitment. He wasn’t looking for love and marriage. It was like his pitcher plants—a sticky, sweet-scented trap. Thankfully, unlike a mindless fly, Daniel had a well-developed urge for self-preservation and he usually prided himself on not falling for the lie and getting stuck.

  Until Georgia, of course. A mistake he wouldn’t make again.

  Damn her for seeming so self-sufficient and sensible when underneath she’d been horribly vulnerable. Damn himself for being too caught up in other things to see the truth.

  ‘This thing’s never going to end, is it?’ he asked Alan as he started off towards the top of the wall with renewed vigour.

  Alan shook his head, more in disbelief than in judgement. ‘Look on the bright side,’ he said as he scrambled to keep up. ‘Most men I know would give their right arm to be where you are right now—women flinging themselves at you on a daily basis. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel...’

  Daniel frowned as he swung a foot into place and pushed himself up over an overhang. He didn’t want to shoot fish in a barrel. That was the point!

  He didn’t want wide-eyed adoration from a woman; she was likely to start wanting more than he was prepared to give. No, he liked to meet a woman on equal terms, play the game, have fun while it lasted and move on.

  ‘Most men you know are bloody idiots, then,’ he shouted back at Alan. ‘There’s interested and then there’s desperate and clingy. I know which I prefer.’ And then he shot away from his friend and headed for the top of the wall.

  As he climbed the burning in his fingertips, in his shoulders and arms, soothed him. He forgot all about radio stations and marriage proposals and bloody Valentine’s Day. Instead, he concentrated on the physical sensations of foot meeting wall, fingers grasping hand hold, and after a while a different set of images—a much more appealing set of images—flitted through his brain.

  A flash of a hot-pink shoe. The curve of that tight black skirt as it had gone in and out. The glint of the sun on pale blonde hair as it slanted through the conservatory roof. The wry and sexy curve of a pair of crimson lips as she teased him.

  That staff pass, twirling gently underneath...

  Daniel realised he’d run out of wall. He blinked and looked down. Alan was still struggling with that last overhang.

  Hardly surprising his mind had turned to Chloe Michaels. He’d been thinking about that day in the Princess of Wales Conservatory a lot recently. Unfortunately, memories were all he had at the moment, because he’d hardly seen her at all lately. She was like the disappearing woman, always leaving a place just as he arrived.

  ‘Mate,’ Alan said, panting. ‘If you don’t sort out this woman trouble, you’re going to finish me off. You’ve got to let the whole Georgia thing go.’

  Daniel nodded. Yes. Georgia. That was the only woman trouble he had at the moment. The only woman trouble he should have at the moment.

  But that pair of crimson lips was laughing at him, breathing gently in his ear...

  He shook his head. Bad idea, Daniel. Trap that thought and put it on hold.

  He’d just jumped from the frying pan of one relationship—very publicly—and he wasn’t planning on landing in another romantic fire right now. He needed to sit back and take stock, give himself some breathing room. He shouldn’t be thinking of starting something new, no matter how prettily those little flames danced and invited him in.

  He craned his neck to look at the ceiling. It was far too close to his head. He could do with at least another fifty feet of wall to conquer, something to help him shed this restless energy.

  ‘Women are the last thing on my mind at the moment,’ he told Alan. ‘It’s this wall that’s the problem. I’ve climbed it so many times it’s easy.’

  Alan just grunted.

  With one final look at the ceiling, Daniel started to rappel back down towards the floor. His friend followed suit, matching his pace. ‘I need some real rocks to climb. A proper mountain,’ Daniel added. ‘That’s all.’

  Twenty minutes later, round the corner in The Railway pub near Kew Gardens station, Alan plopped a full pint glass in front of Daniel at the bar. ‘You miss it, don’t you?’ his friend said. ‘Being out in the field?’

  Daniel stared at the tiny bubbles swirling and popping on the surface of his beer. His jaw jutted forwards. ‘I do,’ he replied. Not just the rocks, but the rain on his skin and the wind in his face. The feeling that he was totally free.

  ‘I’m grateful to you for letting me know when this job opened up,’ he said. ‘But it’s just maternity cover, remember? I’ll stick it out until your old boss is back. Kelly will be feeling better by then.’

  He’d suggested his sister move into his house in Chiswick when she’d split up with her husband; he’d been happy to have someone watching over it when he’d been overseas. Before Madagascar, he’d worked at different bases all over South East Asia, collecting seeds, helping various universities and botanical gardens set up their own seed banks, searching for species that had yet to be named and catalogued.

  But then the news had come about Kelly’s diagnosis, and he’d come home and moved in himself. There was no way Kelly could have managed through her surgery and chemotherapy without him.

  The Head of Tropical Plants job had come up shortly afterwards and he’d jumped at it. The perfect solution while he stayed in London and helped his sister with her two rowdy boys, and while he enjoyed the chance to work closely with his favourite plants, to see if he couldn’t produce and name a new variation or two, it had just confirmed to him that Alan was right. This wasn’t what he wanted long-term.

  ‘It’s been over a year now,’ Alan said, ‘and Kelly’s looking pretty fine to me.’

  While Alan’s face had been suspiciously blank, there had been a glint of something in his eyes that Daniel didn’t like. Instantly, he was on his feet. Much as he liked his college friend, he knew what Alan was like with women. ‘Don’t you even dare think about my sister that way,’ he said. ‘She’s off-limits.’

  Alan held his hands up, palms outwards. ‘Whoa there, mate.’

  Daniel sat down again. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. Maybe Alan was right about him being on edge about something. He knew he had a bit of a short fuse, but even the hint of a spark was setting him off these days. ‘She’s been through a lot, Al. The last thing she needs right now is more complications.’

  ‘Gee, thanks,’ Alan said, his tone full of mock offence. ‘That’s a very nice way to refer to your oldest mate—a complication.’

  Daniel’s mouth twitched, despite himself. ‘You know what I mean.’
>
  Alan just grinned at him. ‘Are you sure there’s not woman trouble somewhere on the horizon? Other than your over-enthusiastic ex, that is?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, nothing like that.’

  However, an image flashed across his brain: a saucy smile playing on bright red lips, the little wiggle in her hips as she’d walked away...

  Alan downed a fair amount of his pint and put his glass back down on the bar. ‘In that case, I’d say you really need to get back out to the wilds of God-knows-where again soon.’

  Daniel didn’t answer. He knew what he wanted, what he ached for, but as fine as Kelly looked these days she still tired very easily, and with two small boys to run around after that happened on a fairly regular basis. He reckoned he was here for another six months at the very least.

  ‘I will,’ he replied. ‘When I can. Besides...I’m trying to write a second book.’

  The one he’d been planning for years and finally had time to concentrate on.

  His friend just snorted. ‘Leave the book for when you’re old and grey. In the meantime, you should do something more than rock climbing to blow off steam.’ He took another sip of his beer. ‘How about deer stalking? One of my father’s old friends has invited us on a weekend at his Scottish castle. I can cadge you an invite.’

  Daniel shook his head. Holed up in a draughty old castle with some big city businessmen for the weekend? He’d rather let the deer go free and shoot himself. ‘Not my kind of thing,’ he said firmly.

  ‘Rubbish,’ Alan replied. ‘We’re hunters, you and I. Oh, not in the traditional sense—but you’re always after that rare bit of green stuff no one else can locate. It’s buried deep in our genetic code, the desire to track and conquer...’

  Daniel didn’t add that the tendency to become long-winded after only half a pint was also hardwired into Alan’s DNA. The best thing to do when his friend got like this was to nod and sip his beer in silence, which was exactly what he did.

  Alan made a large gesture with his free hand. ‘Men like us, we need the thrill of the chase!’

  Daniel gave him a sideways look. ‘And when exactly do you hunt?’

  Alan blinked. ‘I fish,’ he said, quite seriously. ‘But what I mean is that sitting in that nursery, with all those captive specimens neatly laid out in rows, must be driving you crazy.’

  Maybe it was. Because how else could he explain falling into a comfortable relationship with Georgia, of not ending it when he should have? When had he ever been the one to take the path of least resistance? All this tame London living must be lulling him into a coma.

  ‘Don’t you worry about me,’ he told Alan as he drained the last of his beer. ‘I might not be up for tramping through damp heather after a bit of venison, but I’ll find something to keep me from going stir crazy. Anyway, there’s more than one way of hunting—the plants I work with have taught me that much.’

  ‘Bloody triffids,’ Alan said, waving his hand at the barmaid to order another beer. Alan wasn’t a fan. He preferred trees. Palms, mostly.

  But Daniel could have told him that the majority of insectivorous plants had no moving parts at all. Perhaps, instead of taking his frustration at the currently slow pace of his life out on innocent climbing walls, he should follow their example: be patient, keep still and see what life brought his way.

  And since, at the moment, life had brought him a nice cold beer, that was what he intended to concentrate on. He took another gulp and let the cool liquid run down the back of his throat.

  ‘Holy Moly,’ Alan suddenly said, swivelling his head towards the door. He slapped Daniel on the side of his arm to get his attention, and Daniel’s nice cold beer sloshed down his front. It seemed that what life gave with one hand it took with the other.

  He swatted at the wet patch on his shirt, then looked past Alan to see what all the fuss was about.

  Holy Moly was about right.

  Chloe Michaels, the disappearing woman, had reappeared in time for after-work drinks with one of the other women from work—Emma, who was passionate about bamboo and eccentric as they came.

  Surprisingly, Chloe doing casual work clothes was every bit as mouth-drying as Chloe Michaels doing smart ones. Those skinny black jeans worked on curves like that—boy, they really did. The ankle-high lace-up boots should have made him think of functional things, like mud and wheelbarrows, but the criss-cross laces brought corsets to mind instead. And then there was the softly clinging grey long-sleeved T-shirt and the leather jacket over the top...

  Leather. In his present state of mind that was a very dangerous word.

  An itch started, right deep inside him. He suddenly knew that he didn’t want to sit back and be patient, see what opportunities life brought his way. He’d spent too long running from the chaos in his life at the moment, letting circumstances chase him. Looking at Chloe Michaels as she glanced round the pub for a seat, her skin fresh, her lips glossy and pink, he knew what he wanted to do.

  Alan was right. It was hard-wired into his Y chromosome.

  He wanted to hunt.

  * * *

  Chloe’s heart had stuttered when she’d walked in the door of The Railway. Damn. She should have known it was a stupid idea to go somewhere so close to the gardens. Because there, not more than fifteen feet away, was Daniel Bradford—or Drop-Dead Daniel, as some of the social media sites were now calling him—hunched over a beer. And he was looking every bit as gorgeous as his new nickname suggested.

  Nope, she told herself. You’re finished with that crush. It’d breathed its last breath ten years ago, and she wasn’t planning on resurrecting it. Still, there wasn’t any harm in hedging her bets and just keeping out of his way to make sure. She tugged at Emma’s sleeve, about to suggest they try the wine bar farther down the smart little parade of shops and cafés, but Daniel chose that moment to turn round.

  Their gazes locked, and the heat filling his eyes short-circuited her vocal cords.

  It also made her very angry.

  His timing really sucked, didn’t it? Because if he’d looked at her like that a decade ago she wouldn’t be in this mess right now. She might have been in a whole different kind of mess, but at least she wouldn’t have been humiliated beyond belief.

  ‘Hi, Daniel!’ Now Emma was waving and making her way over to him. Great.

  Chloe’s plan had been going so well. She’d been effortlessly avoiding Mr Drop Dead, but maybe she should have guessed it had all been too easy, that she would have to put her resolve to the test at some point. So she tipped her chin up, smiled and followed Emma towards the bar.

  It was at that point she realised Daniel was with someone—a good-looking blond—so she transferred her gaze to him, offered him her smile instead. The grin he returned said he wasn’t ungrateful for it.

  A dark thundercloud passed across Daniel’s expression and settled there. The skin on the backs of Chloe’s knees started to tingle and the smile on her face set. She didn’t let it drop, though. No need to panic. A quick chat with the two men and she and Emma would be on their way.

  She nodded at him. ‘Hey there, Indiana.’

  A flash of lightning left that thundercloud and zapped her right between the eyebrows.

  She left Emma to gush at Daniel while she turned her attention back to the blond. ‘Who’s your friend?’ she asked, slightly disappointed that there was not even a hint of a tickle at the backs of her knees as she met his appreciative gaze, even though this man was every bit as good-looking as his friend.

  ‘You two know each other?’ the blond asked incredulously. ‘How come you’ve never introduced us before?’ He held out his hand. ‘Alan Harrison,’ he said, enfolding Chloe’s hand in his own, before turning back to Daniel. ‘And you call yourself a mate.’

  ‘You’ve only just got back from Greece,’ Daniel muttered. ‘
She started while you were away.’

  Chloe attempted to release her hand, but it seemed Alan wasn’t quite ready to let go of it yet. She smiled coolly. ‘I’m new at the botanical gardens.’

  Alan’s eyes widened. ‘You’re another plant nerd, like us? I’d never have guessed.’

  She flinched inwardly at his words, but her smile grew ever brighter on the surface. ‘Guilty as charged.’ Really guilty. So she’d got a good haircut, learned how to apply liquid eyeliner... Deep inside she was still as much of a plant nerd as she’d ever been.

  Alan rested an elbow on the bar and casually looked her up and down. ‘You really don’t look like one,’ he said, a slightly wolfish glimmer creeping into his eyes.

  Chloe kept her smile fixed. ‘Haven’t you heard?’ She nodded in Daniel’s direction. ‘Thanks to your pal there, plant nerd is the new sexy.’

  ‘Oh, it really is,’ Emma said in a breathy rush, looking at Daniel.

  Chloe pressed her lips together to stop herself from laughing. Daniel’s expression had darkened further, but there was a hint of panic at the backs of his eyes, one she recognised from the day she’d met him hiding from his silver-haired fan club.

  But then Daniel looked back at her, and that glint of something changed and warmed. Suddenly, she was the one panicking inside.

  She didn’t want him to look at her like that, as if he’d like to...

  She wasn’t going to finish that thought. It was far too X-rated. And far too dangerous.

  ‘What can we get you two ladies to drink?’ Alan asked.

  Chloe tried to speak, tried to tell him that it was okay, that she and Emma were just going to find a quiet table in the corner and chat about bamboo, but nothing came out. Not quickly enough, anyway.

  ‘Gin and tonic, please,’ Emma said loudly.

  Chloe didn’t have much of a choice now. It would look really rude if she refused. Still, Emma had to be away in half an hour. How bad could it be? She was going to have to work alongside Daniel occasionally. Maybe this would be good practice.