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

by Harper, Fiona

  Kelly stared at her, a pained expression on her face. ‘I don’t know...I want him to be, and I thought he was getting better, but me being ill brought it all up again. He seemed to shut down further. I think I scared the hell out of him.’

  Chloe smiled softly. ‘He loves you. Anyone can see that.’

  One corner of Kelly’s mouth curled. ‘Well, I am pretty lovable.’

  There was a noise on the stairs—Daniel’s heavy tread—and Chloe gathered the rest of her belongings together and put them in her bag. She stood up and smiled first at Kelly and then at Daniel as he entered the room.

  ‘I’d better be going,’ she said. ‘It’s been a long day.’

  Before she had any more wine. Before she let it encourage her to do something stupid—like believing she could mend Daniel Bradford if she wanted to badly enough.

  ELEVEN

  It was a bright, crisp Saturday afternoon. Chloe and Daniel met in her living room, more out of choice than necessity. It was Ben’s third birthday and Daniel’s house was undergoing a mutiny at the hands of a gang of knee-high pirates.

  It felt like returning to the scene of a crime, even though it was her own space. She’d managed to block the memories out while she’d been on her own, but when Daniel rapped on the big glass door at the end of her living room, it all came flooding back. Thank goodness for the steely winter light seeping into every corner, making everything seem bleak and grey. She didn’t think she could have stood it if it had been like that night—humid and warm and intimate.

  They sat at her dining table, Chloe filling in the huge master plan she’d sketched out while Daniel pointed and made suggestions.

  ‘I’ve had an idea for that arch we’re going to have over the pool,’ she told him. ‘I know we said colourful, but I wondered if, rather than an explosion of shades, we did something more structured?’

  Daniel stopped scribbling on a scrap of paper in his scratchy handwriting. ‘Like?’

  ‘I’m thinking the arch could be a spectrum of colours, like a rainbow.’

  Daniel screwed up his face. ‘Stripes? I don’t think we’ve got enough room.’

  She shook her head gently. ‘No...not so literal. I was thinking more of a gradual colour change, starting with reds and oranges at one end of the arch and subtly merging all the way through the different shades until we get to purples and violets at the other.’ She pulled her notebook out and showed him a sketch she’d done the night before. ‘Like this...with ferns and pitchers and palm leaves all interspersed throughout.’ And she made a few deft pencil lines on the drawing to show him what she meant.

  He picked the pad up and stared at it, and then he looked at her.

  It was that expression again. The one that made her want to throw ‘calm and professional’ out of the window and drown it in the river. She pushed her chair back and headed for her kitchenette.

  ‘I want a coffee. Do you want a coffee?’ And then she busied herself filling the kettle so she didn’t have to wait for his answer.

  She heard him cross the carpet to meet her, but she kept on fussing with sugar pots and instant coffee jars all the same.

  ‘Chloe?’ His voice was soft as velvet.

  ‘I’ll be right with you in a minute,’ she said brightly, and noticed her hand was shaking as she tried to pour boiling water into the mugs.

  Daniel came up behind her, took the kettle out of her hand and placed it back on its base. Then he put a hand on each shoulder and turned her to face him. ‘I think the arch idea is very much like the woman who created it.’

  Chloe swallowed. Naive? Out of step? Been there, done that before?

  He smiled a little as he read the emotions flitting over her face. ‘I think it’s inspired,’ he said. ‘Complicated. Unique.’

  Oh, hell, thought Chloe.

  Then he leaned towards her and brushed his lips against hers. She froze for a moment, before kissing him back then pulling away. ‘This isn’t a good idea.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She stepped away and folded her arms across her middle to keep them from doing anything stupid. ‘Because, one day, I will want a husband and a family and you don’t want those things.’

  ‘One day isn’t today, Chloe. Can’t we just have now? You know this is more than just a fling.’

  She did know. She just wasn’t sure what to do with that knowledge.

  ‘Maybe I’ll want those things too,’ he said. ‘One day.’

  One day... He’d spoken so softly, but he still hadn’t been able to hide his tension as he’d said those words, as if he secretly preferred it was the kind of tomorrow that was always one day out of reach.

  She looked at him. Maybe wasn’t good enough. She couldn’t live with maybe from Daniel. He’d rejected her twice already and she wasn’t prepared to risk it again.

  The last time they’d been in this room had been bad enough, but really he’d just been rejecting New Chloe. Fake Chloe, as she’d now started to refer to her alter ego. The shell she’d built to protect herself from the likes of Daniel Bradford.

  He’d actually done her a favour. While it hadn’t felt good, that shell had needed to be broken. It had become so thick that she was isolating herself from everyone behind a wall of supposed perfection. New Chloe had deserved to be smashed to smithereens.

  However, what had emerged in her place wasn’t the Mouse. It was someone new. A Chloe cocktail—a mix of the best of both with a little something extra thrown in for good measure. This fledgling Chloe had some of the confidence and maturity of the new, tempered with the approachableness and warmth of the old. A little of her impulsiveness too—but not so much to make her want to press the self-destruct button again.

  But this new creature was delicate. Only just formed, with skin like paper. Daniel wasn’t ready for this Chloe. And she couldn’t wait another ten years for him to be ready. She needed to get on with her life, start living it for herself instead of what everyone else expected for her.

  ‘I can’t get involved with you, Daniel. I like you too much.’

  He looked at her as if she’d lost her senses. ‘What kind of bizarre female logic is that?’

  Chloe’s expression hardened. ‘The kind that’s going to save us both a whole lot of grief.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ he said. ‘I’m not that same man who ran a mile from an unexpected proposal last year. I’ve changed. Come out with me on a proper date.’ He gave her that smile he knew she couldn’t resist, the rotter. ‘We never did try that Italian...’

  She walked out of the double doors that led out onto a small deck with a table and chairs and a variety of terracotta planters filled with ivy and heather and miniature evergreens. Daniel followed her. She leaned on the rail and looked over the greyish-green glossy water that glinted in the winter sun.

  ‘We’ve been on this merry-go-round before. It’s not the dates—or the lack of them—that’s the problem.’ She twisted her head to look at him. ‘We just always seem to do it for the wrong reason, and I’m not sure this time’s any different.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’ He stepped in close behind her, folded his arms around her front and buried his face in the hollow of her neck. It was all Chloe could do not to melt against him.

  ‘I can’t be your experiment,’ she told him in a whisper, ‘to see if you’re ready for more than a fling.’

  ‘Why not? Isn’t life about taking chances, exploring new possibilities? Think of the plants we work with. We wouldn’t even know of their existence if everyone decided to stay home and never go into unexplored territory.’

  She slid out of his grasp and walked to the opposite corner of the deck. ‘But some risks are too costly. I know you know what I’m talking about.’

  The smile slid from his face.

  ‘There are places inside
us that can hurt so badly that we never want to go back there,’ she said, knowing he understood every syllable, that his mind had wandered to his devastated marriage and the little boy he’d never got to watch grow up. ‘And you’re not the only one who has them.’

  His gaze grew intense.

  She inhaled and let the air out slowly, gathering her courage. ‘Last time we were together here—’

  ‘I explained about that...apologised...’

  She nodded. She knew he had, but he needed to understand.

  ‘What you said hurt,’ she replied firmly, catching his eye and keeping his focus locked on her. ‘But, really, it wasn’t anything more than wounded pride. You didn’t even know me then, not really, because I was being so good at being Miss Fancy Knickers—yes, I know what they used to call me—that I didn’t even know myself.’

  She let out a little laugh that died quickly.

  ‘This is it, now...’ She held her arms out wide. ‘This is me. It’s different. I feel different. And you know who Chloe is now. Not a geeky student with a crush. Not a vamp with perfect nail polish. Just a girl who likes orchids and happens to possess a killer shoe collection.’

  ‘Of course it’s different. That’s why it could work this time.’

  Could. That sounded an awful lot like maybe to her.

  ‘Call me a coward, but I can’t take that chance. If you did it again—if you pushed me away one more time—it’d kill me.’

  ‘But I won’t!’

  ‘You’re saying you won’t ever push me away? I thought you didn’t do for ever any more.’

  Daniel stuttered, and she knew he’d just reacted to her words without thinking them through.

  ‘We both know you’re not in the market for that. If it’s not going to end in wedding rings and honeymoons then, one day, someone will leave, and I have the feeling it would be you.’

  ‘Why? Why would it be me?’

  He just kept coming, didn’t he? Batting away her arguments one by one, because that was his way: he set his mind to a goal and he pursued it relentlessly, no matter what. But he’d set his heart on the wrong goal this time. She wasn’t something to be won; she was something to be treasured. Kept. And he just couldn’t promise her that. So she stepped forward, looked him straight in the eye and said the one thing she knew would scare him away for good.

  ‘Because I’m falling in love with you,’ she said simply, and watched the colour drain from his face as her words hit home. She’d known it would happen, but it hadn’t made it any easier to watch.

  ‘I...I...’

  ‘Please!’ She held up a palm. ‘Don’t try to say it back. You’d be insulting both of us.’

  He closed his mouth and it became a grim line.

  She walked back into the living room. ‘You can go now.’

  ‘Chloe...’

  ‘I know you want to,’ she said. ‘I can see it in your eyes.’

  He didn’t deny it, damn him. He didn’t deny it.

  She pulled herself up straight, put her best professional face on. ‘No need for any more meetings. Next week we’ll be revealing the plans to our team and starting work. We’ve done as much as we can do, you and I. “Calm and professional”—that was what we said, didn’t we?’ She stopped and looked at her shoes. ‘Maybe we should have just stuck to that.’

  And then she turned and walked back indoors, because she couldn’t watch him leave. Not one more time.

  * * *

  Daniel hated himself for walking away from Chloe’s houseboat. But he’d had that sudden reality check that only one fly in ten got when it was hovering above one of his plants. The future promised to be bright and sweet and full of everything he secretly wanted, but he knew that once he gave into that feeling, once he climbed down inside it and let go, there would be no going back, even if he realised it had been a terrible mistake.

  He tried to make up for it in little ways over the following weeks. One morning he brought her a cup of her favourite coffee and put it in her nursery just minutes before she arrived for work. Another day he left a copy of an article he’d seen in a magazine that she’d find interesting. Chloe didn’t say anything about it at all. In fact, she seemed to have gone back to being that strange robot she’d been after that unfortunate night in the summer. But she seemed to manage to smile and laugh and talk with the other staff as they prepared for the Beauty and the Beast Festival.

  He knew he couldn’t give her what she really wanted, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be friends, right? He missed her. Missed hearing her laugh, or seeing her deep in conversation about something she was excited about, her hands moving rapidly as she spoke with both body and voice.

  They had to work together for the next couple of weeks and he’d much prefer they left it on a good footing. Then he could leave on the expedition to Borneo knowing he’d done as much as he could, and he’d be free, no longer weighed down by the guilt that had been steadily solidifying in him since he’d seen that hurt look in her eyes.

  So, at the end of the working day, as everyone was packing up, preparing to go home, he made his way to her part of the nursery.

  ‘Hi,’ he said as he walked in the door.

  She looked up from what she was doing. ‘Hi.’ And then she just stared at him.

  He held out a square object wrapped in a supermarket carrier bag. A peace offering. Not one for gift-wrapping, was Daniel.

  Her features pinched together, but she took it from him. The rustling of the thin plastic seemed unnaturally loud in the deserted greenhouse. She pulled the square object out and looked at it. For a long time she was very still, and then, just moving her eyes and leaving her head bowed, she looked at him. ‘What is this?’

  ‘It’s a print of the slipper orchid from my book. I thought you’d like it.’

  She stared back at the picture. What? Was it out of focus? Had he put it in backwards?

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ he asked, not liking the frown that was bunching up her forehead.

  She took a step forward. ‘Yes, there is. I want you to stop being nice to me.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It’s just making it all that much harder,’ she said.

  ‘I was just trying to...I don’t know...apologise.’

  ‘What for?’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘For not being in love with me? As much as I love a good moccachino or a pretty picture, even I don’t think they’re quite going to cover that one.’

  When she put it like that, maybe...

  ‘I wasn’t trying to upset you,’ he said. ‘But I leave on the fifteenth of next month. I just didn’t want things to be weird between us up until then.’

  The frown melted and her features sagged. ‘The fifteenth? That’s the day after the festival.’

  ‘I know.’

  She nodded, looked away. ‘Okay. Maybe that’s a good thing.’ The way her jaw was clamped together made him believe otherwise. She met his gaze again. ‘So we just have to last another three weeks and then you’ll be gone.’

  Last another three weeks? That sounded very ominous. Very final.

  ‘I’m not going for good,’ he reminded her.

  ‘For long enough, though,’ she replied. ‘Almost two months.’

  He nodded, and he realised that the thought of the trip no longer filled him with the same restless energy that he’d experienced when he’d set it all up. Somehow, it felt like running away, even though it seemed Chloe was quite keen for him to put on his shoes and sprint.

  He hadn’t wanted it to end like this. Awkward. Sad.

  ‘Is bringing you a coffee now and then really that bad?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said and her eyes began to shimmer.

  He walked towards her but she held up a hand. ‘Don’t..
. Please...’

  ‘But—’

  She shook her head and suddenly that shimmer in her eyes turned to anger.

  ‘I know you’re not meaning to, but you’re just playing games with me. It’s the whole “want what you can’t have” thing. You can’t help yourself.’

  That wasn’t it at all. He opened his mouth to tell her as much, but she cut in before the words had left his mouth.

  ‘It’s got to stop, Daniel! You’re not being fair. Please...’ That little waver in her voice, right there, got him right down in his gut. Her lip wobbled and the next word was barely a whisper. ‘Please, just leave me alone.’

  And then she turned and walked out of the door, leaving the framed print on the bench.

  * * *

  When Daniel got home he found his sister waiting for him. She met him at the kitchen door with a bottle of chilled champagne in her hand.

  He really didn’t feel like celebrating. ‘What’s this in aid of?’ he asked her.

  Kelly nodded to an open manila envelope on the kitchen table. ‘Papers arrived. As of today, I am officially divorced.’ She waved the bottle at him. ‘But I didn’t want to drink this on my own, because that would just be...you know...sad.’ And then she grinned at him, just to prove how elated she was.

  Daniel walked over to her, took the bottle out of her hand, placed it on the table and pulled her into a fierce hug.

  After a moment, she pushed herself away, exhaling hard. ‘Just don’t be too nice to me, okay?’

  Daniel threw his hands in the air in mock surrender. What was wrong with the womankind today? Seriously?

  He opened the champagne while Kelly got two flutes from the cupboard and when their glasses were filled they both went to sit on the sofa at the end of the conservatory.

  ‘So, how does it feel to be finally free?’ he asked, slightly elated himself that her rat of an ex-husband was out of his life also. Kelly had moaned long and hard about the process of eradicating that scum from her life.

  ‘Bloody terrible,’ she said and downed almost the whole glass in one go.

  ‘But—’