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.
Because everyone knew that wasn’t true.
Especially Daniel.
She walked stiffly to the plate glass door that led to the orchid enclosure, relishing the climate-controlled cool air on her skin after the humidity of the Wet Tropics zone. Once there she stared into one of the display cases—rarer specimens protected by a wall of glass—and exhaled.
She’d been so stupid, hadn’t she?
For a decade she’d been turning herself into a turbo-charged, bionic version of herself, determined to never be the sort of woman a man like Daniel could ever reject, and it hadn’t worked.
He’d run from the frizzy-haired mouse.
He’d also run from New Chloe. Twice as fast.
She didn’t know what to do now, didn’t know who to be. Her best just hadn’t been good enough, not by a long shot, and she didn’t have the energy to build better and higher. Not yet.
She turned around, pressed her back against the glass and let her knees buckle under her until she was crouching on the floor. The display across the enclosure was beautiful, rocks and logs, dripping with colourful blooms. It was like salve to her jagged emotions.
Perhaps she would just be the girl who loved orchids for a while, the girl who loved their fragile and ostentatious beauty, because, at the moment, it was the only thing she thought she was good at.
* * *
Chloe stood nervously outside Daniel’s smart black door and looked for somewhere to place the gift bag in her hands so she could disappear back into the twilight. Somewhere Kelly would see it if she opened the door or came back home, but not somewhere inviting enough that someone on the street might see it and pinch it.
There was a small alcove on one side of the small tiled porch, offering some cover from anyone walking along the pavement. She was just reaching over to place the bag on the floor next to some empty milk bottles when the door opened—just a notch. Chloe froze.
She looked up to find Cal blinking at her. She pressed a finger to her lips, began to back away, but he suddenly threw his head back and yelled, ‘There’s someone at the door,’ in the full-volumed way only a four-year-old could.
Chloe barely had time to back away before the door was yanked wide and she was staring at a broad,
T-shirted chest.
Oh, poop.
She hadn’t seen him much since that night on her boat. A glimpse of him here and there over the last week, always glaring at her, as if she had no right to be in his nursery, be one of his staff. It had got right on her nerves.
And then everything had gone quiet. People at work had seemed to relax a little, had stopped scanning the corridors when either she or Daniel was around, waiting for the other one to appear. When she’d told Emma, the other woman explained that Daniel had asked for emergency leave—something to do with his sister.
That news had made Chloe go cold all over. That could only mean one thing: Daniel was required to look after the boys because something had happened to Kelly. After his sister’s recent health scares, she didn’t even dare imagine what. It was too awful.
She and Daniel might not be getting along at the moment—she guffawed mentally at the understatement—but she liked Kelly, had admired how strong she seemed after all she’d been through. So she’d gone out and bought some pampering things, just some nice body lotion and some bath soak. The plan had been to pop it on the doorstep and sneak away before anyone spotted her.
The plan had obviously been flawed.
He folded his arms across his chest. ‘What in hell’s name are you doing here?’ he said in a low, menacing whisper.
‘I... Ah...’
Body not working. Brain not working. Lips definitely not working. She was going for the full house here.
Instead she dived for the bag, meaning to just take it and flee, but unfortunately Daniel lunged for it at the same time and their skulls produced a beautiful clear cracking sound as they made contact. Chloe staggered back, clutching her crown. Daniel, however, must have had an iron-capped skull, because he didn’t seem to be in quite as much pain, although the swear word he uttered was very colourful.
Then a little voice from behind his knees repeated it beautifully, with the same intonation and gusto.
‘Cal,’ he said, and she could hear the strain that told her he was hanging onto his last thread of patience, ‘just go back inside and see what Ben is up to, will you?’
‘Okay, Uncle Daniel,’ the voice said chirpily, and then Chloe could hear him skipping off down the hall, testing his new word out all the way.
Still holding her head, she straightened and came eye to eye with a rather angry Daniel Bradford. Good. She was angry too.
Angry at being made to feel like a pariah in her workplace. Angry that every time he’d set eyes on her since that night he’d looked as if he’d like to set fire to her with his glare. Angry that he hadn’t let her explain, and that she’d known instinctively that he wouldn’t have listened.
‘I asked you a question,’ he growled.
Chloe smoothed her T-shirt down with her free hand. ‘I was just dropping these off for—’
He made a dismissive gesture towards the bag in her hand but, unfortunately, the edge of his hand caught it and the bottles went flying. His first reaction was shock, but then his expression hardened again. ‘I don’t want anything you’ve got to give me.’
Unfortunately, since Chloe had bought Kelly some rather nice lotions, the bottles were glass not plastic. One bounced on the small lawn, but the other one hit the path and smashed.
‘Now look what you’ve done!’ she shouted.
She knew it was pointless, but she reached out to pick up the bits from amidst the fragrant, snowy white lotion now oozing into the dirt. She couldn’t leave it there. One of the boys might tread on it.
‘You really are unhinged, aren’t you?’ a superior voice said from above her. ‘I had no idea how bad it was.’
‘Listen, you egotistical jerk—ow!’ Chloe flinched away as her fingertip met glass. Instinctively, she stuck her finger in her mouth but instantly spat it out again. That lotion definitely did not taste as good as it smelled.
He let out a frustrated sigh. ‘I’m sorry you’ve hurt yourself, but this can’t continue...I don’t need any of your gifts. And I don’t want you hanging around outside my house.’
Chloe’s lips twitched, then a high-pitched laugh burst out of her mouth. And once she’d started she couldn’t stop. She clamped her good hand over her mouth to muffle the noise. This man was priceless! He actually thought she was stalking him? Just how vain could a man get?
She looked up at him, the look of twisted confusion on his features at her sudden outburst, and that just made her laugh all the harder.
When she could finally manage a sentence in one go, she said, ‘This wasn’t for you, Daniel. It was for Kelly.’
The look of astonishment on his face was almost worth the pain in her finger.