Call Me Cupid

‘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 safe, 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.

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