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The woman nodded and clutched the coat around herself. ‘Oh, God,’ she muttered. ‘I feel so stupid.’
Chloe stepped forward, but it seemed Daniel was reluctant to let go of her hand. He still hadn’t moved and his jaw was set in a hard line. She shot him a work with me look and he unclenched his hand enough to let her wiggle her fingers free.
She put her arm around the woman and led her further along the walkway, high above the Wet Tropics zone and through a glass door into another section, away from the staring crowd.
‘I’m so sorry,’ the woman said. ‘I saw that picture of you two online, but there’d never been anything more. I didn’t realise you two... I thought he was available.’
‘It’s okay,’ Chloe said softly. ‘I understand. He...he has this weird effect on people. On women.’
He certainly had a weird effect on Chloe.
Tears slid from between the woman’s lashes. She
nodded and looked at the floor. ‘He just looked like...seemed to be...I don’t know...the kind of man who’d really know how to look after a woman.’ Her head jerked up. ‘Is he?’ she asked, slightly desperately, her fierce gaze demanding Chloe made eye contact.
Chloe didn’t know what to say to that. She hardly knew Daniel, not really. And the truth was she’d been on the receiving end of one of the most humiliating and mortifying moments of her life at his hand. She certainly hadn’t felt very special or looked after at that moment.
But this woman didn’t need to hear that, and there was something in the tone of her question that begged for something positive to cling to from this whole sorry experience.
Chloe spotted a couple of the Kew constabulary slowly making their way towards them. She didn’t know what experiences this woman had had with the opposite sex to get herself in this state, but they couldn’t have been good ones. Maybe she just needed to know that all men weren’t rats, that there were some good ones out there.
She thought about the way Daniel tended his plants, how gentle and patient he could be. Now, if he could bring some of that into his personal life, he really would be a catch. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to give the right answer. She met the woman’s gaze.
‘Yes, he is,’ she said quietly. And as the two constables reached them she reached down and squeezed the woman’s hand.
‘I think she might just need a strong cup of tea and a sympathetic ear,’ she told the constables. ‘No harm done.’
The female officer of the pair smiled and nodded, and Chloe let out a breath. She really hoped the poor woman would get the help she needed.
As for Chloe? Well, maybe she was in need of a little help herself.
No harm done. Really?
She wasn’t so sure about that.
Because she knew that by her actions a few moments ago she’d announced to the onlookers, including Kew staff, and maybe even to the whole world—via the considerate people who’d silently recorded the whole episode on their smartphones—that she and Daniel Bradford were a couple.
* * *
The crowd, who were far too nosey to disperse, watched along with Daniel as Chloe re-entered the Wet Tropics zone and walked back towards him. Her chin was high and her make-up perfect. She looked so in control, so assured...
So different from that crazy woman in the raincoat.
The contrast soothed his soul.
At least, it did until she was right in front of him. Just as she reached him he saw a flicker of something else behind the perfection, something in her eyes as she looked up at him—uncertainty, blended with a pinch of nerves.
That shook him.
For weeks now she’d had him convinced that she was impervious, iron-clad. Chloe Michaels was merely a delectable package he was itching to unwrap. A prize to be won. So it was a shock to be reminded that she was a real woman, one maybe, that still had all the idiosyncrasies and puzzling insecurities they seemed to be preprogrammed with.
But then the something he’d seen was gone, and she was back to normal—all gloss and glamour. All colour and scent. He breathed out, relieved that she’d tucked whatever it was he’d seen away, out of reach, and he didn’t need to worry about it any more.
He didn’t say anything to her, just closed the distance between them, caught her hand in his, then led her out of the Princess of Wales Conservatory.
Once outside they kept walking, still joined, far away from the glasshouse, up the Broadwalk and on. They stopped briefly by the lake in front of the vast Palm House.
‘We need to talk,’ he said, ‘about what just happened back there.’
She nodded.
‘Somewhere private,’ he added.
They turned their heads in unison and looked at the Victorian marvel of curved white iron and thin panes of glass not more than a hundred feet away. Although it was one of the prime visitor spots at Kew, and unlikely to be empty, it was filled with drooping plants and massive leaves. Daniel knew there were plenty of places to hide if one knew where to go.
Once inside, he ignored the ‘No Entry’ sign at the bottom of one of the ornate spiral staircases that led from the floor of the Palm House to the gallery that ringed the dome. ‘They’ve just finished trimming the giant bamboo,’ he explained, ‘so we should be the only ones up here for now.’
Chloe nodded and let him pull her up the stairs, unable to say anything sensible. She’d been fine while the whole drama had been unfolding back in the Princess of Wales Conservatory, cool as the proverbial cucumber, but now, as the damp heat of the tropical greenhouse seeped beneath her clothes and moistened her skin, she couldn’t stop thinking about the woman in the raincoat.
The way the crowd had looked at her, with a mixture of curiosity and disgust... The poor woman had seemed so lost and desperate. How had she not known that what she was about to do would be a horrible mistake?
The heels of Chloe’s boots clanged on the scrollwork metal steps and she shifted her weight so she was treading on the balls of her feet. She felt as if she’d left her stomach on the iron-grated floor below them. The air grew hotter and wetter, making it hard to gulp it in as she climbed.
Ten years ago, was that how Daniel had seen her? Had he felt that same mix of revulsion and pity? She shivered at the thought.
They’d reached the top of the curling staircase and she paused, taking in a steadying breath before following Daniel down the narrow gallery until they were almost completely hidden from view by a giant palm and a bushy cannonball tree.
Daniel turned and looked at her.
Yes, this was the expression she wanted to see on his face. Not a hint of revulsion. Slighty perplexed, if anything, because he’d lost that perpetual frown and his expression was the most open she’d ever seen it.
‘Thank you for what you did back there. I had no idea how to handle that gracefully. After Georgia...I just didn’t want to say the wrong thing.’
Chloe couldn’t help but smile, just a little. Hanging off bridges and scaling mountains were what Daniel Bradford was graceful at. The interpersonal stuff, not so much.
He shook his head. ‘This whole thing, ever since that stupid radio show, has been crazy.’
‘I’m hoping today’s particular manifestation was a one-off,’ Chloe said, feeling less scorn for the woman than was coming out in her voice. For some reason, she didn’t want Daniel to know that she’d identified with the poor soul at all.
He shook his head, looked away for