Call Me Cupid: The Guy to Be Seen With / The First Crush Is the Deepest / Too Close for Comfort

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 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.