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

by Harper, Fiona

  Chloe wanted to tell them she was doing something, that she loved her job and didn’t yearn for corporate headship, or knighthood—or sainthood—whatever it was they wanted for her, but she didn’t have the energy. Besides, if they kept on about her professional life they wouldn’t ask about her personal life.

  It had started a couple of years ago. First the veiled questions, but they’d grown less and less subtle. Had she met anyone nice? Was anyone serious about her? Of course, she’d always looked better with longer hair so maybe she should grow it out, and she’d do well not to forget that it was all downhill after thirty and they really wanted some grandchildren while her eggs were still good.

  They meant well, they really did.

  But Chloe didn’t need a reminder that her personal life was going down the toilet. At least, if her parents kept on about work, she’d avoid having to tell them it had been her who’d pulled the chain.

  But Monday would not be put off for ever.

  She woke before dawn and stared at her ceiling, listening to the planes coming in to land at Heathrow, her stomach churning. She really didn’t want to go in. She couldn’t face it, couldn’t face seeing him, especially after what he’d said to her.

  You’re pathetic.

  Those words had lodged in her chest like an arrow’s shaft and would not be shaken loose.

  She was pathetic. What serious, grown-up horticulturist fantasised about taking a taxi to the airport, buying a one-way ticket and just getting on a plane? Any plane. As long as it took her thousands of miles away.

  Five months. That was all she’d had in her dream job before it had turned into a nightmare.

  Even though it was not yet six, Chloe dragged herself out of bed and made herself get dressed. Lying there feeling sorry for herself was not going to help. She needed to get ready, get some serious armour in place if she was going to survive today, both physical and emotional. If there was one thing she was not going to give up it was her job. Daniel Bradford would just have to deal with that.

  She’d chosen her usual confidence-boosting uniform of pink blouse and black skirt, but when she opened her wardrobe to look for matching shoes she realised they were still under her bed where she’d kicked them off after Daniel had left. She staggered back from the open wardrobe and her bottom met the end of the bed with a bump. For a few seconds, she stared straight ahead, but then she reached underneath the bed and her fingers closed around the hard and spiky heel of a pink stiletto. She pulled it out and stared at it.

  She didn’t ever want to wear those shoes again. She certainly didn’t want to wear them today. Daniel would just think she was sending him some creepy, stalker-type message or something. The man was paranoid.

  And vain. And arrogant.

  And so gorgeous she couldn’t think straight.

  How—after all he’d said to her, after how he’d made her feel—could she still be attracted to him? Daniel Bradford was right. She was pathetic. She needed to get herself a life, and she needed to do it fast.

  Which, unfortunately, meant she really was going to have to get up off her backside and go to work today. Because work was all she had left at the moment.

  She threw the pink heel into the back of her wardrobe, plucked its twin from under the bed and did the same, then pulled out some less spectacular black shoes with a lower heel. They were comfortable, though, she thought as she slid her feet into them, which would be good, because she’d bet those shoes were the only thing that was going to be comfortable about her working day today.

  NINE

  Chloe walked into the tropical nurseries with her head held high and went straight to her section, looking neither to the left nor the right. She didn’t care where Daniel was. If she ran into him, she ran into him. But she wasn’t going to give the other staff a show by confronting him. She knew what they called her behind her back, but today she was going to be Classy Knickers instead of Fancy Knickers.

  She reached her section and began checking out the various orchids she was propagating. Still that one Paphiopedilum she’d grown from an unidentified seed refused to flower, no matter what she did. She’d noticed from the package that it had come from Georgia Stone at the Millennium Seed Bank. Daniel’s ex.

  Perhaps it was absorbing all her pent up guilt at wanting him after he’d ditched the other woman so publicly. Georgia needn’t worry, though. Now Chloe was part of the same exclusive club. As humiliating as being turned down live on air must have been, at least she hadn’t been wearing just her underwear. Underwear supposedly guaranteed to provoke an entirely different reaction in the male of the species.

  Chloe shook her head and tried to banish those thoughts by searching for tips on the Internet and emailing other enthusiasts, but she couldn’t lose herself in her work as she normally did. Every sense—especially her hearing—was on full alert. In the backstage area of her brain she was straining to hear his deep, rich voice. And whatever it was that was working overtime just didn’t seem to have an off switch.

  In the end she gave up trying. Every sound had her jumping out of her skin. As much as she told herself she didn’t care if she saw him, she really did. She was just dreading seeing that same look of disgust in his eyes, telling her she was pointless and pathetic.

  She decided to get some fresh air, go down to the Princess of Wales Conservatory and check on her orchids. There was something soothing about the two rooms filled with logs and ferns and perfect flowers. She and Daniel had discussed doing a joint display around the little boggy pool in the Temperate Orchid section—long-fluted pitcher plants mixed with delicate woodland orchids—but that obviously wasn’t going to happen now, so she might as well head down there and get some new ideas.

  Walking back through the network of nurseries to the entrance was skin-crawlingly embarrassing. Not many people had seen her arrive, but now word must have gone round because they were certainly watching her leave. Every time she passed a door the noise level dropped as those inside stopped what they were doing.

  It only made her tip her chin higher, straighten her spine further.

  They’d be calling her Iron Knickers by the end of the day, because she’d be blasted if she’d let any of them see her crumble. It had been bad enough to have Daniel witness her steady disintegration. She didn’t need their pity. Didn’t want it.

  The short walk to the conservatory was like an oasis in a desert of stress. Though there were a handful of Kew employees around, they were rolling wheelbarrows or chopping down trees. None of them stopped and stared. The gossip obviously hadn’t reached the tree gang or the bedding crew yet, but it would.

  She’d walked via the quieter paths to the south entrance of the glasshouse, and then she zigzagged down its angular paths, keeping to the side routes as much as possible. She was within feet of one of the orchid enclosures when she saw a figure she recognised coming from the offices hidden under the earth and foliage.

  Emma. But instead of saying something totally inappropriate, the other woman merely laid a sympathetic hand on her arm. ‘How are you doing?’

  The contact seemed to burn like acid. Chloe had a sudden and horrifying flashback to the day the woman in the raincoat had pounced on Daniel. They were standing in almost exactly the same spot where she’d rubbed the woman’s arm and spoke comforting words. Never in a million years had Chloe expected to be on the receiving end of the same pitying looks.

  Poor Chloe. Just another one of Drop-Dead Daniel’s corpses...

  She stiffened under Emma’s touch. ‘Okay.’

  The other woman studied her face. ‘Really?’

  Chloe’s stomach dropped like a plummeting lift and she nodded dumbly. ‘I don’t really want to talk about it,’ she said scratchily.

  Emma just nodded sympathetically and returned to her work. None of the usual platitudes, but that wasn’t really
Emma. Nothing about the healing properties of time, or alternative fishing locations. Nothing about Chloe being too good for him anyway.

  Because everyone knew that wasn’t true.

  Especially Daniel.

  She walked stiffly to the plate glass door that led to the orchid enclosure, relishing the climate-controlled cool air on her skin after the humidity of the Wet Tropics zone. Once there she stared into one of the display cases—rarer specimens protected by a wall of glass—and exhaled.

  She’d been so stupid, hadn’t she?

  For a decade she’d been turning herself into a turbo-charged, bionic version of herself, determined to never be the sort of woman a man like Daniel could ever reject, and it hadn’t worked.

  He’d run from the frizzy-haired mouse.

  He’d also run from New Chloe. Twice as fast.

  She didn’t know what to do now, didn’t know who to be. Her best just hadn’t been good enough, not by a long shot, and she didn’t have the energy to build better and higher. Not yet.

  She turned around, pressed her back against the glass and let her knees buckle under her until she was crouching on the floor. The display across the enclosure was beautiful, rocks and logs, dripping with colourful blooms. It was like salve to her jagged emotions.

  Perhaps she would just be the girl who loved orchids for a while, the girl who loved their fragile and ostentatious beauty, because, at the moment, it was the only thing she thought she was good at.

  * * *

  Chloe stood nervously outside Daniel’s smart black door and looked for somewhere to place the gift bag in her hands so she could disappear back into the twilight. Somewhere Kelly would see it if she opened the door or came back home, but not somewhere inviting enough that someone on the street might see it and pinch it.

  There was a small alcove on one side of the small tiled porch, offering some cover from anyone walking along the pavement. She was just reaching over to place the bag on the floor next to some empty milk bottles when the door opened—just a notch. Chloe froze.

  She looked up to find Cal blinking at her. She pressed a finger to her lips, began to back away, but he suddenly threw his head back and yelled, ‘There’s someone at the door,’ in the full-volumed way only a four-year-old could.

  Chloe barely had time to back away before the door was yanked wide and she was staring at a broad,

  T-shirted chest.

  Oh, poop.

  She hadn’t seen him much since that night on her boat. A glimpse of him here and there over the last week, always glaring at her, as if she had no right to be in his nursery, be one of his staff. It had got right on her nerves.

  And then everything had gone quiet. People at work had seemed to relax a little, had stopped scanning the corridors when either she or Daniel was around, waiting for the other one to appear. When she’d told Emma, the other woman explained that Daniel had asked for emergency leave—something to do with his sister.

  That news had made Chloe go cold all over. That could only mean one thing: Daniel was required to look after the boys because something had happened to Kelly. After his sister’s recent health scares, she didn’t even dare imagine what. It was too awful.

  She and Daniel might not be getting along at the moment—she guffawed mentally at the understatement—but she liked Kelly, had admired how strong she seemed after all she’d been through. So she’d gone out and bought some pampering things, just some nice body lotion and some bath soak. The plan had been to pop it on the doorstep and sneak away before anyone spotted her.

  The plan had obviously been flawed.

  He folded his arms across his chest. ‘What in hell’s name are you doing here?’ he said in a low, menacing whisper.

  ‘I... Ah...’

  Body not working. Brain not working. Lips definitely not working. She was going for the full house here.

  Instead she dived for the bag, meaning to just take it and flee, but unfortunately Daniel lunged for it at the same time and their skulls produced a beautiful clear cracking sound as they made contact. Chloe staggered back, clutching her crown. Daniel, however, must have had an iron-capped skull, because he didn’t seem to be in quite as much pain, although the swear word he uttered was very colourful.

  Then a little voice from behind his knees repeated it beautifully, with the same intonation and gusto.

  ‘Cal,’ he said, and she could hear the strain that told her he was hanging onto his last thread of patience, ‘just go back inside and see what Ben is up to, will you?’

  ‘Okay, Uncle Daniel,’ the voice said chirpily, and then Chloe could hear him skipping off down the hall, testing his new word out all the way.

  Still holding her head, she straightened and came eye to eye with a rather angry Daniel Bradford. Good. She was angry too.

  Angry at being made to feel like a pariah in her workplace. Angry that every time he’d set eyes on her since that night he’d looked as if he’d like to set fire to her with his glare. Angry that he hadn’t let her explain, and that she’d known instinctively that he wouldn’t have listened.

  ‘I asked you a question,’ he growled.

  Chloe smoothed her T-shirt down with her free hand. ‘I was just dropping these off for—’

  He made a dismissive gesture towards the bag in her hand but, unfortunately, the edge of his hand caught it and the bottles went flying. His first reaction was shock, but then his expression hardened again. ‘I don’t want anything you’ve got to give me.’

  Unfortunately, since Chloe had bought Kelly some rather nice lotions, the bottles were glass not plastic. One bounced on the small lawn, but the other one hit the path and smashed.

  ‘Now look what you’ve done!’ she shouted.

  She knew it was pointless, but she reached out to pick up the bits from amidst the fragrant, snowy white lotion now oozing into the dirt. She couldn’t leave it there. One of the boys might tread on it.

  ‘You really are unhinged, aren’t you?’ a superior voice said from above her. ‘I had no idea how bad it was.’

  ‘Listen, you egotistical jerk—ow!’ Chloe flinched away as her fingertip met glass. Instinctively, she stuck her finger in her mouth but instantly spat it out again. That lotion definitely did not taste as good as it smelled.

  He let out a frustrated sigh. ‘I’m sorry you’ve hurt yourself, but this can’t continue...I don’t need any of your gifts. And I don’t want you hanging around outside my house.’

  Chloe’s lips twitched, then a high-pitched laugh burst out of her mouth. And once she’d started she couldn’t stop. She clamped her good hand over her mouth to muffle the noise. This man was priceless! He actually thought she was stalking him? Just how vain could a man get?

  She looked up at him, the look of twisted confusion on his features at her sudden outburst, and that just made her laugh all the harder.

  When she could finally manage a sentence in one go, she said, ‘This wasn’t for you, Daniel. It was for Kelly.’

  The look of astonishment on his face was almost worth the pain in her finger.

  ‘For Kelly...’ he repeated slowly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Chloe, feeling her hilarity subside and her temper rise again. ‘You know—tall, dark-haired female who lives with you and shares a gene pool, God help her.’

  ‘Why...?’ he said. ‘Why are you bringing presents for Kelly? It’s not her birthday.’

  A week ago, if she’d seen Daniel Bradford rendered defenceless by confusion like this, she’d have thought it was sweet. Now Chloe just revelled in it. He was so full of himself, thought he knew who she was and what she was capable of, did he?

  ‘I heard you’d had to take leave because of Kelly,’ she said. ‘I thought she might be...well, you know, that she might have found out...’ She shoved the undamaged bottle in Daniel’s direction.
‘Look, I just thought she might need some girly pampering to cheer her up, okay? It’s hardly a crime.’

  His mouth worked. ‘But I thought...’

  ‘Yes, I know what you thought,’ she said. ‘And, believe me, I’ve got much better things to do with my time than stalk you. You made it abundantly clear you’re not interested.’

  Daniel’s gaze drifted to her finger. The blob of lotion on her hand was now looking like raspberry-ripple ice cream, with a swirl of red amongst the thick white. ‘You’d better come inside.’

  Chloe shook her head. ‘Not likely. I’m not giving you any more ammunition than I have already. Next thing I know you’ll have the police down here.’

  ‘Don’t be idiotic,’ he said, regaining some of his usual charm.

  Chloe started to laugh again, a dry, airless sound. ‘You’ve destroyed your sister’s gift and accused me of stalking you, and I’m the one who’s idiotic?’

  He folded his arms again. ‘Well, after the other night...’

  ‘For goodness’ sake! All I did was get a little friendly with a man I thought was interested. And now I’m a stalker? Haven’t you ever made a pass at the wrong person before? It didn’t make you an evil monster, did it?’

  His mouth moved, but Chloe was very satisfied to discover that he had no words to rebut her valid argument. It just spurred her on.

  ‘And, up until that moment, I didn’t hear you complaining one bit. Quite the reverse.’

  He glared down at her. ‘Are you quite finished?’

  Chloe sucked in air through her nostrils and let it out through her mouth. ‘Actually, I think I am.’ And she was feeling much better now.

  Daniel was staring at her finger again. It was starting to drip.

  ‘I really think you’d better come inside,’ he said.

  Looking at her finger, Chloe did too. ‘Okay. But as long as you understand that it’s only for medical attention and you will in no way be applying for a restraining order if I step foot over that threshold for a few minutes.’