It didn’t matter just how much saliva had pooled in the bottom of Daniel Bradford’s mouth when he’d looked at her, because she was never, ever going down that road again. And it didn’t matter just how ferocious the monster crush she’d had on him ten years ago had been, because there was one thing she was certain of...
She’d shoot herself before she got within kissing distance of him ever again.
* * *
Daniel hung from a spot halfway up the climbing wall at his local sports centre and peered down at the top of his friend’s helmet. ‘Hurry up, Al,’ he called out. ‘You’re out of shape. Must have spent too much time lolling on a sun lounger while you were on holiday.’
Alan eventually caught up. He wasn’t looking as chirpy as normal.
‘What’s up with you?’ he said, still panting. ‘You were up this wall like the hounds of hell were on your tail, and you only climb like that when trouble’s brewing—usually woman trouble.’
Daniel shrugged and pulled a face. ‘Of a sort.’
Alan grinned at him hopefully.
‘Georgia came by the gardens today.’
Alan stopped grinning and said a word Daniel thought most appropriate. ‘What did she want? She didn’t rush tearfully into your arms and beg for a second chance, did she?’
Daniel shook his head. ‘No, thank goodness.’
He realised how insensitive that sounded, but Alan understood. He was a guy.
Daniel shifted his hand grip. ‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘Maybe it never should have started.’
Alan shrugged. ‘I thought you had a good thing going there. All the perks and none of the drama.’
That was what Daniel had thought too, when he’d thought about it at all. That also sounded insensitive, he realised. But he and Georgia had been friends, her work at Kew’s millennium seed bank throwing them together occasionally, and somewhere along the line friendship had slipped into something more. At the time he’d hardly noticed it happening.
Normally, he was much more focused about his love life. He’d spot a woman that appealed to him, pick her out from the pack, and then he’d go about pursuing her, changing her mind... Because, if there was one contrary thing about him, it was that he liked the ones that were hard work, took a little chasing. It made the whole thing so much more fun.
But Kelly had been ill, vomiting half the day, and Daniel—apart from being scared out of his wits for his sister—had been thrown in the deep end of caring for two small boys. He supposed all his ‘chasing’ energy had been tied up elsewhere, and maybe that was why he’d slid into his easy relationship with Georgia.
He’d thought she’d wanted that too. Something with no complications, no dramas. Definitely no wedding rings.
He should have known. If a relationship lasted more than six months, that diamond encrusted time bomb was always there, ticking away in the background. And Daniel knew just how deep that glittery shrapnel could embed itself.
He started climbing again. ‘That’s not all, though,’ he said, glancing at Alan, who was now keeping pace. ‘She told me the radio station is holding her to the contract she signed with them.’
Alan looked shocked. ‘What? How can they do that? There’s no wedding to cover. You said no.’
Daniel nodded. ‘That’s what I said. But, for some unknown reason, she feels the need to reinvent herself, and they’re going to follow her around all year while she does it. The Year of Georgia, they’re calling it.’ As if he didn’t feel enough of a heel already.
Alan’s gift for expletives made itself known again.
But it wasn’t really the extra media coverage that warranted such a well-timed word. It was a horrible feeling that, by saying no to Georgia, he’d somehow broken her and now she thought she needed to fix herself.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. This was the very reason he chose women carefully, avoided commitment. He wasn’t looking for love and marriage. It was like his pitcher plants—a sticky, sweet-scented trap. Thankfully, unlike a mindless fly, Daniel had a well-developed urge for self-preservation and he usually prided himself on not falling for the lie and getting stuck.
Until Georgia, of course. A mistake he wouldn’t make again.
Damn her for seeming so self-sufficient and sensible when underneath she’d been horribly vulnerable. Damn himself for being too caught up in other things to see the truth.
‘This thing’s never going to end, is it?’ he asked Alan as he started off towards the top of the wall with renewed vigour.
Alan shook his head, more in disbelief than in judgement. ‘Look on the bright side,’ he said as he scrambled to keep up. ‘Most men I know would give their right arm to be where you are right now—women flinging themselves at you on a daily basis. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel...’
Daniel frowned as he swung a foot into place and pushed himself up over an overhang. He didn’t want to shoot fish in a barrel. That was the point!
He didn’t want wide-eyed adoration from a woman; she was likely to start wanting more than he was prepared to give. No, he liked to meet a woman on equal terms, play the game, have fun while it lasted and move on.
‘Most men you know are bloody idiots, then,’ he shouted back at Alan. ‘There’s interested and then there’s desperate and clingy. I know which I prefer.’ And then he shot away from his friend and headed for the top of the wall.
As he climbed the burning in his fingertips, in his shoulders and arms, soothed him. He forgot all about radio stations and marriage proposals and bloody Valentine’s Day. Instead, he concentrated on the physical sensations of foot meeting wall, fingers grasping hand hold, and after a while a different set of images—a much more appealing set of images—flitted through his brain.
A flash of a hot-pink shoe. The curve of that tight black skirt as it had gone in and out. The glint of the sun on pale blonde hair as it slanted through the conservatory roof. The wry and sexy curve of a pair of crimson lips as she teased him.
That staff pass, twirling gently underneath...
Daniel realised he’d run out of wall. He blinked and looked down. Alan was still struggling with that last overhang.
Hardly surprising his mind had turned to Chloe Michaels. He’d been thinking about that day in the Princess of Wales Conservatory a lot recently. Unfortunately, memories were all he had at the moment, because he’d hardly seen her at all lately. She was like the disappearing woman, always leaving a place just as he arrived.
‘Mate,’ Alan said, panting. ‘If you don’t sort out this woman trouble, you’re going to finish me off. You’ve got to let the whole Georgia thing go.’
Daniel nodded. Yes. Georgia. That was the only woman trouble he had at the moment. The only woman trouble he should have at the moment.
But that pair of crimson lips was laughing at him, breathing gently in his ear...
He shook his head. Bad idea, Daniel. Trap that thought and put it on hold.
He’d just jumped from the frying pan of one relationship—very publicly—and he wasn’t planning on landing in another romantic fire right now. He needed to sit back and take stock, give himself some breathing room. He shouldn’t be thinking of starting something new, no matter how prettily those little flames danced and invited him in.
He craned his neck to look at the ceiling. It was far too close to his head. He could do with at least another fifty feet of wall to conquer, something to help him shed this restless energy.
‘Women are the last thing on my mind at the moment,’ he told Alan. ‘It’s