Tell Me You Do

by Fiona Harper

  He’d now become The One That Got Away. An irresistible label to the female population of London, it seemed, because en masse they’d decided it was an open season. Every day for the first couple of weeks after the proposal they’d appeared in ones and twos like this, coming to the gardens specifically to track him down. But it had been quiet for almost a week, and he’d finally hoped it was all petering out. No such luck.

  Not that a bit—or even a lot—of female interest bothered him in the slightest. He was as open to it as the next guy. But this was different. They didn’t know when to stop. They acted as if they hadn’t heard the proposal on the radio, as if they didn’t know he wasn’t in the market for love, let alone marriage. The whole thing was just stupid. And very irritating.

  He was dragged back into the present by a heartfelt sigh behind him. They’d moved closer.

  ‘Shall I go and ask him for his autograph,’ one said.

  That was it. Hunter or not, Daniel was out of there. He turned and walked briskly down the path, down the steps to the aquatic exhibit half hidden under a man-made ‘hill’ in the centre of the conservatory, and ducked through a short tunnel to come out on the other side of the zone. He then climbed the path that led him to the upper levels on top of the hill, then doubled back through the ferns and down some more stairs.

  He knew this labyrinthine glasshouse like the back of his hand and it wasn’t more than a minute before he was crouching down and peering at the two women from a vantage point inside the orchid display. He could have left and gone back to the propagation greenhouses, he supposed, but he liked the idea of turning the tables, of watching them hunt fruitlessly for him, before disappearing for good. It would restore his sense of balance, of control.

  Now he could see them, his eyes popped. They were over seventy, for goodness’ sake! All sensible shoes and nylon trousers. He could see them looking around, having a minor disagreement about which way they should go to pick up his trail.

  He almost chuckled to himself. Almost.

  At least, he might have done if those hairs on the back of his neck hadn’t prickled again.

  Seriously? Another one?

  He was tempted to turn round and let loose, but he knew he had a bit of a temper, and having a supposedly ‘dangerous’ edge didn’t mean he was allowed to attack paying visitors then use them for lovely, nutritious compost for his favourite plants. There were laws against that kind of thing. Unfortunately.

  He was just going to have to bite his tongue and leave. However, if this Valentine’s fuelled media circus didn’t end soon, he’d be stuck in an office or a greenhouse, not able to go about his job as he pleased, and he’d hate that. It had been hard enough to leave the field and take this post in the first place; he’d only done it because Kelly had needed him to come home and help look after her and the boys.

  ‘Why, if it isn’t Indiana himself!’ a husky female voice drawled. ‘Although I was led to believe you’d swapped the whip for a pair of secateurs these days.’

  Daniel swivelled around, still crouching. The first thing he saw was a pair of hot-pink kitten heels with polka dot bows on the front. Definitely not a pensioner, this one. His gaze was inevitably drawn up to a pair of slender ankles and then to shapely calves. For a moment, he forgot all thoughts of running.

  Then there was the black pencil skirt. Tight round a pair of generous hips, hugging the thighs … He swallowed.

  ‘So where are they?’ she asked.

  That was when he realised he was still half squatting. He looked up, past the form-fitting pink blouse to the face on top of it. Red lips. That was what he saw first. Vibrant red lips.

  Who’d cut the water supply off from his throat? He swallowed again. ‘What?’

  Stand up. You’re kneeling at her feet, looking like a drooling Neanderthal.

  Thankfully, his brain cooperated this time, sending the message to his legs to straighten, and he stood. Finally, he was looking down at her instead of up. Only, it didn’t help much. From down below the view of her impressive cleavage hadn’t been so obvious. Now his brain was too busy working his eyeballs to do the talking thing.

  ‘The secateurs,’ she said with a slight twitch of one expertly plucked brow. ‘Are they in your pocket?’

  Daniel nodded dumbly and pulled them out. She was blonde. Marilyn Monroe blonde. With shoulder length waves that curled around her face.

  ‘Shame,’ the lips said. ‘And there was I hoping you were just pleased to see me.’

  His mouth hung open a little. Brain still struggling. Much to his disgust, he managed a faint grunt.

  ‘Sorry … couldn’t resist,’ she said, and offered her slim hand. ‘Don’t you just love Mae West?’

  Daniel stared at the hand for a second or so, at the long red fingernails that matched her lips, then a movement at chest level distracted him. A staff pass on a lanyard was around her neck but, due to the impressive cleavage it was hanging just below, it was twirling gently in some unseen breeze, the photo and name obscured.

  She frowned slightly. ‘Not a Mae fan, then.’

  He nodded, but he wasn’t sure if he was agreeing or disagreeing.

  ‘Chloe Michaels,’ she said, grabbing his hand and shaking it firmly. ‘Orchid specialist and new girl at Kew.’

  ‘Daniel Bradford,’ he said, shaking back vigorously. Maybe a little too vigorously. He let go, but then he didn’t seem to know what to do with his hand. He stuffed it back in his pocket.

  ‘I know,’ she said, and a wry smile curved those red lips.

  ‘You’ve read the papers …’

  She gave a little shrug. ‘Well, a girl would have to be dead to not have seen something of your recent press coverage. However, I knew who you were before that. I’ve got one of your books at home.’

  Air emptied from his lungs and he felt his torso relax. Plants and horticulture. Finally, he’d come across a woman who could talk sense. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he said. And he genuinely meant it.

  She just nodded and the smile grew brighter. ‘The guys in the tropical nursery said I’d find you here, and I just thought I’d come and introduce myself,’ she said, turning to leave.

  Daniel had just started to feel somewhere close to normal again, but her exit gave him another view he hadn’t quite been ready for … The way that pencil skirt tightened round her backside was positively sinful.

  She looked over her shoulder before she exited the temperate orchid display through the opposite door. Daniel snapped his gaze upwards. She hadn’t caught him checking her out, had she? That was a schoolboy error.

  ‘By the way,’ she said, nodding in his direction, ‘incoming at eleven o’clock.’

  He hadn’t the faintest idea what she meant, but it wasn’t until she’d disappeared into the next zone that he even started to try and work it out.

  A bang on the glass above him made him jump. He pivoted round and looked up to find his two pursuers in the fern enclosure at the top of the stairs, faces pressed up against the glass, grinning like mad.

  Oh, heck.

  One of them spotted the door further along the wall. Her eyes lit up and she started waving a pen and a notepad at him.

  Daniel did what any sensible man in his position would have done.

  He ran.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A SKIRT THIS tight and heels this high did not help with an elegant exit, Chloe thought as she kept her back straight and cemented her gaze on the door. She’d thought she’d need the extra confidence her favourite pair of shoes gave her this morning but, when they were teamed with the skirt, every step was barely more than a hobble, and it took a torturously long time until she was out of the orchid display area and amidst the agaves and cacti of the adjoining section.

  She paused for a heartbeat as the glass door swung shut behind her, then blinked a few times and carried on walking.

  He hadn’t recognised her.

  She’d been prepared to go in smiling, laugh that embarrassing incident in their
past off and put it down to not being able to hold her liquor. In short, she’d planned to be every bit as sophisticated as her wardrobe suggested she could be.

  But she hadn’t needed to.

  She pressed a palm against her sternum. Her heart was fluttering like a hummingbird.

  That was good, wasn’t it? That he hadn’t connected Chloe Michaels the horticultural student with Chloe Michaels, new Head Orchid Keeper. They could just start afresh, behave like mature adults.

  Inwardly, Chloe winced as she continued walking along the metal-grilled flooring, past an array of spiky plants from across the globe.

  Okay, last time they’d met, Daniel Bradford hadn’t had any problems behaving maturely and appropriately. Any misbehaving had been purely down to her. Her cheeks flushed at the memory, even all these years later.

  She was being stupid. He must have taught loads of courses over the years, met hundreds of awestruck students. Why would he remember one frizzy-haired mouse who’d hidden her ample curves in men’s T-shirts and baggy trousers? He wouldn’t. It made sense he hadn’t even remembered her name.

  Or her face.

  That, too, made sense. She looked very different now.

  This Cinderella hadn’t needed a fairy godmother to give her a makeover; she’d done it herself the summer she’d left horticultural college. No pumpkins, no fairy dust. Just the horrified look on Prince Charming’s face had been enough to shove her in the right direction. The Mouse was long gone; long live the new Chloe Michaels. And she’d been doing a very good job of reigning supreme for almost a decade.

  Only …

  A little part of her—a previously undiscovered masochistic part of her—had obviously been hoping he would remember, because now disappointment was sucking her insides flat like a deflated balloon. She sighed. She never had had any sense where the gorgeous Daniel Bradford had been concerned. But show her a human being with a double X chromosome who did.

  It was something to do with those long legs, that lean physique, those pale green, almost glacial eyes. Add a hint of rawness to the package, the sense that he’d just barely made it back from the last expedition into a dark and remote jungle, and it tended to do strange things to a girl’s head.

  Maybe that could explain the way she’d acted back there, the things she’d said …

  Mae West? What had she been thinking?

  While she knew the ‘new and improved’ Chloe had easy self-assurance, there was confidence and there was sheer recklessness. She’d intended to be calm and professional. She certainly hadn’t intended to tease him … flirt with him.

  However, a little voice in her head had been pushing her, feeding her lines, especially when his eyeballs had all but popped out of his head when he’d been trying to read her spinning name tag. There had been something so satisfying about seeing him that close to drooling that she just hadn’t been able to stop herself.

  It wouldn’t happen again, though. Couldn’t.

  But Chloe’s lips curved as she pushed the main door of the conservatory open and walked out into the spring sunshine. She wiped the smile off her face—literally—with a manicured hand and shook her head.

  It didn’t matter just how much saliva had pooled in the bottom of Daniel Bradford’s mouth when he’d looked at her, because she was never, ever going down that road again. And it didn’t matter just how ferocious the monster crush she’d had on him ten years ago had been, because there was one thing she was certain of …

  She’d shoot herself before she got within kissing distance of him ever again.

  Daniel hung from a spot halfway up the climbing wall at his local sports centre and peered down at the top of his friend’s helmet. ‘Hurry up, Al,’ he called out. ‘You’re out of shape. Must have spent too much time lolling on a sun lounger while you were on holiday.’

  Alan eventually caught up. He wasn’t looking as chirpy as normal.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ he said, still panting. ‘You were up this wall like the hounds of hell were on your tail, and you only climb like that when trouble’s brewing—usually woman trouble.’

  Daniel shrugged and pulled a face. ‘Of a sort.’

  Alan grinned at him hopefully.

  ‘Georgia came by the gardens today.’

  Alan stopped grinning and said a word Daniel thought most appropriate. ‘What did she want? She didn’t rush tearfully into your arms and beg for a second chance, did she?’

  Daniel shook his head. ‘No, thank goodness.’

  He realised how insensitive that sounded, but Alan understood. He was a guy.

  Daniel shifted his hand grip. ‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘Maybe it never should have started.’

  Alan shrugged. ‘I thought you had a good thing going there. All the perks and none of the drama.’

  That was what Daniel had thought too, when he’d thought about it at all. That also sounded insensitive, he realised. But he and Georgia had been friends, her work at Kew’s millennium seed bank throwing them together occasionally, and somewhere along the line friendship had slipped into something more. At the time he’d hardly noticed it happening.

  Normally, he was much more focused about his love life. He’d spot a woman that appealed to him, pick her out from the pack, and then he’d go about pursuing her, changing her mind … Because, if there was one contrary thing about him, it was that he liked the ones that were hard work, took a little chasing. It made the whole thing so much more fun.

  But Kelly had been ill, vomiting half the day, and Daniel—apart from being scared out of his wits for his sister—had been thrown in the deep end of caring for two small boys. He supposed all his ‘chasing’ energy had been tied up elsewhere, and maybe that was why he’d slid into his easy relationship with Georgia.

  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 pla
ce 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.