by Fiona Harper
When he spoke his words were measured and cool. ‘Where are you in this photograph?’
Chloe shook her head, lips moving, not able to produce any sound.
Daniel’s brows lowered. ‘Don’t lie to me,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me you’re not in here.’
A tiny noise escaped her mouth. The kind of weak croak any self-respecting frog would be ashamed of.
The urge to curl up and hide was irresistible. She knelt on the other side of the sofa and buried her face in her hands, hiding her exposed flesh as much as possible.
Daniel leapt to his feet. ‘All the time it was you and you never told me! What is this? Some kind of sick joke? You’re … you’re just like the rest of them … just another obsessive woman.’
The tears began to stream down Chloe’s face. She wiped the first wave away and looked at him, still trying to curl into the sofa and disappear. ‘That’s not true! I made it quite clear from the beginning I didn’t want to get involved, but you just kept wearing me down …’
He let out a harsh, dry laugh. The look on his face was pure revulsion. ‘That was all part of the plan, wasn’t it? And I fell for it—hook, line and sinker. That idea to “help” me out with those fake dates …’ He shook his head, as if he was hardly able to believe the thoughts running through his head. ‘God, I was suckered right in, wasn’t I?’
Anger was taking over now, and Chloe let it. It was a much better sensation than cold humiliation. She stood up and folded her arms tightly across her chest. ‘There was no plan! You’re being paranoid.’ She walked right up to him. He backed away.
That hurt.
‘Admit it!’ she yelled. ‘You did all the chasing. You wouldn’t leave me alone. That wasn’t a trick. You wanted me!’
His expression set like stone. ‘I wanted her,’ he said softly, almost too reasonably. ‘The woman I thought you were. Not—’ he gestured towards the photo still in his right hand ‘—this.’
Chloe’s ribs tightened so hard that she couldn’t open her mouth to breathe.
‘I would never want this,’ he said, glaring at the photo and then transferring that scalding gaze to her. ‘Not the sort of person who lies and manipulates, who can’t just come out and tell the truth. I can’t believe you strung me along for so long,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You played me for a right fool. But, you know what? I’m not the fool here—you are.’
He looked her up and down one last time before snarling his last judgement. ‘You’re pathetic.’
And then he turned and strode out of the door.
Daniel’s team kept out of his way the following day. Every time he entered a room in the tropical plant nursery it wouldn’t exactly empty immediately, but after about ten minutes of concentrated work he’d look up to find himself totally alone. He was so angry he couldn’t see straight.
Much more so than when Georgia had made her stupid proposal. He understood now that his ex’s actions had been a combination of a ticking biological clock mixed with a healthy dose of panic. It had been a daft reflex action, and he could forgive her for that.
But Chloe …
Chloe had lied.
He’d thought he’d been so clever, carefully reeling her in, when all along it had been the other way around. She wasn’t an orchid at all. She was a sneaky, twisting, climbing weed.
There was a cracking sound and he realised he’d been gripping a square plastic pot a little too tightly. That was the third one today. For punishment he threw it across the nursery.
There was a flash of movement near the door, and he turned to find Alan standing there, waving a blue and white checked tea towel above his head.
‘What are you doing?’ Daniel barked.
Alan stopped waving and let his arm drop to his side. ‘It was the closest I could find to a white flag,’ he muttered.
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Daniel said. He hadn’t been that bad, had he?
‘I have staff volunteering for manure duty,’ Alan said, ‘just so they can get out of here for the afternoon. What the hell is wrong with you?’
Daniel just gave him a thunderous look.
Alan nodded knowingly. ‘Ah, woman trouble.’ He put the tea towel down on the bench near the door and walked over to Daniel. ‘What’s Fancy Knickers done now?’
‘Shut up, Alan,’ Daniel said.
He didn’t want to think about Chloe. Especially not combined with the phrase Fancy Knickers. He’d been having rogue flashbacks enough as it was, and he didn’t want to prompt any more.
Too late.
An image of her leaning over him as he sat on the sofa, a pale thigh either side of his jeans, and the ringside view of just what a good bra could do for a cleavage assaulted him.
He batted the image away, attempting to replace it with the tacky-leaved Drosera on the bench in front of him. It wasn’t much competition, really. His mind started to slide in the wrong direction once again.
He made himself focus on the plant. Remember, he told himself, they’re both the same really—covered in sweetness that promises heaven but is really a fatal trap. One he’d only just survived before. Nothing on earth would tempt him to go back there again.
‘Have you seen her today?’ he asked Alan. Daniel hadn’t. Which meant she’d had the good sense to keep out of his way.
Alan shook his head. ‘She didn’t come in this morning.’
That just stoked Daniel’s anger further. Not just a liar but a coward, too.
‘What did she do, mate?’ Alan asked. ‘It has to be pretty monumental to get you in this state.’
‘She … She …’
What had she done?
His brain flooded with images from the night before: Chloe, sweet and sexy, half naked and responsive beneath his hands … Her easy smile and that killer body … That darn tiny hook at the top of her dress.
He opened his mouth and then shut it again. Telling Alan she’d invited him back to her place, stripped down to the most eye-popping lingerie he’d ever seen and then had tried to seduce him just didn’t sound very awful. Alan definitely wouldn’t understand.
In fact, at the mercy of the movie reel of memories inside his own head, Daniel was finding it harder to understand it himself.
But then another image in his brain came sharply into focus—the photograph that had been hidden in the book—and suddenly his anger came flooding back.
She’d promised him one thing and then had delivered him something else entirely.
Promised you?
Yes. Promised him. With every wiggle of her hips, with every cool and casual comment, every retreat when he’d advanced. She’d made him believe they were the same, that they wanted the same thing. And it hadn’t been true at all.
He could have slept with her anyway, but that wasn’t his style, and he knew it would have been a mistake. Those tendrils, like jungle creepers, would have started to wind around him, to suffocate him.
‘It’s complicated,’ he told Alan. ‘You know women.’
Alan nodded sagely.
‘I’ll be fine in a while,’ Daniel told him. ‘I just need to let off some steam first.’
Alan chuckled. ‘The rate you’re going, we can just turn the misters and the heating off and let you regulate the nursery single-handed.’
Daniel let out a reluctant laugh.
Alan walked back over to the door. ‘That’s the problem with women. We want to chase them, but we then have to deal with them when we catch them.’
You did all the chasing …
Chloe’s words from the evening before echoed round his head. He had chased her. He’d chased hard. The fact she was right only made him more angry.
But that had been part of his downfall. He’d been so busy trying to break down her barriers that he hadn’t realised he hadn’t been tending his own.
He picked up the Drosera and inspected it closely. Tiny black flies decorated its sticky leaves.
Stupid man, he told himself. Because you thought she was s
afe, that she didn’t want diamonds and confetti and wedding rings, you let yourself like her. Because he had genuinely liked being with her. It hadn’t all been about getting her into bed.
He hadn’t wanted her to be one of those clingy, silly women who just threw themselves at him. He’d wanted to spend time with her, have a wild and crazy affair that lasted as long as it lasted. And who wouldn’t? Because, despite how she’d acted in the past, the Chloe Michaels of today was clever and funny and sexy, and she’d reminded him of who he’d used to be before …
A chill settled over him. Maybe that was why. Maybe, even though he hadn’t realised it, because she was from that time in his life when he was really happy, he’d recognised that on some subconscious level, been drawn to it.
Which meant he had to stay away from her now. He didn’t want any memories of that time. Because remembering the good years meant remembering what came after. And it had taken him too long travelling the world, seeking adventure to make him forget.
He was good at forgetting. At blocking out.
And now he had one more thing to block out from his life—Chloe Michaels.
Chloe was very glad that the day after her sickie was a Saturday and she wasn’t due to go in to work. She did better than the previous day, where she’d mostly sat in the cramped space between her bed and her chest of drawers, her back to the wall, and cried. She made it out of her bedroom and into the living room. Not for long, though. Every stick of furniture in her room seemed to have some link with Thursday night.
The problem with living so close to the botanical gardens was that she was scared to go outside in case she met someone from work. In the end, she resorted to desperate measures and rang her parents to say she was coming home for the weekend for a surprise visit.
Mum and Dad were just as they always were. They looked after her, they fed her cups of tea and shortcake—which was all lovely—but then there were the dinner-table conversations. How pleased they were that she was working somewhere as prestigious as Kew, even if was just looking after one tiny section. Never mind. In a few years she could go for promotion and really do something.
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.
CHAPTER 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.