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

He was a little confused at first. This really wasn’t the sort of place he’d pictured her living in. It was charming enough, but it wasn’t slick and luxurious like Chloe herself. However, he quickly decided he didn’t really care where she lived. That she was actively dragging him inside was the important thing, surely?

He followed her down into the cabin, and the interior was as much of a surprise as the outside. Half of the top deck was a living-dining-kitchen area with vast square windows one end that led onto a railed deck.

No clean lines and minimalist furniture here. It was a riot of colour and texture. Two purple velvet sofas that didn’t match, embroidered and bejewelled cushions in pinks, reds and oranges. Bookcases lined one wall, full of not only gardening books and paperbacks, but all other kinds of ornaments. And, of course, there were orchids. Various common varieties, but also some spectacular rarer ones too.

Chloe walked over to the kitchen and kicked off her shoes. ‘I’m afraid my drinks selection is rather sparse,’ she confessed. ‘Unless you’re really gasping for mineral water, it’s just white wine.’

He nodded. ‘That’ll do fine.’

He knew he should sound more enthused, but he couldn’t quite stop looking around Chloe’s living room. It wasn’t just that every corner held something that drew the eye, but that he felt something about it was significant. Something he was missing.

He walked over to the kitchen and took a glass she offered. Without her shoes on she was just that little bit shorter, which, for some strange reason, also made her seem younger.

‘I didn’t picture you living on a houseboat,’ he told her.

She smiled at him. ‘I always wanted to, ever since I was a student here and used to walk past them on my journey from Kew Bridge station. When I got the chance to rent one, I jumped at it.’

He took a sip of his wine. ‘Of course, I forgot you said you trained here. When was that? Our paths might have crossed. I’ve been doing specialist lectures here for what...maybe eight or nine years?’

Chloe suddenly found something very urgent to do in the fridge. She opened the door, blocking his view of her, and rummaged around inside.

Daniel smiled to himself. Possibly not. He’d certainly have remembered seeing someone like Chloe amongst the muddy hordes of horticultural students. She stood out in a crowd, wasn’t like the rest. That was what he liked about her.

Anyway, he was much more interested in the here and now. Chloe was still leaning into the large retro-style fridge and he walked up behind her and slid his hands around her waist. Whatever she’d been looking for in there obviously hadn’t been very important, because she stood up, let the fridge door bang closed and turned to face him, her face serious, her pupils wide.

He dipped his head low and kissed her. Softly, slowly. This had been a long time coming and he didn’t want to rush things. Strangely, it seemed as if he were kissing her for the first time. Maybe it was this place—or this slightly shy and nervous Chloe—that made him feel as if this were all fresh and new.

Whatever it was, he decided both of them were wearing far too many clothes, even though, including lingerie, Chloe must have only had three garments on. Heat flooded through him. He didn’t care which one went first—each presented an interesting option—but something needed to go, and it needed to go now.

He’d never been one for noting clothes designers, but he blessed the man, because it had almost certainly been a man, who’d decided to put a long row of little hooks and eyes down the front of Chloe’s tight-bodiced floral dress. His fingers fairly itched at the thought of starting at the top and working his way down.

Maybe he was wrong about three garments. Maybe a little exploration in that department would yield even richer results. He’d been kissing her neck, hands roving her back, and now he moved on to either side of her waist, then he picked up and deposited her on the kitchen counter. She ran her hands up his chest and into his hair, pulling him back to kiss her on the mouth, pulling him closer and hooking her lower calves around his thighs to keep him there.

In Daniel’s experience, some women let a man take charge completely when it came to the physical stuff but he much preferred it if there was equality, give and take, when they got to this moment. So he liked the fact that Chloe not only responded to him but spurred him on, took him in new and unexpected directions.

Even better, he could tell by the way she threw her head back and closed her eyes, the little noises she made in the back of her throat, the unchoreographed motions of her hands, that none of this was rehearsed moves or seductive tricks. She was totally lost in the moment, and this response that had his clothes feeling three sizes too small was just pure Chloe.

He pulled away from kissing her to focus his eyes on the top of her dress. The hooks were tiny. He could’ve undone them by touch alone, but he wanted to see her, every perfect inch, when he reached low enough to uncover what was underneath.

Chloe was kissing his face, and when she felt the pads of his thumbs graze the upper curve of her breasts as he reached for the first hook she made a sharp intake of breath and held it. Her legs hugged him tighter, pulling him as close as he could possibly get still clothed.

Daniel suddenly questioned the hook-by-hook approach. What idiot made something so small and

fiddly? He was really tempted to just start ripping.

Chloe fidgeted again, but this time she placed her hands lightly on his chest. ‘Daniel...’ she whispered.

He leant in and began to tease her ear lobe with his tongue. ‘Uh-huh?’

There was a little bit of a push behind those palms now. He drew back, confused. Were they both not on the same track? Had he read her wrong somehow?

But the pink flush creeping up her creamy skin from breasts to face told him he’d been reading the situation just right. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked softly.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, nodding emphatically. ‘More than okay.’

Daniel smiled. Not just because she was as into this as he was, but because he’d never seen this flustered, slightly dishevelled side to Chloe before, and he kind of liked it. Somehow it made her seem all the more human. Which translated into making her seem all the more touchable. His gaze drifted back to the single opened hook at the centre of her breasts.

‘I just need to...’ Chloe shakily pushed her hair back off her face and released her legs from around his. ‘There’s just something I need to do...I’ll be right back.’

‘Promise?’ he said, feeling a lot more desperate than he actually sounded.

She smiled sweetly at him, and pressed a kiss against his lips. ‘Promise,’ she murmured as she pulled away.

She jumped down from the counter and picked up her shoes. ‘I won’t be long.’

He wandered over to the bookcase. His eyes instantly found a spine that was so familiar he couldn’t help but prise it from its position. She turned as she reached the door and saw what he was doing.

She smiled saucily. ‘Isn’t that a little vain? Picking your own book out from the bookshelf?’ Forgetting her urgent errand, she walked over to him. ‘The Secrets of Mount Kinabalu by Daniel Bedford,’ she read from the cover. ‘I got this as a student. Your description of the orchids is what fired my interest in them.’

He shook his head, both frowning and smiling at the same time. ‘I can’t believe you’ve got this,’ he said. ‘And it looks as if it’s been read a hundred times.’

Chloe stiffened slightly but then she smiled her cat-like smile again. ‘I lent it out to other people in my year. It was kind of a favourite.’

‘That’s a lot of people with a burning interest in carnivorous plants and other rare species,’ he said.

Chloe just laughed, reached out and turned the book over, where there was a horrible picture of him in khaki clothes and a wide-brimmed hat. ‘I think this is what some of them had the burning interest in,’ she said. ‘This is where the whole Indiana Jones thing started, wasn’t it?’

He nodded grimly. He hadn’t made the connection before, but he supposed it was. ‘Some fool publicist’s idea. I’ve always hated the stupid picture.’

‘I’ll bet you sold a load more books because of it, though. Didn’t I hear talk of a TV series once?’

Daniel snorted. ‘I knocked that one on the head pretty fast.’

She took the book from him and leafed through it, smiling as if she was remembering happy memories. She stopped at a colourful plate of a particularly rare slipper orchid. ‘Did you really take this picture? See it yourself?’

He gave her a one-sided smile and nodded.

‘I wish I could,’ she said wistfully. ‘I can’t think of anything more beautiful.’

He reached for her face, brushed a golden tendril away from her cheek and slid his fingers into her hair before pulling her closer for a soft, sweet kiss. ‘I’ve seen it for myself,’ he whispered, ‘but, believe me, it’s nothing compared to what’s in front of me right now.’

Chloe caught him by surprise. She threw her arms around his neck, gave him a hot, drawn-out kiss, promising all sorts of things that got him very excited indeed. And it hadn’t even been a line. He really did think she was more stunning than the speckles and stripes of the elusive flower.

When she finally pulled away, she rested her forehead against his and breathed out hard.

‘Didn’t you say you...had something to do?’ he said hoarsely.

She nodded wordlessly and he let his arms drop.

As much as he didn’t want to let her go, he didn’t want to interrupt things later on. Daniel didn’t want to be distracted by anything next time he had Chloe in his arms. Not for hours and hours and hours.

EIGHT

Chloe ran quickly and lightly down the narrow hallway that led to her bedroom. Once inside she pulled the duvet straight and plumped a pillow, then turned her attention to the other item that needed to be dealt with: the graduation photo sitting on her bedside table.

Ugh. Frizzy hair and badly applied eyeshadow.

She only displayed it in the privacy of her bedroom because she was really, really proud of her qualifications, even if the tight smiles of her parents standing behind her reminded her how they’d have preferred for her to go to a big-hitting university and get a ‘proper’ degree.

She couldn’t risk just putting it face down, so she pulled the underwear drawer of her dressing table open and stuffed the frame under the tangle of straps and things. But the sight of some of her better underwear sitting in the top of the drawer made her stop and think.

She hadn’t been planning on anyone seeing her underwear when she’d got dressed this morning. It was nude-coloured and functional. Nice enough, just not pretty like those were.

And you’re planning on someone seeing your underwear now?

Chloe thought for a moment.

Hell, yeah.

The problem was that her current bra was strapless and her dress had spaghetti straps. It would be weird if she changed into her eye-wateringly expensive silk and lace set and went out there with hot-pink straps showing. Not very subtle.

Forget subtle. Ditch the dress and go back out there in just the pink satin with the creamy lace trim.

Chloe let out a gasp. She couldn’t, could she? She’d never been quite that bold before—at least, not on a first night together. It wasn’t her.

Or was it?

The Chloe she’d invented for herself to grow into would do it. She was sassy and worldly-wise and confident. Maybe she never had before, but that was because she liked a man to do all the running, to prove he was interested. And, deep down, if she admitted it to herself, she liked it that way because then it was him not her who had to endure that horrible feeling of free fall once he’d made the first move and was waiting to see if she’d accept or reject him.

But this time it was different. The way Daniel had been looking at her...touching her... Well, she was pretty sure he wasn’t going to try and fend her off this time.

Maybe she needed to do this. Not to get him to prove anything, but to prove something to herself.

Quickly, before she could talk herself out of it, she stripped off her underwear and reached for the pink silk. Once it was on, she turned to inspect herself in the mirror.

There were a few lumps and bumps she wished weren’t there. After prodding her stomach, which jiggled a little, she looked longingly at the functional bra and knickers and sundress on the floor. There was something about walking out there as she was now that made her feel very...naked.

She looked herself in the eye and pulled herself up straight, sucked things in a little. That was what New Chloe would do. So she had a few curves, but Daniel didn’t seem to mind, and she wasn’t that blobby little nineteen-year-old any more. New Chloe knew she worked out, that she was toned. New Chloe knew she looked good.

She bent down, picked up her discarded clothes and threw them in the wardrobe. A pair of hot-pink heels winked at her from inside and she quickly reached for them and slid them on her feet. Then, without looking back, she strutted down the corridor back to the living room, reminding herself to breathe.

Since Daniel had picked up a framed photo of her on holiday last year, she took the opportunity of reaching for the dimmer switch and taking the lighting down to a more intimate level as she entered the room.

The change in brightness made him look up and round to where she was standing.

He dropped the frame.

It bounced on the floor but didn’t break.

The look on his face right then was all Chloe needed to wipe all those years of insecurity away. Never had she felt so feminine, so beautiful...so wanted.

She could pull this off, she really could. New Chloe had been a project that had worked from the outside in, but she had the feeling that after tonight that version of herself would no longer be a work in progress. One night with Daniel Bradford would banish the Mouse for ever and cement New Chloe into place. The transformation would be complete.

Since Daniel didn’t seem capable of movement at the moment, let alone speech, she walked slowly towards him, crouched to pick up the picture—aware that the angle of her knees and the high heels were doing amazing things for her legs—and handed it back to him and nodded towards the bookcase. He replaced it without taking his eyes off her.

And then, taking advantage of his paralysed state, which only gave her some kind of weird exultant power, she gave him a gentle shove and he sat down suddenly on the sofa. She had one knee on the sofa beside his leg, preparing to slide onto his lap, when he shifted slightly and reached beneath him. He pulled out the book—his book—that she’d thrown there earlier. Knowing they were definitely not going to be doing any reading in the next few hours, Chloe took it from his fingers and tossed it onto the adjacent sofa cushion.

As she did so a slip of coloured paper dislodged itself from the pages and fluttered to land on Daniel’s lap. He picked it up and stared at it. Chloe took the opportunity to place her other knee on the sofa and sank down until soft, rounded bottom met hard thighs. She attempted to pluck the paper from his hands, but he wouldn’t let go.

‘What’s this?’ he asked, obviously having recovered the use of his tongue. Chloe wasn’t very happy about that. For the money she’d paid for this bra and the way it made her boobs look he should have been drooling, his tongue thick in his mouth, for at least another half-hour.

He frowned. ‘Who...? Why have you got this?’

It was then she realised it was a photograph.

‘That’s me,’ he said, sounding slightly dazed, ‘in the middle.’

Chloe’s stomach rocketed down so hard she reckoned it had gone through the hull of her houseboat and was now wedged in the mud at the bottom of the river.

She’d forgotten all about that photo, tucked lovingly in the back of her favourite book, the one she’d never, ever lent to anyone else. A snap someone had taken on the last day of Daniel’s tropical plants course of a bunch of students and their much-admired lecturer.

‘Oh, that,’ she said blithely, trying once again to dislodge it from his fingers without seeming as if she was desperate. ‘That’s from my college days.’

‘You attended my course?’ he asked, still looking at the photo and not the pink lingerie. That was starting to annoy Chloe.

She let out a huff of air. ‘I told you I was a student at Kew,’ she said.

Finally, he made eye contact. He still wasn’t letting go of the photo, though. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

Chloe swallowed. What was she going to tell him? That she was the girl who’d humiliated herself in front of him? No way. ‘When we first met it was obvious you didn’t remember me—why would you?—so I decided not to bring it up. I didn’t want to make you feel awkward.’

Hah! Biggest fib ever. It had been nothing to do with not wanting Daniel to feel awkward.

He frowned and looked back at the photograph. ‘I do remember a few of these people,’ he said slowly, his eyes flitting between one face and the next.

Chloe decided drastic measures were needed. In a few seconds he’d realise she was in that photo. And while he hadn’t put two and two together yet, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t if he stared at it long enough.

She peeled his fingers from the photograph, let it flutter to the floor and placed his hands high on her waist, just on her lower ribs, and then she leaned forward and delivered the kiss of her life.

Thankfully, after a few seconds, she felt him relax, felt his jaw soften as he kissed her back. She let him set the pace, take control, knowing that was what he needed at that moment to keep his mind occupied. Within sixty seconds she wasn’t thinking about anything but his lips and the lazy circles his thumbs were making on her torso, travelling slowly upward. If he didn’t get to that pink silk soon she was going to explode.

Just as he’d pulled her closer, as his thumb had grazed the underside of her breast and Chloe had let out a low moan, his hands slowed down. And then they stopped. She tried to keep on kissing him but eventually his lips stopped too. He pulled away.

Chloe’s heart raced, and not from the recent thumb activity. This time her pulse was struggling to push frozen blood through her veins.

He leaned past her to reach for the photograph at his feet, and Chloe slowly climbed off his lap. He picked it up and looked first at the photo and back at her, then he studied the photo again.

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.