Tell Me You Do

by Fiona Harper

  Daniel gave his sister a very brotherly kind of look. ‘And I can see it’s just eating you up inside.’

  Kelly held up her wine glass and toasted him with it before downing the remainder in one gulp. He shook his head and turned his attention to his guest.

  ‘That smells amazing,’ he said. ‘You must be pretty good at this.’

  She bowed her head and looked at the wooden spoon as she stirred the sauce. ‘I like picking up new skills, perfecting them.’

  Daniel smiled to himself as he and Kelly laid the table. His plan was working. He could tell from the way Chloe hummed to herself as she put the finishing touches to the pasta sauce that she was starting to relax. Just what he wanted.

  He didn’t want a date with starchy, let’s-pretend-we’re-being-discreet-at-work Chloe. He wanted a date with the Chloe who’d been within a hair’s breadth of ripping his T-shirt off on the balcony of the Palm House. There was a girl who knew how to have fun.

  He’d been given the job of cooking the pasta and she started teasing him when she realised it was overcooked and sticking to the bottom of the pan.

  ‘Honestly,’ she said, snatching it from him. ‘The pair of you are as bad as each other. I don’t know how those two poor children haven’t starved to death.’

  ‘I have extensive skills with a can opener and advanced microwave training,’ he told her, quite seriously.

  Kelly, who was now sitting at the table, glass of wine in hand, also piped up. ‘And I make a mean chicken nuggets and oven chips.’

  Chloe just shook her head.

  ‘I’ll bet you know how to make fancy pastry and everything,’ Kelly said mournfully as they dished up.

  Chloe tried to act nonchalant, but he could see just a hint of self-satisfaction in her reply. ‘I’ve done a cookery course or two,’ she said quietly.

  His sister slumped on the table. ‘Ugh. I hate women like you,’ she said dramatically, but the delivery just made Chloe laugh.

  Daniel decided he was a genius. Kelly was probably his best weapon this evening. Chloe liked her, despite the fact that, beside his immaculately dressed and perfectly contained date, his sister seemed a little too loud and uncensored. It was like putting an elegant pink orchid and a dandelion in the same pot together: it shouldn’t work. But the two women were getting on like a house on fire and he wasn’t going to do anything to upset that.

  Chloe was like one of her orchids, he decided as they chatted over the simple dinner. Beautiful. Poised. Aloof. Just like the graceful flowers she tended, she was almost too perfect to be true.

  After dinner he moved to phase two of the plan. Kelly loaded the dishwasher, batting Chloe’s efforts to help away and telling her she’d better leave it to the expert. Daniel made the coffee. Fresh not instant. One thing in the kitchen he could do really well. Then Kelly put her coat on and picked up her handbag.

  Chloe’s easy demeanour slipped a little. ‘You’re going?’

  Kelly nodded. ‘Big brother here promised he’d babysit tonight. He owes me.’ She gave Daniel a knowing look. ‘First night out with the girls in weeks,’ she said, then she blew them both a kiss and hurried out of the front door before anyone could stop her.

  Daniel brought Chloe a coffee and sat down at the table with her. He glanced at the comfy sofa in the conservatory, with ample room for two. That would have been his preferred location, but he sensed he needed to tread carefully now his secret weapon was off to the wine bar to drink cocktails with her girlfriends.

  ‘For a long time Kelly wouldn’t go anywhere,’ he told Chloe. ‘Too tired. Too self-conscious about her hair. It was very patchy when it first grew back.’

  A look of pain crossed Chloe’s features and she absent-mindedly fiddled with the end of a loose ringlet. ‘How awful for her. Girls need their hair.’

  He nodded, understanding that now. Personally, he wouldn’t have cared if his hair was down to his knees or in a marine buzz cut, but the wallop Kelly had given him when he’d suggested, very practically, that she should just borrow his clippers and even it all out had let him know just how differently men and women saw this issue.

  He and Chloe chatted about easy things. Safe things. Work. Plants. Mutual acquaintances. When she drained her cup, Daniel stood up and reached for the wine bottle. ‘Another glass?’

  She looked at him thoughtfully, and then she said, ‘Just half. It was rather drinkable.’

  He got fresh glasses from the cupboard as, thanks to Kelly’s post-dinner clearing frenzy, the previous ones were already sloshing around in the dishwasher. But instead of joining her at the table he walked over and placed her glass on the table beside the sofa and then sprawled at the other end.

  Chloe looked at him for a second and then stood up and came to join him, sitting neatly and very upright in the opposite corner. ‘No funny business,’ she said, and sipped her wine. ‘You promised.’

  He just smiled at her. ‘I don’t think I actually promised, but I did say that it would be up to you to make the first move.’

  Chloe’s shoulders relaxed a little, but her expression remained pinched. ‘As nice as dinner was, I don’t see how hiding away in your house is going to help us.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Well, it came about partly because I’d forgotten I’d told Kelly I’d babysit …’ He frowned. ‘In fact, sometimes I think she just pulls that one when she wants a night out, because I don’t remember the original request at all.’

  Chloe chuckled, and he knew he was taking the right approach. ‘But then I realised it could help.’

  Her eyebrows lifted.

  ‘Kelly works in the admin office,’ he told her.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’

  ‘News that you’ve been round for dinner will be all around Kew—and I mean the district, not just the gardens—by noon tomorrow.

  ‘The opening came up a couple of months ago. I saw the notice and suggested she apply. She needed something part-time—something that would fit around the boys and would help build confidence. And, as she told me quite pointedly, to stop her going insane after what seemed like months of being stuck indoors.’

  Chloe had been clutching her wine glass against her chest and now she lowered it as she stared out of the windows at the darkening sky. ‘She’s very brave, isn’t she?’

  Daniel stopped looking at Chloe, stopped gauging every action and reaction, and joined her in staring out of the window. ‘She says she’s had to be. Wasn’t her choice.’

  He knew all about that. Knew all about surviving, not because he was strong and courageous, but because he was still alive and breathing, had found himself trudging onward with no choice about where to put his foot next. Sometimes survival wasn’t a choice but a sentence.

  But he didn’t want to think about those dark days in his life. He wanted fun. He wanted to remember the joy in living.

  A waft of Chloe’s floral perfume hit him, dragging him back into the present, filling his nostrils and making his pulse kick. He turned to look at her. This was what was important. Now. This night, this woman. What he wanted right now was Chloe Michaels.

  He caught her gaze, leaned in closer …

  But she wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. ‘I haven’t got any brothers or sisters,’ she said, just the faintest twinge of envy in her voice.

  Her parents must have thought they’d won the lottery, then, Daniel thought as he let his eyes rove over her once again. She was beautiful, confident, clever. She’d been their only chance and they’d lucked out. While other people …

  Sometimes their only chance was wiped out before it had hardly begun.

  He looked away and downed a huge mouthful of wine.

  No. He’d shut that door. Done his grieving. He really wasn’t going to think about it tonight. That would really be a buzz kill. He needed to get control of himself, of his thoughts.

  But Chloe made it very difficult. He’d start on the track of conversation that seemed totally innocent, trying to g
et her to let down those polished walls a little more, and somehow he’d end up telling her things he didn’t normally reveal to anybody—like the fact he had a touch of dyslexia, leading to stories about ridiculous errors with Latin plant names during his student days, something that only another horticulturist would truly appreciate. Or how he’d once accidentally leaned against a macaw palm during an expedition and had been picking its thorny black spines out of his backside for a week.

  Talking to her was easy. As it had been with Georgia.

  A chill rippled through him.

  No. Chloe was nothing like his ex. He needed to remember that. This one was smart and savvy and she knew the game. Georgia … hadn’t. But then he hadn’t been playing games with Georgia. As cruel as it sounded, he’d just been passing time. And so had Georgia, she’d just tried to tell herself there was more to it.

  But what was he doing thinking about his almost fiancée? He was losing focus. He’d invited Chloe here tonight with one thing in mind: to move forwards in his plan, and while she was relaxed and smiling he should press on.

  He put his wine glass down and went to fetch the bottle from the kitchen counter. He filled his glass first then reclaimed his spot on the sofa, a little closer to Chloe this time, and he leaned across to top her up. She trailed off, losing the thread of what she was talking about, and her eyes widened as the wine filled her glass.

  He placed the empty bottle on the table behind her head, but didn’t move back. Their faces were only a couple of inches apart now. Unconsciously, she moistened her lips with her tongue, still staring at him.

  He let go of the bottle and placed his hand on her shoulder, curling his fingers round her nape. She shivered slightly as his thumb brushed her neck and her gaze dropped to his lips. His core temperature rose.

  He slid the glass from her fingers and put it next to the empty bottle. She let him.

  He didn’t lean in and close the distance, though. Even though the air seemed to shimmer and thud between them. He’d told her the next move would be hers and he was going to stand by his word.

  Okay, he hadn’t left it completely up to her. He’d made a hundred little moves to manoeuvre her to this point, but the final leap would be all hers. There’d be no backing out then. No more running away and pretending she wasn’t interested.

  He heard, and felt, the shaky in-breath that parted her lips, watched her eyelids start to slide closed. He closed his eyes too, not wanting to distract himself in the sweet surrender he knew was coming …

  There was a crash from the other side of the room, followed by a rhythmic thudding.

  ‘Uncle Daniel!’

  He opened his eyes to find Cal standing almost as close to him as he was to Chloe, looking between the two of them with open curiosity.

  Chloe pressed herself backwards into the corner of the sofa and looked away.

  ‘There’s a crocodile under my bed,’ Cal said, quite matter-of-factly. ‘He wants to eat my toes.’

  ‘Cal …’ Daniel warned, his voice a little sharper than he’d intended it to be.

  ‘He says he’s going to gobble me up, bit by bit.’ Cal blinked, the picture of childish innocence. Had Kelly put him up to this?

  Daniel was still so close to Chloe that he could feel her chest shaking as she tried to suppress a laugh.

  Unfortunately, he wasn’t finding this the least bit funny. He’d had his own plans for this evening. Maybe of a similar pattern—starting with the toes, and working his way up, bit by bit …

  Just that thought alone made him ache.

  Reluctantly, he got up off the sofa and took Cal back upstairs. A complete search—involving torches—was made of the under bed area, and it was only when Daniel had tucked the duvet in round his nephew and read him yet another story that Cal consented to lie down and close his eyes.

  When he got back downstairs Chloe wasn’t on the sofa where he’d left her, but in the hallway, putting on her coat.

  ‘Thanks for a lovely evening,’ she said. The dazzling smile she wore informed him that whatever barriers he’d managed to coax down in the last half-hour had sprung up again while he’d been hunting for Cal’s crocodile.

  Damn.

  He couldn’t wait another month to try again. It would seem like an eternity.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want another glass of wine?’

  Chloe shook her head and her curls bounced. ‘I think I’ve had enough.’ The seriousness that crept into her eyes told him she wasn’t just talking about the Merlot. But he wasn’t quite ready to let her go that easily.

  ‘Think how much it would help our case if Kelly could tell everybody that you’d stayed for breakfast?’

  Chloe sighed. ‘Daniel … That’s not the deal, and you know it.’

  Damn again. So close.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, smiling slowly. ‘But optimism is one of my most appealing traits.’

  At least she laughed. ‘Of course it is,’ she said and patted him on the arm as if he were an elderly aunt. Ouch.

  He wanted to ask her to stay, to give him another chance, but it sounded suspiciously like begging inside his head, and he didn’t do begging. Persuading, yes. Pursuing, definitely. But never begging.

  The muffled hoot of a car horn outside took him by surprise.

  ‘That’s my cab,’ she said.

  Her cab.

  She’d called a cab?

  Suddenly Daniel didn’t feel as firmly in control as he had been before. He liked the chase, but this quarry was intent on running him in new and unexpected directions. He couldn’t quite decide whether he loved it or hated it.

  ‘Night, Daniel,’ she murmured, and then, without a flicker of hesitation or nerves, she leaned in close and pressed her lips gently to his cheek.

  And then she was gone into the balmy night air, her little handbag swinging off her fingers.

  Daniel shut the door when the cab drove away and gave out a loud growl of frustration.

  ‘Uncle Daniel!’ The terrified shriek came from Cal’s room, and a few seconds later he was standing at the top of the stairs. ‘The crocodile’s back!’ he said between sobs. ‘And he’s really, really angry.’

  Daniel rubbed a hand through his hair and tramped up the stairs, scooping up the small, snivelling boy when he got to the top.

  ‘Don’t want to sleep in my room,’ Cal hiccupped as Daniel headed across the landing. ‘Can’t I sleep with you?’

  Daniel looked at the clock. Not even nine-thirty. When he’d dreamed of an early night, snuggling up with a warm body in his bed this evening, this was not what he’d had in mind.

  He took his nephew into his darkened bedroom, making sure the landing light was on and the door wide, and he climbed on top of the covers while Cal slid underneath. It wasn’t ten minutes before he could hear small-boy snoring and the rhythmic smack of Cal’s lips against his stubby thumb.

  Daniel lay there a little longer, just to make sure he didn’t wake his nephew when he carried him back to bed. He couldn’t be cross, not really. Both boys had been very clingy since their dad had left and Kelly had slipped into the habit of letting them sneak into her bed if they woke in the night.

  As he lay there he stared at the wedge of orange light the street lamp had painted on his ceiling and let out a heavy breath. Chloe Michaels was a mystery to him. One minute she was all wide-eyed and trembling at his proximity, the next she was cool and detached and contained.

  As much as he hated all those silly women turning up since George’s proposal, at least they proved something—that he wasn’t totally repellent. Quite the opposite. So why could Chloe resist him so easily? What made her so different? He just had to find out.

  Thank goodness for small boys with crocodiles under their beds.

  Chloe repeated the phrase to herself a hundred times as she got ready for work the next day.

  Normally, she brushed her teeth on automatic, mind drifting, but this morning she watched herself in the mirror, her face free of make-
up and her hair hidden beneath a twisted towel. She looked quite different from the woman who’d walked in the door last night.

  She’d thought the Mouse was long gone, buried beneath years of being so cool and confident that play-acting had become reality. But she was still there. As Chloe brushed her teeth she occasionally caught a glimpse of her—something about a tightness in her jaw, a flicker of hesitancy in those eyes.

  Chloe—the real Chloe—was glad she’d been handed an excuse to leave Daniel the night before. But the Mouse, stupid thing, was feeling all fluttery and excited about the way he’d looked at her, obvious desire in his eyes.

  He wasn’t looking at you, Chloe told the Mouse in the mirror. He was looking at me. He likes me.

  The Mouse got all defiant then, asking her why, if Drop-Dead Daniel liked her, she wasn’t doing anything about it. It was safe, after all, if the Mouse was really still safely under lock and key.

  Why are you so scared …?

  Chloe spat out her toothpaste and rinsed her mouth, and then she met her own eyes in the mirror again.

  I’m not scared. It’s just a bad idea.

  Because …?

  We are colleagues. We’re … I just …

  She pulled the towel from her head and released the damp curls darkened by the recent washing.

  Okay, she admitted it. She was worried. Not scared, just a little concerned.

  Because, as drop dead as he was, there was something about Daniel Bradford that burrowed beneath her armour.

  Maybe it was because she’d liked him before New Chloe had taken form, because she had the oddest feeling he was the one person who had the power to crack her open and release the Mouse. Already the damn creature had come scratching around, making her say stupid things, do stupid things—like not breezily and smoothly disentangling herself when he first pressed his lips to hers in the Palm House. Like saying yes to that second glass of wine instead of going home.

  She sighed. The Mouse wanted to relive that memory for a while, but Chloe shut it down swiftly.