Call Me Cupid: The Guy to Be Seen With / The First Crush Is the Deepest / Too Close for Comfort

She just smiled mysteriously and looked away. ‘I doubt you’ll ever find out.’ No point telling him the only poles she was really proficient with were the little green canes she used to support her orchids.

This was her cue to exit. She half stood up and looked at both men in turn. ‘Thanks for the drinks, guys, but I really must be going.’

‘Must you?’ Alan said, half rising from his seat and sporting what he probably considered was his most appealing smile. Chloe glanced over at Daniel. Once again, her blood danced along in her veins to the beat of bongo drums.

Yep. She really must go—before things got totally out of hand.

But then a few things happened in tandem, and she never really got her suitably cool and aloof goodbye out of her mouth. Alan’s phone rang and he jumped up, pulled it out of his back trouser pocket and answered it. However, it seemed that Daniel thought Alan was making an ill-advised lunge for her, because he shot to his feet too, eyes flaming, and knocked the table in the process. Chloe’s half-finished wine landed in her lap and the glass rolled onto the floor with an almighty crash.

And then Chloe was also on her feet and wine was running down her T-shirt and trousers. Even her boots were wet. She’d be smelling like the back room of an off-licence on the walk home. Most attractive.

Once again, the whole pub had fallen quiet to watch the show. They were certainly getting their money’s worth tonight. She pushed past Alan—who was very gallantly continuing his phone conversation—shot a desperate look at Daniel and headed for the door.

From the way her audience’s eyes kept switching from her to something behind her, she could tell she was being pursued. She really didn’t know what would be worse: to turn round and discover it was Alan, or to turn round and discover it was Daniel, so she just kept weaving through the narrow tables until she could push her way through the crowd to reach the door.

Once outside, she breathed in a mouthful of cold March air and set off down the street. She lived within walking distance, anyway, and hopefully she’d dry off a little on the way home.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t the only one hurrying down the street back towards the gardens. Her pursuer obviously wasn’t giving up. She decided to play ignorant. Perhaps, if she pretended she didn’t know someone was following her, they might just give up and go away.

It didn’t work. And with every step Chloe’s blood pressure rose until she thought her curls would stand on end. Eventually, she stopped and spun round so fast her pursuer almost crashed into her.

She was inches from a broad chest. ‘What?’ she asked it hoarsely.

The chest moved up and down and she could hear him breathing. She must have been walking a lot faster than she’d thought. He didn’t say anything, though, so she tilted her eyeballs upwards until she could see that it was Daniel Bradford staring back down at her.

He held up one of the little bar towels that all good pubs had stocked away somewhere. ‘You had wine on your jacket,’ he said gruffly.

‘Oh.’ She stared at him.

He was still holding up the towel. She was still not taking it.

Slowly, and with surprising gentleness, he took the towel and dabbed at the drips on her left arm, which had now run from biceps to wrist. When he picked up her hand to clean up her cuff, she stopped breathing. From the eerie silence in the dark street, she realised he had too. Simultaneously, they both stopped looking at her sleeve and looked at each other.

Go on, an evil little voice on her shoulder whispered. Pucker up and launch yourself at him again. It might work this time.

No!

No. She’d seen the way he’d looked at Emma that evening. How could she be thinking of taking it one step further? Did she have a strange psychotic illness no one had ever diagnosed? Bradforditis. One look at the man and she was all sorts of crazy.

She wriggled her hand out of his grasp, almost whimpering as the pads of his fingers brushed the soft underside of her wrist, and stepped away.

‘Thank you,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest as best she could. With the engineering marvel of a bra she was wearing, it wasn’t easy. ‘This is my favourite jacket.’

Daniel stepped forward. ‘Look...about Alan...’

She raised a hand, held him at bay. ‘No need. I’m quite used to taking care of myself. He didn’t offend me.’

‘When you ran out—’

She shook her head, cutting him off. Why had she run out? ‘I just...decided I’d rather clean up without an audience,’ she said. ‘Any more drama from our table and someone would have stood up in the corner and started selling ice creams.’

And then Daniel Bradford spoiled all her attempts at backing off and being sophisticated by crinkling up his pale green eyes and smiling at her.

Ping!

Yep. She was pretty sure another thread of her sanity had just snapped.

‘Do you fancy an ice cream?’ he said softly, still smiling.

Chloe let her arms drop by her sides. ‘You know what?’ she said. ‘I really do.’

‘Come on.’ He led her a few shops down to the little express supermarket that was still open. Once inside he strode over to the tiny freezer containing ice creams and slid the lid open. ‘Take your pick.’

She chose a decadent one: two layers of chocolate with caramel trapped between. Daniel grabbed something plainer. And once he’d paid they walked out of the shop, quickly rid the ice creams of their wrappers and walked down the street in silence, only the cracking of thin chocolate and the slurping of ice cream could be heard.

‘Thank you,’ she said, when they reached the end of the short parade of shops and stopped by an old horse trough, now filled with daffodils. ‘For the ice cream and the mop up job.’

He shrugged. ‘No problem.’

He was staring at her lips again. Chloe’s heart began to pound, but Daniel lifted a finger to the edge of his own mouth, not hers. ‘You’ve got a bit of...’

Pulse still thudding in her ears, she shot out her tongue and captured a bit of stray caramel that had stuck to the corner of her lip. Daniel Bradford seemed to be very interested in the process. In fact, he seemed to be leaning in closer to get a better look.

Run.

Don’t think about it, just run.

Ah. That must be the angel sitting on the opposite shoulder from the other little voice. About time it showed up and offered some sensible advice.

He cleared his throat, looked down intently at her. ‘I know this is a bit back to front, that we’ve just had what could be considered dessert...’

She licked her lips again. More out of nervousness than because of stray caramel.

‘But why don’t we round it all up by having a starter and a main course somewhere else?’ He smiled again, and Chloe discovered the caramel had travelled to her knees.

Oh, it was so tempting...

This was what she’d fantasised about, aged nineteen, on many a night in her student digs—Daniel Bradford, looking at her this way, asking her in that deep, earthy voice of his if they could go somewhere alone together.

She shook her head, and just that motion helped the next words out. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea...We’re colleagues. People will talk...and I want to get on at Kew because of what I can do,’ she said quietly, ‘not because people think I’m sleeping with the boss.’

His lips curved into the sexiest of smiles, telling her that he had an answer for that one. ‘There’s no rule against it,’ he said. ‘And we don’t have to broadcast it. It’ll be our secret.’

She shook her head. ‘With the attention you’re generating right now that’s nigh on impossible.’

She was a genius for coming up with that one! It was perfect.

He nodded, pressed his lips together in grim acceptance. ‘I can understand that. My life is a bit of a circus at present. But maybe later, when all the fuss has died down?’