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

by Harper, Fiona

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Done.’

  So Chloe gathered up her courage, and her pride, and followed him inside.

  * * *

  Daniel fetched the first-aid kit from the kitchen cupboard and placed it on the kitchen table, thereby avoiding any need for physical contact. Whose benefit that was for, he wasn’t sure. Despite Chloe’s recent behaviour, his brain had not got the message through to his libido that she was better left alone. What business did she have looking so soft and approachable, even when she was staring up at him defiantly and telling him just how badly he’d got it wrong?

  ‘There are plasters and disinfectant in there,’ he said.

  Chloe gave him a withering look. ‘I haven’t lost my IQ in the last week, you know,’ she said. ‘I have a fairly good grasp on the contents of a first-aid kit.’

  Daniel squeezed his teeth together and said nothing.

  Chloe ran her finger under the tap, attempting to clean the thick lotion away so she could see the damage. ‘It’s not very deep,’ she said, moving it back and forth under the stream of water, ‘just bleeding impressively. A plaster should do it.’

  Daniel handed her a clean towel. She took it without looking at him. As she dried her finger she shook her head gently.

  ‘We spent a lot of time together over the last couple of months, but you don’t know me at all.’

  ‘That’s hardly surprising, since you were pretending to be something you’re not.’

  Much to his surprise, Chloe laughed softly. ‘No, I wasn’t. I just didn’t look like the silly nineteen-year-old you remembered, but I’m still the same person on the inside. You didn’t look deep enough—now or then—to see the truth.’ She dabbed her finger with the towel, decorating it with tiny red smears. ‘You were just fixated on the outside package. You didn’t care what was underneath. And you’re still fixated on the outside package. All you can see now is one of those silly women who follow you around, and I’m not one of them, either.’

  A look of relief washed over her face as she said that last sentence. She inhaled and the hint of a smile played on her lips.

  Daniel frowned. He didn’t want to think about whether she was right about that. Anyway, she hadn’t acted perfectly in the situation, either. ‘You should have been upfront and honest with me, right from the start. It would have stopped me—’

  She laughed. ‘What? Making a fool of yourself? Welcome to the club, Daniel.’

  He supposed she had him there. However stupid he must have felt knowing he hadn’t realised who she was, she must have felt ten times as bad when he’d stormed off her boat the previous week.

  ‘Why hide it?’ he asked. ‘If you were okay with it?’

  She checked her finger and clamped the towel back around it. ‘I didn’t.’ She looked down at the red-flecked towel, and then she met his eyes. ‘At least, I didn’t plan to. That first day when I came to find you, I was making a pre-emptive strike. I’d planned to ’fess up and make light of it, let you know I’d grown up and moved on... But you didn’t remember me. As far as I knew, you didn’t remember that night either.’

  ‘So you lied.’

  Chloe shook her head and sighed. ‘Oh, how wonderful it must be to live in that perfect black-and-white world of yours. I didn’t lie, I just decided not to dredge it up if you’d forgotten the whole thing. How would you have reacted if I’d said: “Hi, Daniel! Remember that tubby student who launched herself at you a few years back? That was me! Aren’t you thrilled?”’

  Okay, he kind of saw her point.

  She pulled the towel away from her hand and inspected the cut. It wasn’t oozing any more, so, forgetting about the not touching thing, Daniel reached for a plaster, unpeeled its wrapper and stuck it over the cut, winding the ends firmly round her finger.

  Chloe didn’t say anything while he did this, but when he stepped away again she said, ‘I just thought the past could stay in the past, where it belonged—neither of us are the same people we were back then—and that we could work together as sensible adults. That was my plan, and I stuck to it. It was you who tipped everything on its head!’

  Daniel straightened and stared at her. ‘Me?’

  That twinkle of humour that he now recognised as a precursor to one of Chloe’s stinging truths appeared in her eyes. ‘Yes, you, Indiana. Who was it who decided to kiss me in the Palm House, to flirt with me continually? Who was it that was trying to woo me?’

  ‘I did not woo,’ he said, slightly affronted. That term made him think of lovesick idiots who couldn’t help themselves.

  ‘Yes, you certainly did woo. What was that picnic about, then? Or the cosy dinner with your family to get me to let my guard down...?’ She saw the expression on his face and carried on vindicated. ‘Oh, yes, I’m wise to the way you operate now, and you can’t chalk all that up as my desperate behaviour. I didn’t engineer any of those things, you did. You know what...?’

  He wasn’t really sure he did want to know, but she was on a roll now.

  ‘In fact,’ she said, ‘if I was a man and you were a woman, you’d be the stalker and I’d be the stud. How fair is that?’

  Not fair at all. But Daniel wasn’t going to tell her that. Not when he was remembering just how much he had wooed. Just how much he hadn’t been able to help himself, how desperate he’d been to make her his. In the physical sense, of course. It had nothing to do with her bright personality and quick humour, the way he felt lighter—freer—when he was with her.

  Chloe inspected her finger and seemed pleased with it. She zipped the little green first-aid kit back up and put it on the table with a slight lift of one eyebrow. Copying him. Mocking him.

  ‘I’m not obsessed with you,’ she said. ‘And rest assured I will not attempt to seduce you ever again.’

  Why did his body tighten in response to her words, rather than back away?

  ‘I think it’s a good idea if we just steer clear of each other from now on,’ she added.

  ‘Okay.’ Daniel nodded, but he didn’t really like that idea for some reason. There’d been a great deal of satisfaction in striding round the tropical plant nursery like a bear with a sore head, feeling the injured party. It had blocked out all those niggling little regrets he’d had about that night: how he’d spoken to her. Even worse, how he wished he’d stayed...

  ‘Let’s just be calm and professional. That way everyone at work can go back to minding their own business again—no drama to see—and we can get on with our jobs and our lives.’

  ‘Okay...’

  Her brow wrinkled, and Daniel couldn’t help remember how, when she’d been sitting on his lap, all but naked, she’d made the same face as his lips trailed down her neck and across her shoulder, how it had seemed she’d been lost in concentrating on every touch and taste.

  ‘It sounds as if there’s a but in there somewhere.’

  ‘No,’ he said, mildly confused with all the conflicting messages his body and brain were sending him. One was saying run; one was telling him to make her make that slightly pained look of pleasure again. ‘It’s just that I’m not used to—’

  ‘Women being so reasonable around you?’ she interjected saucily. ‘Using their silly heads instead of being ramped up on their hormones and acting desperate?’

  She waited for him to answer, but he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

  ‘I know you’ve had to put up with some weird behaviour since Valentine’s Day,’ she said, her demeanour softening slightly, ‘but, honestly, you need to get over yourself. Not every woman you meet wants to marry you, Daniel. But, one day, somebody might, and if you don’t calm down you’re going to scare her off.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m never getting married,’ he said emphatically. Maybe too emphatically, because Chloe suddenly looked at him with a mixture of realisation and pity. H
e hated the pity the most. But he needn’t have worried. It quickly clouded over with a darker emotion.

  ‘Then you’re a coward as well as a bighead,’ she said.

  Ouch.

  ‘What is the big, bad, adventuring Daniel Bradford scared of?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said blandly.

  She backed away towards the door. ‘Now who’s the liar?’ she said softly. ‘Okay, I got it wrong—I made a move on the wrong person—but at least I had the guts to try. I made myself vulnerable, took a chance. I’ll never find the right man for me if I don’t.’

  He must have had horror written all over his face at her words, because he saw her read him, saw her muscles tighten and her jaw clench.

  ‘Yes, I want to get married...some day,’ she said, lifting her chin. ‘What’s so wrong with that? Millions of people do every year. But you...’ The look she gave him made his insides wither. It reminded him of another look, another woman, another barrage of accusations he hadn’t been able to defend himself against. Rather than crumble under the weight of them, Daniel fired up his temper to match hers.

  ‘You,’ she continued, her voice shaking slightly, ‘you’re too scared to even try. A wedding ring won’t melt your finger like acid, you know! One conquest after the next... Is that really what you want? Does that really make you happy?’

  No! he wanted to yell at her.

  So he did.

  ‘No, but I’ve been down the other path and I’m not going back there!’

  There was a flicker of hesitation in her self-righteous expression and it fuelled him further. He couldn’t let her be right about everything, couldn’t let her make him seem shallow and pathetic.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, ‘What “other path”?’

  He marched over to her, stared her down, let her know he wasn’t scared of her and her words. He’d lived through far worse. ‘I mean,’ he said, his voice low and silky, ‘that I once had a wife and a son. I did the whole marriage thing, the whole ’til-death-do-us-part thing and it didn’t work out so well.’

  When he mentioned the word death her lashes blinked rapidly and she swallowed. ‘She died?’ she asked, barely more than whispering.

  ‘No,’ Daniel said, turning away, hardly able to look at Chloe again. He hated the fact that a tiny voice had piped up inside his head, telling him it might have been better that way. ‘No, it was until “death do us part” but it wasn’t hers.’ His voice dried and he had to swallow to get it back. ‘My son. Cot death. Six months old.’

  He turned back to Chloe. He’d thought he’d feel vindicated, but the look of complete shock on her face actually made him feel a little queasy. He could tell she was searching for words. There weren’t any. He knew that for a fact.

  ‘Something as fragile as a marriage can’t handle that,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t even there...I was off in some jungle, being the big explorer.’

  He let out a huff of dry laughter.

  ‘She never forgave me, you know. It killed everything we had. So, no, I don’t want to get married again. Excuse me for that.’

  Chloe’s eyes filled with tears. She swallowed them down, stepped forward and reached for him. ‘Oh, Daniel...I’m so sorry.’

  He shook his head, backed away until his backside met the counter. He didn’t want her pity. ‘Thank you for Kelly’s present,’ he said calmly. ‘She’s fine, by the way. A last-minute opportunity to go on a training course that she couldn’t pass up. Nothing to worry about.’ He looked at the paper bag with its drooping string handles, still where he’d left it in the centre of the kitchen table. ‘If you’ll tell me where you got it, I’ll replace the broken one.’

  She shook her head.

  So she didn’t want to owe him anything now, not even that. Maybe it was for the best.

  ‘Daniel...’

  He turned to stare out of the window, down the garden. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Let’s just steer clear of each other. Calm and professional.’

  For a long time she didn’t move; he could hear her breathing softly, a slight catch in the rhythm now and then. He screwed up his face, desperately trying to hold onto the churning chaos inside that he’d called up with his admission. Eventually, he heard the rustle of the paper bag as she lifted it off the table, her heels on the tiled hallway, the soft thud of the front door being closed gently.

  And then Daniel let go of the breath he’d been holding and did something he hadn’t done in years. He cried.

  TEN

  And that was what Daniel and Chloe did for the next few months, through the bright days of August, the balmy warmth of an Indian Summer and into the rusts and golds of October. They steered clear of each other. Not too much, of course, because that would have created even more tension and gossip, but they were cordial and professional and those around them eventually lost interest.

  Chloe also discovered a pleasing side effect of being Daniel’s supposed ex—her nickname died out, and some of the female staff who’d previously kept their distance made an effort to befriend her, asked her out after work sometimes. It seemed everyone had a story to tell about a failed crush on Daniel Bradford. She and Georgia weren’t the only members of that club. But with her credentials, Chloe thought she should be president. Or possibly queen...

  But maybe it also had something to do with the fact that, as the trees lost their leaves, Chloe also shed some of her less practical work clothes. She swapped skirts for trousers, left the uncomfortable shoes for the weekends. One morning she’d just found herself staring in the mirror, red lipstick in hand. What was the point now? Who was she trying to impress?

  Not Daniel, even though he was constantly in her thoughts.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d told her. No wonder he avoided anything approaching intimacy. No wonder a woman who looked as if she might cling on and never let go was a threat. She understood it all now. And she ached for him because, while she understood it, she knew he was closing every open door around himself, and one day he’d wake up old and lonely. It was a sad future for a man who was so energetic and fearless in other areas of his life, a man who had such passion.

  One morning Chloe checked her email before starting work and found a message from Kew’s PR team. She’d been summoned to a meeting regarding the upcoming orchid festival. Every February, when the grounds outside were still grey and brown, when only the tips of the first crocuses were pushing through the grass, the Princess of Wales Conservatory became a riot of colour and beauty. Chloe had been looking forward to it all year; it would be her chance to really shine, show her superiors what she could do. And she desperately needed something in her life to go right at the moment.

  At the appointed hour, she made her way to the PR offices and knocked on Sarah Milton’s door. When she entered the office, however, she got a surprise. She wasn’t the only one who’d been summoned. Daniel was also there, sitting in one of the chairs opposite Sarah’s desk.

  Chloe shook Sarah’s hand, smiling, and then did the same to Daniel, figuring it would look odd if she treated him differently. It had been the first time they’d really touched since that awful night on her houseboat, and she’d hoped that all residual attraction would have faded by now.

  She couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Instead, her skin leapt to life, tingling all the way up her arm. As if her nerve-endings had been lying dormant, waiting for something to wake them up. Waiting for him to wake them up.

  She sat down in the remaining vacant chair and folded her hands in her lap.

  Sarah, an elegant woman in her late forties, smiled at both of them and leaned forward on her desk, lacing her fingers together. ‘I heard the two of you had plans for a combined display in the Princess of Wales,’ she said, raising her eyebrows slightly.

  She and Daniel looked at each other, th
en back at Sarah. ‘Yes, but we kind of...put it on hold,’ Chloe said.

  The minuscule nod of Sarah’s head said she knew that—and exactly why.

  ‘We’d like you to resurrect the idea for this year’s orchid festival in February,’ she said. ‘We’re thinking of calling the festival something like “Beauty and the Beast” or “Savage Beauty”. It’ll be great for PR to do something a little different this year.’

  Chloe sneaked a look at Daniel. His expression told her just how enthused he was by that idea.

  ‘The last thing I need is more media attention,’ he said.

  Sarah just smiled at him, a long, thin, lizard’s smile. ‘Well, it’s not really about you, is it, Daniel? It’s supposed to be about the plants.’

  Daniel just glared back at her.

  Chloe found she just couldn’t sit there and say nothing. ‘I know it should be about the plants, but we all know the media will get any story they can out of it, the juicier the better. You have to admit that Daniel will be a target.’

  Now Daniel was glaring at her instead. Great.

  Sarah, however, wasn’t fazed. ‘We’re going to run the festival for a week, with an auction for some of the display pieces on the last day to raise money for the Kew foundation,’ she said. ‘So book the fourteenth off in your diaries.’

  ‘The fourteenth?’ she and Daniel said in unison.

  Daniel shook his head. ‘But that’s exactly one year on from—’

  ‘Look, there’s going to be media interest anyway,’ Sarah said quickly. ‘We might as well do it on our terms. What do you think?’

  Chloe exhaled. What did she think about it? She loved the idea, knowing that the orchids and pitcher plants would look amazing together, but it would mean working with Daniel. She tipped her head a little and looked across at him again. His expression was unreadable, features set like stone. But saying no to the powers that be on her very first festival would not go down well. She’d waited years for this job, and she didn’t want to jeopardise her future here by being labelled as difficult.