Call Me Cupid. Heidi Rice

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.