* * *
Chloe’s heart had stuttered when she’d walked in the door of The Railway. Damn. She should have known it was a stupid idea to go somewhere so close to the gardens. Because there, not more than fifteen feet away, was Daniel Bradford—or Drop-Dead Daniel, as some of the social media sites were now calling him—hunched over a beer. And he was looking every bit as gorgeous as his new nickname suggested.
Nope, she told herself. You’re finished with that crush. It’d breathed its last breath ten years ago, and she wasn’t planning on resurrecting it. Still, there wasn’t any harm in hedging her bets and just keeping out of his way to make sure. She tugged at Emma’s sleeve, about to suggest they try the wine bar farther down the smart little parade of shops and cafés, but Daniel chose that moment to turn round.
Their gazes locked, and the heat filling his eyes short-circuited her vocal cords.
It also made her very angry.
His timing really sucked, didn’t it? Because if he’d looked at her like that a decade ago she wouldn’t be in this mess right now. She might have been in a whole different kind of mess, but at least she wouldn’t have been humiliated beyond belief.
‘Hi, Daniel!’ Now Emma was waving and making her way over to him. Great.
Chloe’s plan had been going so well. She’d been effortlessly avoiding Mr Drop Dead, but maybe she should have guessed it had all been too easy, that she would have to put her resolve to the test at some point. So she tipped her chin up, smiled and followed Emma towards the bar.
It was at that point she realised Daniel was with someone—a good-looking blond—so she transferred her gaze to him, offered him her smile instead. The grin he returned said he wasn’t ungrateful for it.
A dark thundercloud passed across Daniel’s expression and settled there. The skin on the backs of Chloe’s knees started to tingle and the smile on her face set. She didn’t let it drop, though. No need to panic. A quick chat with the two men and she and Emma would be on their way.
She nodded at him. ‘Hey there, Indiana.’
A flash of lightning left that thundercloud and zapped her right between the eyebrows.
She left Emma to gush at Daniel while she turned her attention back to the blond. ‘Who’s your friend?’ she asked, slightly disappointed that there was not even a hint of a tickle at the backs of her knees as she met his appreciative gaze, even though this man was every bit as good-looking as his friend.
‘You two know each other?’ the blond asked incredulously. ‘How come you’ve never introduced us before?’ He held out his hand. ‘Alan Harrison,’ he said, enfolding Chloe’s hand in his own, before turning back to Daniel. ‘And you call yourself a mate.’
‘You’ve only just got back from Greece,’ Daniel muttered. ‘She started while you were away.’
Chloe attempted to release her hand, but it seemed Alan wasn’t quite ready to let go of it yet. She smiled coolly. ‘I’m new at the botanical gardens.’
Alan’s eyes widened. ‘You’re another plant nerd, like us? I’d never have guessed.’
She flinched inwardly at his words, but her smile grew ever brighter on the surface. ‘Guilty as charged.’ Really guilty. So she’d got a good haircut, learned how to apply liquid eyeliner... Deep inside she was still as much of a plant nerd as she’d ever been.
Alan rested an elbow on the bar and casually looked her up and down. ‘You really don’t look like one,’ he said, a slightly wolfish glimmer creeping into his eyes.
Chloe kept her smile fixed. ‘Haven’t you heard?’ She nodded in Daniel’s direction. ‘Thanks to your pal there, plant nerd is the new sexy.’
‘Oh, it really is,’ Emma said in a breathy rush, looking at Daniel.
Chloe pressed her lips together to stop herself from laughing. Daniel’s expression had darkened further, but there was a hint of panic at the backs of his eyes, one she recognised from the day she’d met him hiding from his silver-haired fan club.
But then Daniel looked back at her, and that glint of something changed and warmed. Suddenly, she was the one panicking inside.
She didn’t want him to look at her like that, as if he’d like to...
She wasn’t going to finish that thought. It was far too X-rated. And far too dangerous.
‘What can we get you two ladies to drink?’ Alan asked.
Chloe tried to speak, tried to tell him that it was okay, that she and Emma were just going to find a quiet table in the corner and chat about bamboo, but nothing came out. Not quickly enough, anyway.
‘Gin and tonic, please,’ Emma said loudly.
Chloe didn’t have much of a choice now. It would look really rude if she refused. Still, Emma had to be away in half an hour. How bad could it be? She was going to have to work alongside Daniel occasionally. Maybe this would be good practice.
But she made the mistake of catching his eye as she cleared her throat and said, ‘White wine would be lovely.’ The tingling was back behind her knees, threatening to send rogue messages to her muscles stop keeping her upright and just...melt.
Thankfully, a group of people sitting at a table near them got up to leave. Alan stopped leaning on the bar and motioned in its direction. ‘Shall we?’ He walked over to the table, pulling out a chair for Emma first. Chloe decided she liked him a lot better for that.
She decided it was safer to sit on the same side of the rectangular table as Emma. Alan quickly bagged the seat opposite, which left Daniel no choice but to subject himself to Emma’s adoring gaze.
Chloe chuckled to herself while simultaneously breathing a sigh of relief. Emma was doing a very nice job of deflecting the attention from her. She could definitely handle a quick drink with these two men if her colleague kept this up.
In fact, Emma kept Daniel so completely monopolised with her barrage of questions about a new subspecies of bamboo he’d encountered in his previous job that Chloe was free to sit back, sip her wine and listen to a long story Alan was telling about his trip to Corfu.
Every so often she’d glance across at Daniel. He seemed quite happy to answer Emma’s queries, but when the other woman smiled and fiddled with her hair his expression remained neutral. When Emma leaned forward across the table, he leaned back. Chloe’s amusement at Daniel’s expense waned.
She knew what that was like. Knew just what it was like.
To want him so badly that you threw everything you had into getting him, letting your mouth run away with you, letting your body language go into overdrive. Emma seemed oblivious, though. She just kept ploughing on.
There was no doubt that she was attractive for her age, but as she talked Chloe just itched to suggest a girls’ night in so she could apply serum and a pair of straighteners to that hair. She took a sip of her wine. There were products on the market these days to combat that amount of frizz. If anyone should know, it was Chloe...
Her insides chilled.
There but for the grace of God...
She had not so much a flashback as a flash forward—to who she might have been, had she not subjected herself to that post-graduation makeover.
Stop, she wanted to tell Emma. Don’t do it. He’ll push you away, make you feel small and insignificant, not good enough for him.
She and Emma had chatted enough for her to know that the older woman was unhappily single. Chloe didn’t want her to go home that evening after her failed play for Daniel, look in the mirror and decide that if life handed out report cards, the overwhelming verdict would be could do better.
Should do better. Must do better.
Chloe knew how much that smarted.