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 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