Tell Me You Do

by Fiona Harper

  She dropped back down onto the chair.

  ‘Before you go,’ he said, ‘I’d like to talk to you about some things … clear the air.’

  The air was clear as far as Chloe was concerned. Okay, maybe not totally clear; Daniel’s pheromones seemed to be particularly strong this evening. But if they were talking about their relationship—or non-relationship—she was fine.

  ‘It’s okay. Really,’ she said, flicking a loose ringlet out of her eyes with a nod of her head.

  ‘No, it isn’t. I want to—need to—apologise for the things I said that night.’

  Chloe blinked and her lids stayed shut a fraction too long. When she looked back at him, he was waiting, eyes intense, face serious. But there was an honesty, an openness, about him that she’d never seen before.

  But it wasn’t like those heated looks from the early days of their relationship. No, it was much more dangerous. This was the kind of look that made a woman ache for a man, somewhere deep, deep down inside, and Chloe was already too bruised in that place. She was also too weak to resist if he kept it up.

  ‘I’m sorry I called you pathetic,’ he said, his voice rough. ‘I don’t think you’re pathetic at all. Far from it.’

  She nodded. Her heart rate tripled.

  ‘And you were right. I overreacted …’

  Chloe licked her lips and twitched her shoulders in the slightest of shrugs. ‘Maybe just a little,’ she said dryly.

  ‘What happened that night …’

  She sat up straighter. ‘I really don’t want to rehash what went on at my houseboat—for all sorts of reasons.’

  He looked down, then back up at her. ‘No, I didn’t mean that night. I meant the other one—back when you were a student.’

  Chloe said something most unladylike. The only effect it had on Daniel was to make him laugh.

  ‘Seriously, nothing to explain,’ she said. ‘I got a little tipsy, you offered to walk me outside for some fresh air and then I made a total and complete fool of myself by trying to kiss you. Believe me, after all these years it’s crystal clear.’

  She couldn’t quite believe she’d said that, put it all so bluntly. And to Daniel, of all people. Why hadn’t a large pit opened up in his kitchen floor and swallowed her whole?

  ‘You were a student,’ he said. ‘It would have been completely unethical, even if I’d wanted to.’

  Chloe swallowed hard and nodded. Yes, she’d known that. Hadn’t stopped her doing it anyway. She’d never, ever drunk cheap cider again after that night. She tried to smile, but it felt more as if she was wincing. ‘It’s okay. You don’t have to say that. I know you wouldn’t have wanted to.’ She broke eye contact with Daniel and looked away.

  He was silent for a few seconds. ‘I shouldn’t have wanted to.’

  She whipped her head round to stare at him. Why was he teasing her like that? He was supposed to be apologising, she thought, not making it worse.

  ‘Daniel, so far you’ve been brutally honest about that … incident. You don’t have to lie now. You didn’t remember me at all.’

  ‘I didn’t make the connection,’ he replied. ‘And the details are still a little fuzzy, but I do remember an eager girl who always sat at the front for every lecture, who asked pertinent questions, who showed all the other students up with her passion and enthusiasm.’

  Passion and enthusiasm? Was that another way of saying huge crush on the teacher? She folded her arms on the table in front of her and propped herself up with them. ‘That girl was a joke.’

  ‘No … She was sweet and young and had one too many,’ he said. ‘What student hasn’t? But I should have handled that night better too.’ He paused and frowned slightly. ‘I probably would have, if it had just been any old sloppy drunken kiss.’

  The look in his pale eyes made her hold her breath.

  ‘You know we have great chemistry,’ he said, his voice deepening. ‘It was there then.’

  Chloe shook her head slightly. That couldn’t be. Yes, there had been fireworks and tingling and melting into a puddle at his feet, but that had been all her. It hadn’t been him. He’d pushed her away, body rigid, eyes full of shock, eyes full of …

  She looked back at him and he held her gaze.

  Eyes full of surprise, with wide pupils—just as they were now—not pinpricks of disgust.

  Oh.

  She swallowed. That didn’t change anything. He’d still done the right thing. If he hadn’t he’d have lost his job and her reputation would have been even worse than it had been. At least no one had seen that drunken pass in the car park. At least they’d only teased her about her obvious crush.

  She found she couldn’t speak above a whisper. ‘I don’t know how that helps anything, but thank you for being honest with me.’

  He exhaled. ‘I don’t know how it helps, either. I hadn’t quite planned on saying it. But maybe it needed to be said.’

  Chloe nodded. She wasn’t sure if she agreed. It was hard to feel that distance between them now. She needed that distance. Because she had her own apology to give, her own admission to make.

  But at that moment Kelly appeared in the doorway. ‘Uncle Daniel’s presence is required. Apparently, Mummy cannot read The Gruffalo with all the right voices.’

  Chloe stared at the table top. See? That was why she needed distance. Because Daniel Bradford was the kind of man who did voices at story time. She hadn’t known that about him. But there was a lot she hadn’t known about him.

  Daniel gave a weary shrug—one Chloe didn’t buy in the slightest—and headed upstairs. Kelly went to one of the kitchen cabinets, pulled out some wine glasses, filled them with Chardonnay from the fridge and plopped one down in front of Chloe.

  ‘Really, I shouldn’t …’

  Kelly just nudged the glass closer.

  Chloe picked it up and took a tiny sip. She’d accused Daniel of only seeing what he’d wanted to see in her. Hadn’t she been just as bad? Even though it had been ten years on, he hadn’t lost that fantasy edge for her. He’d been that two-dimensional object of a crush, the unattainable alpha man, and she hadn’t looked any deeper than he had. She’d been too busy caught up in the fact that the unattainable had suddenly become attainable.

  Chloe took a bigger sip.

  But now she was seeing the man inside. Not a fantasy. Not a dream. Just a wounded man who was trying to deal with the bullets life had shot through his heart. And, damn, if that didn’t mean she was starting to fall for him.

  She took a whacking great gulp of wine.

  ‘How’s things?’ Kelly said, eyeing her up and down.

  Chloe slumped forward and let her forehead hit the table.

  ‘That good, huh?’

  Her brow squeaked against the varnished wood as she nodded. Kelly just went and got the bottle out of the fridge and placed it on the table between them.

  ‘What’s my brother done now?’ she asked.

  Chloe sat up and shook her head, pursing her lips. Where on earth should she start?

  ‘He likes you, you know.’

  Chloe didn’t say anything. That was what she was afraid of. It was much easier when he was hating her, pitying her. There was no chance of hoping then. She decided to take another tack.

  ‘He told me about his wife and son,’ she said quietly.

  Kelly nodded and took a long swig of her wine. ‘Pretty much destroyed him,’ she said. ‘He loved that boy so much …’

  She trailed off and her focus became distant. It was a while before she could speak again. It was a while before Chloe was ready for her to.

  ‘And he worshipped Paula. But they couldn’t put what they’d had back together after Joshua died. She retreated into a world of bitterness and guilt and he didn’t know how to follow.’ Kelly looked at Chloe. ‘She hated him for that.’

  She reached over and covered Chloe’s hand with hers. ‘He’s just really scared, you know? It’s not that he doesn’t know how to love, but that when he does it’s so full-
on …’ She shook her head. ‘He can’t stand the thought of loving and losing again, so he just doesn’t let himself care. Be patient with him.’

  Chloe wanted to pull her hand away, but she thought it might offend her friend. ‘Oh, I’m not sure if …’ If what? If she wanted him to care? She wanted it so badly it hurt. Didn’t mean it was going to happen.

  ‘Is that what happened with Georgia?’ she asked.

  Kelly frowned and stared into her glass of wine for a moment. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. On paper they should have been perfect for each other. I really love Georgia, really hoped she’d be able to get him to unlock, but for a long time they just drifted along and then I think she pushed him too hard, too fast.’

  Chloe nodded, and then she asked the question she really didn’t want the answer to. ‘Do you think he’ll ever be ready?’

  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.

  CHAPTER 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 h
er 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.’