Call Me Cupid: The Guy to Be Seen With / The First Crush Is the Deepest / Too Close for Comfort
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And since, at the moment, life had brought him a nice cold beer, that was what he intended to concentrate on. He took another gulp and let the cool liquid run down the back of his throat.
‘Holy Moly,’ Alan suddenly said, swivelling his head towards the door. He slapped Daniel on the side of his arm to get his attention, and Daniel’s nice cold beer sloshed down his front. It seemed that what life gave with one hand it took with the other.
He swatted at the wet patch on his shirt, then looked past Alan to see what all the fuss was about.
Holy Moly was about right.
Chloe Michaels, the disappearing woman, had reappeared in time for after-work drinks with one of the other women from work—Emma, who was passionate about bamboo and eccentric as they came.
Surprisingly, Chloe doing casual work clothes was every bit as mouth-drying as Chloe Michaels doing smart ones. Those skinny black jeans worked on curves like that—boy, they really did. The ankle-high lace-up boots should have made him think of functional things, like mud and wheelbarrows, but the criss-cross laces brought corsets to mind instead. And then there was the softly clinging grey long-sleeved T-shirt and the leather jacket over the top...
Leather. In his present state of mind that was a very dangerous word.
An itch started, right deep inside him. He suddenly knew that he didn’t want to sit back and be patient, see what opportunities life brought his way. He’d spent too long running from the chaos in his life at the moment, letting circumstances chase him. Looking at Chloe Michaels as she glanced round the pub for a seat, her skin fresh, her lips glossy and pink, he knew what he wanted to do.
Alan was right. It was hard-wired into his Y chromosome.
He wanted to hunt.
* * *
Chloe’s heart had stuttered when she’d walked in the door of The Railway. Damn. She should have known it was a stupid idea to go somewhere so close to the gardens. Because there, not more than fifteen feet away, was Daniel Bradford—or Drop-Dead Daniel, as some of the social media sites were now calling him—hunched over a beer. And he was looking every bit as gorgeous as his new nickname suggested.
Nope, she told herself. You’re finished with that crush. It’d breathed its last breath ten years ago, and she wasn’t planning on resurrecting it. Still, there wasn’t any harm in hedging her bets and just keeping out of his way to make sure. She tugged at Emma’s sleeve, about to suggest they try the wine bar farther down the smart little parade of shops and cafés, but Daniel chose that moment to turn round.
Their gazes locked, and the heat filling his eyes short-circuited her vocal cords.
It also made her very angry.
His timing really sucked, didn’t it? Because if he’d looked at her like that a decade ago she wouldn’t be in this mess right now. She might have been in a whole different kind of mess, but at least she wouldn’t have been humiliated beyond belief.
‘Hi, Daniel!’ Now Emma was waving and making her way over to him. Great.
Chloe’s plan had been going so well. She’d been effortlessly avoiding Mr Drop Dead, but maybe she should have guessed it had all been too easy, that she would have to put her resolve to the test at some point. So she tipped her chin up, smiled and followed Emma towards the bar.
It was at that point she realised Daniel was with someone—a good-looking blond—so she transferred her gaze to him, offered him her smile instead. The grin he returned said he wasn’t ungrateful for it.
A dark thundercloud passed across Daniel’s expression and settled there. The skin on the backs of Chloe’s knees started to tingle and the smile on her face set. She didn’t let it drop, though. No need to panic. A quick chat with the two men and she and Emma would be on their way.
She nodded at him. ‘Hey there, Indiana.’
A flash of lightning left that thundercloud and zapped her right between the eyebrows.
She left Emma to gush at Daniel while she turned her attention back to the blond. ‘Who’s your friend?’ she asked, slightly disappointed that there was not even a hint of a tickle at the backs of her knees as she met his appreciative gaze, even though this man was every bit as good-looking as his friend.
‘You two know each other?’ the blond asked incredulously. ‘How come you’ve never introduced us before?’ He held out his hand. ‘Alan Harrison,’ he said, enfolding Chloe’s hand in his own, before turning back to Daniel. ‘And you call yourself a mate.’
‘You’ve only just got back from Greece,’ Daniel muttered. ‘She started while you were away.’
Chloe attempted to release her hand, but it seemed Alan wasn’t quite ready to let go of it yet. She smiled coolly. ‘I’m new at the botanical gardens.’
Alan’s eyes widened. ‘You’re another plant nerd, like us? I’d never have guessed.’
She flinched inwardly at his words, but her smile grew ever brighter on the surface. ‘Guilty as charged.’ Really guilty. So she’d got a good haircut, learned how to apply liquid eyeliner... Deep inside she was still as much of a plant nerd as she’d ever been.
Alan rested an elbow on the bar and casually looked her up and down. ‘You really don’t look like one,’ he said, a slightly wolfish glimmer creeping into his eyes.
Chloe kept her smile fixed. ‘Haven’t you heard?’ She nodded in Daniel’s direction. ‘Thanks to your pal there, plant nerd is the new sexy.’
‘Oh, it really is,’ Emma said in a breathy rush, looking at Daniel.
Chloe pressed her lips together to stop herself from laughing. Daniel’s expression had darkened further, but there was a hint of panic at the backs of his eyes, one she recognised from the day she’d met him hiding from his silver-haired fan club.
But then Daniel looked back at her, and that glint of something changed and warmed. Suddenly, she was the one panicking inside.
She didn’t want him to look at her like that, as if he’d like to...
She wasn’t going to finish that thought. It was far too X-rated. And far too dangerous.
‘What can we get you two ladies to drink?’ Alan asked.
Chloe tried to speak, tried to tell him that it was okay, that she and Emma were just going to find a quiet table in the corner and chat about bamboo, but nothing came out. Not quickly enough, anyway.
‘Gin and tonic, please,’ Emma said loudly.
Chloe didn’t have much of a choice now. It would look really rude if she refused. Still, Emma had to be away in half an hour. How bad could it be? She was going to have to work alongside Daniel occasionally. Maybe this would be good practice.
But she made the mistake of catching his eye as she cleared her throat and said, ‘White wine would be lovely.’ The tingling was back behind her knees, threatening to send rogue messages to her muscles stop keeping her upright and just...melt.
Thankfully, a group of people sitting at a table near them got up to leave. Alan stopped leaning on the bar and motioned in its direction. ‘Shall we?’ He walked over to the table, pulling out a chair for Emma first. Chloe decided she liked him a lot better for that.
She decided it was safer to sit on the same side of the rectangular table as Emma. Alan quickly bagged the seat opposite, which left Daniel no choice but to subject himself to Emma’s adoring gaze.
Chloe chuckled to herself while simultaneously breathing a sigh of relief. Emma was doing a very nice job of deflecting the attention from her. She could definitely handle a quick drink with these two men if her colleague kept this up.
In fact, Emma kept Daniel so completely monopolised with her barrage of questions about a new subspecies of bamboo he’d encountered in his previous job that Chloe was free to sit back, sip her wine and listen to a long story Alan was telling about his trip to Corfu.
Every so often she’d glance across at Daniel. He seemed quite happy to answer Emma’s queries, but when the other woman smiled and fiddled with her hair his expression remained neutral. When Emma leaned forward across the table, he leaned back. Chloe’s amusement at Daniel’s expense waned.
She knew what that was like. Knew just what it was like.
To want him so badly that you threw everything you had into getting him, letting your mouth run away with you, letting your body language go into overdrive. Emma seemed oblivious, though. She just kept ploughing on.
There was no doubt that she was attractive for her age, but as she talked Chloe just itched to suggest a girls’ night in so she could apply serum and a pair of straighteners to that hair. She took a sip of her wine. There were products on the market these days to combat that amount of frizz. If anyone should know, it was Chloe...
Her insides chilled.
There but for the grace of God...
She had not so much a flashback as a flash forward—to who she might have been, had she not subjected herself to that post-graduation makeover.
Stop, she wanted to tell Emma. Don’t do it. He’ll push you away, make you feel small and insignificant, not good enough for him.
She and Emma had chatted enough for her to know that the older woman was unhappily single. Chloe didn’t want her to go home that evening after her failed play for Daniel, look in the mirror and decide that if life handed out report cards, the overwhelming verdict would be could do better.
Should do better. Must do better.
Chloe knew how much that smarted.
She placed a hand on Emma’s arm, grasping at something she’d told her earlier. ‘Didn’t you say you needed to be out of here at seven-thirty?’ she said. ‘It’s almost that now.’
Well, seventeen minutes past, but who was counting?
Emma paused her interrogation and looked at her watch. ‘Oh, cripes! Yes, I almost completely forgot! And I booked this adult education course months ago—the waiting list was huge.’ She dragged her eyes from Daniel and sighed. ‘I’ll have to hear all about Mount Kinabalu another time,’ she said, a hint of trailing hopefulness in her voice.
Chloe stood up. ‘Come on,’ she told Emma, glancing through the vast window that looked over the empty platform. ‘The next train is due in a couple of minutes. I’ll wait with you.’
‘You can’t go yet,’ Alan said, leaning past her to place a couple of full glasses on the table. ‘I got you another wine.’ Chloe hadn’t even realised he’d left to go to the bar.
Emma glanced between Chloe and Alan and a little smile curved her lips. Chloe started to shake her head. No, she wasn’t interested in Alan, and she didn’t want Emma’s attempt at ‘subtle’ matchmaking to make him think otherwise. Unfortunately, despite her love of bamboo, it turned out that Emma wasn’t very good with sticks—because she’d obviously got the wrong end of this one.
‘No, you stay,’ her colleague said, grinning at Alan. ‘There’s no need for you to miss out because of me.’
‘Uh—’ Chloe didn’t get any further with that sentence, because Emma had scooped up her bag and her coat and was heading for the exit.
Alan pressed a full glass of wine into Chloe’s hand before calling after the disappearing Emma. ‘Another evening class?’ he shouted. ‘What is it this time?’ then he took another sip of his drink.
Emma stopped and turned in the middle of the room. Chloe could only half see her it was so crowded. ‘Pole dancing,’ she called back cheerily, and suddenly the whole pub was very quiet. Apart from the sound of Alan softly choking on his beer, of course.
THREE
Chloe looked at an equally flabbergasted Daniel and they both burst out laughing. Whether it was at Emma’s parting shot or Alan’s beer-fuelled snorting from the other side of the table, neither of them really knew. But the urge to giggle subsided quickly when she found herself staring across the table at Daniel Bradford. He wasn’t finding the whole thing funny any more, either.
She tugged at the collar of her leather jacket with a finger. Hot. That was what she was finding the whole thing now. Her feet were tingling and her cheeks felt flushed and a delicious warmth was spreading deep inside. And it had nothing to do with the therapeutic effects of having a good laugh.
She swallowed.
Unfortunately, it had everything to do with the not-so-therapeutic effects of staring deep into Daniel Bradford’s eyes and wondering what it would be like to kiss him.
She closed her eyes as she took her next sip of wine, breaking the connection.
Nope. Been there, done that, survived the train wreck. Just.
Alan, who had obviously now recovered from his coughing fit, came and sat in the seat beside her and draped a well-toned arm across the back of her chair. ‘You’re not joining her?’
Chloe had to admire the ego that allowed him to bounce back from having lager spurt out of his nose then continue to flirt as if nothing had happened. She shook her head and nudged her chair further away while pretending she was reaching for her handbag.
‘Don’t tell me...’ Alan said, leaning forward slightly
‘...you’re already proficient?’
This time it was Daniel’s turn to choke on his beer.
Too smooth for his own good, Chloe thought as she blinked and looked back at Alan. Still, it didn’t worry her. She could handle him. One of the key pieces of reasoning behind the ‘new and improved’ Chloe was that she’d decided she’d much rather be the kind of woman men ran after than the kind they ran away from. In the intervening decade she’d learned a thing or two about over-enthusiastic suitors—and the disposal thereof.
She just smiled mysteriously and looked away. ‘I doubt you’ll ever find out.’ No point telling him the only poles she was really proficient with were the little green canes she used to support her orchids.
This was her cue to exit. She half stood up and looked at both men in turn. ‘Thanks for the drinks, guys, but I really must be going.’
‘Must you?’ Alan said, half rising from his seat and sporting what he probably considered was his most appealing smile. Chloe glanced over at Daniel. Once again, her blood danced along in her veins to the beat of bongo drums.
Yep. She really must go—before things got totally out of hand.
But then a few things happened in tandem, and she never really got her suitably cool and aloof goodbye out of her mouth. Alan’s phone rang and he jumped up, pulled it out of his back trouser pocket and answered it. However, it seemed that Daniel thought Alan was making an ill-advised lunge for her, because he shot to his feet too, eyes flaming, and knocked the table in the process. Chloe’s half-finished wine landed in her lap and the glass rolled onto the floor with an almighty crash.
And then Chloe was also on her feet and wine was running down her T-shirt and trousers. Even her boots were wet. She’d be smelling like the back room of an off-licence on the walk home. Most attractive.
Once again, the whole pub had fallen quiet to watch the show. They were certainly getting their money’s worth tonight. She pushed past Alan—who was very gallantly continuing his phone conversation—shot a desperate look at Daniel and headed for the door.
From the way her audience’s eyes kept switching from her to something behind her, she could tell she was being pursued. She really didn’t know what would be worse: to turn round and discover it was Alan, or to turn round and discover it was Daniel, so she just kept weaving through the narrow tables until she could push her way through the crowd to reach the door.
Once outside, she breathed in a mouthful of cold March air and set off down the street. She lived within walking distance, anyway, and hopefully she’d dry off a little on the way home.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one hurrying down the street back towards the gardens. Her pursuer obviously wasn’t giving up. She decided to play ignorant. Perhaps, if she pretended she didn’t know someone was following her, they might just give up and go away.
It didn’t work. And with every step Chloe’s blood pressure rose until she thought her curls would stand on end. Eventually, she stopped and spun round so fast her pursuer almost crashed into her.
She was inches from a broad chest. ‘What?’ she asked it hoarsely.
The chest moved up and down and she could hear him breathing. She must have been walking a lot faster than she’d thought. He didn’t say anything, though, so she tilted her eyeballs upwards until she could see that it was Daniel Bradford staring back down at her.
He held up one of the little bar towels that all good pubs had stocked away somewhere. ‘You had wine on your jacket,’ he said gruffly.
‘Oh.’ She stared at him.
He was still holding up the towel. She was still not taking it.
Slowly, and with surprising gentleness, he took the towel and dabbed at the drips on her left arm, which had now run from biceps to wrist. When he picked up her hand to clean up her cuff, she stopped breathing. From the eerie silence in the dark street, she realised he had too. Simultaneously, they both stopped looking at her sleeve and looked at each other.
Go on, an evil little voice on her shoulder whispered. Pucker up and launch yourself at him again. It might work this time.
No!
No. She’d seen the way he’d looked at Emma that evening. How could she be thinking of taking it one step further? Did she have a strange psychotic illness no one had ever diagnosed? Bradforditis. One look at the man and she was all sorts of crazy.
She wriggled her hand out of his grasp, almost whimpering as the pads of his fingers brushed the soft underside of her wrist, and stepped away.
‘Thank you,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest as best she could. With the engineering marvel of a bra she was wearing, it wasn’t easy. ‘This is my favourite jacket.’
Daniel stepped forward. ‘Look...about Alan...’
She raised a hand, held him at bay. ‘No need. I’m quite used to taking care of myself. He didn’t offend me.’
‘When you ran out—’
She shook her head, cutting him off. Why had she run out? ‘I just...decided I’d rather clean up without an audience,’ she said. ‘Any more drama from our table and someone would have stood up in the corner and started selling ice creams.’
And then Daniel Bradford spoiled all her attempts at backing off and being sophisticated by crinkling up his pale green eyes and smiling at her.
Ping!
Yep. She was pretty sure another thread of her sanity had just snapped.
‘Do you fancy an ice cream?’ he said softly, still smiling.
Chloe let her arms drop by her sides. ‘You know what?’ she said. ‘I really do.’
‘Come on.’ He led her a few shops down to the little express supermarket that was still open. Once inside he strode over to the tiny freezer containing ice creams and slid the lid open. ‘Take your pick.’
She chose a decadent one: two layers of chocolate with caramel trapped between. Daniel grabbed something plainer. And once he’d paid they walked out of the shop, quickly rid the ice creams of their wrappers and walked down the street in silence, only the cracking of thin chocolate and the slurping of ice cream could be heard.
‘Thank you,’ she said, when they reached the end of the short parade of shops and stopped by an old horse trough, now filled with daffodils. ‘For the ice cream and the mop up job.’
He shrugged. ‘No problem.’
He was staring at her lips again. Chloe’s heart began to pound, but Daniel lifted a finger to the edge of his own mouth, not hers. ‘You’ve got a bit of...’
Pulse still thudding in her ears, she shot out her tongue and captured a bit of stray caramel that had stuck to the corner of her lip. Daniel Bradford seemed to be very interested in the process. In fact, he seemed to be leaning in closer to get a better look.
Run.
Don’t think about it, just run.
Ah. That must be the angel sitting on the opposite shoulder from the other little voice. About time it showed up and offered some sensible advice.
He cleared his throat, looked down intently at her. ‘I know this is a bit back to front, that we’ve just had what could be considered dessert...’
She licked her lips again. More out of nervousness than because of stray caramel.
‘But why don’t we round it all up by having a starter and a main course somewhere else?’ He smiled again, and Chloe discovered the caramel had travelled to her knees.
Oh, it was so tempting...
This was what she’d fantasised about, aged nineteen, on many a night in her student digs—Daniel Bradford, looking at her this way, asking her in that deep, earthy voice of his if they could go somewhere alone together.
She shook her head, and just that motion helped the next words out. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea...We’re colleagues. People will talk...and I want to get on at Kew because of what I can do,’ she said quietly, ‘not because people think I’m sleeping with the boss.’
His lips curved into the sexiest of smiles, telling her that he had an answer for that one. ‘There’s no rule against it,’ he said. ‘And we don’t have to broadcast it. It’ll be our secret.’
She shook her head. ‘With the attention you’re generating right now that’s nigh on impossible.’
She was a genius for coming up with that one! It was perfect.
He nodded, pressed his lips together in grim acceptance. ‘I can understand that. My life is a bit of a circus at present. But maybe later, when all the fuss has died down?’
Chloe knew she must be earning brownie points with someone somewhere, because she found the strength to shake her head again, her curls gently moving side to side.
‘Sorry, Indiana. Thank you, though... It was very sweet of you to ask.’
And then she turned and walked away, leaving him staring after her.
It should have felt like a victory.
* * *
Daniel marched the half mile from the Princess of Wales conservatory to the tropical nurseries in record time the following morning. He wasn’t in a good mood.
He passed The Orangery restaurant and headed up the main path towards the kids’ play area, then slipped through an iron gate next to the café and left the public area of the gardens behind in favour of the relative sanctuary of the propagation and research greenhouses.
A soursop tree was due to arrive this morning, part of a trade with the botanical gardens in St Lucia, and Daniel wanted to see the specimen for himself. Alan was standing back and supervising while a couple of horticultural students moved the waxy-leafed tree with its spiky fruit from a trolley onto the floor. He turned round when he heard Daniel approaching.
‘You okay?’ he said.
Daniel gave him a weary, having-one-heck-of-a-day nod. ‘Yup.’
A couple of people had asked him exactly the same thing this morning. Why did they keep doing that? It was most strange.
Alan issued a couple of final instructions to the students before shooing them away. When the two lads were gone and the sliding door of the nursery was closed, he turned to look at his boss.
‘There’s something you need to see.’ He gave Daniel a hooded look and pulled his smartphone from his back pocket. ‘I thought you needed to know before it goes viral.’
He punched a couple of buttons then twisted the phone round to show Daniel the screen. Daniel swore loudly and fluently, then snatched the phone from
Alan’s hand. Unfortunately, seeing it up close and staring hard at it didn’t make the Internet news headline go away.
Valentine’s man finally trapped? it screamed, and underneath it was a picture of him and Chloe, obviously taken the night before, although he’d had no idea anyone had been walking past with a mobile phone to capture the moment. It must have been when he’d been wiping the wine off Chloe’s jacket, a very innocent pastime, he’d have thought, but this photo showed him holding her wrist and they were staring at each other, lost to everyone else. Chloe’s lips were parted and he was leaning in slightly, making it look as if he were about to kiss her.
Daniel closed his eyes and handed the phone back to his friend before opening them again.