Valentine's Day. Nicola Marsh

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      Oh, right.

      ‘You realise it will just stir things up again every time you go on there?’ he huffed.

      ‘Zander thinks that it will help draw attention away from you. Keep it on me.’ Where it belonged.

      ‘Zander?’

      ‘He’s the station manager. It was his promotion.’

      The scowl returned. ‘Forgive me if I don’t put a lot of faith in the opinion of anyone who would think up a promotion like that.’

      The intense desire to defend Zander burbled up out of nowhere. ‘This is my responsibility, Dan. I’m trying to fix it as best I can.’

      His brilliant mind ticked over behind carefully shielded eyes. ‘I know. Sorry. You do whatever you need to, George.’ He took a breath. ‘And I’ll do whatever I need to, to stay out of it.’

      Intriguingly cryptic but fair enough. ‘OK.’

      They both shuffled awkwardly. ‘So...I’ll let you get back to your sick pitcher plant.’

      His eyes narrowed. ‘How did you know what I’m working on?’

      ‘One of your colleagues told me.’ And for no good reason at all she expanded. ‘Blonde hair, flashy dresser.’

      Cripes, Georgia, you might as well just ask him outright. ‘Why wasn’t I good enough for you?’

      His eyes grew even more guarded. ‘Right. Yes, she’s new.’

      ‘Pretty.’ Pretty different from everyone round here, that was. Because actually she was gorgeous.

      He shrugged. ‘I guess.’

      OK, he wasn’t going to play. She should have known. ‘Well, I should get going.’ It hit her then that she would quite possibly never see him again. She frowned. ‘I don’t quite know how to say goodbye to you for the last time ever. It feels really wrong.’

      But that was all, she realised. Just intensely awkward. It didn’t really hurt.

      Huh.

      He walked forward, wiped the earth from his hand and then took hers. ‘Bye, George. Don’t be too hard on yourself. No one died, here.’

      No. Except the part of her that used to be happy with herself. She squeezed his fingers. ‘Take care, Dan.’

      ‘Maybe I’ll see you round.’

      She turned. Left. And then it was done. That entire of her life closed as silently and gently as the hydraulic doors of the greenhouse.

      And still, no hurt. Just sadness. Like losing a good friend.

      Did Dan feel the same? Was that why he’d never wanted their relationship to be more? His sister had always hinted at something big in his past, but he’d never shared and she’d never felt she could ask. Kind of symptomatic of why they weren’t right for each other, really. He didn’t want more because he didn’t have more in him to give. And maybe neither did she. How long might they have gone on like that if she hadn’t brought their non-relationship to a startling and public end?

      She’d had no trouble at all imagining herself as Mrs Bradford, obligatory kids hanging off her skirts. As if it were just the natural extension of the life they’d had. She enjoyed his conversation, she liked to share activities with him, the sex was as good as she figured she would ever get. He was bomb-proof and reliable and she’d been drawn to the qualities in him that screamed stability. Because she’d had so little of it in her past. But she’d never gone breathless waiting to walk into Dan’s office. She’d never felt as cherished with him as she had standing behind a perfect stranger in an elevator as he protected her from prying eyes.

      Zander.

      About as unsuitable for her as any man could be, yet he’d stirred more emotion in her in a few meetings than had the man she’d been planning on marrying.

      All outstanding reasons to keep her distance, emotionally.

      This was the Year of Georgia. Not the year of panting after sexy, rich, unavailable men. She’d made enough bad decisions in the interests of what her friends or the rest of the world was doing; she needed to have a good look inside and see what she wanted to do.

      Even if she was a bit scared that she’d look deep inside and find nothing left.

       FOUR

      April

      The buzz in the perfume-rich room hushed but intensified as Zander walked into it. Georgia saw him from the corner of her eye but made a concerted effort not to see him. Every other woman in the place did the same but for totally different reasons.

      ‘Dieu merci! The testosterone balance in the room just doubled,’ the male chef joked and drew even more anti-attention to Zander’s arrival. He smiled thinly.

      Georgia had quickly realised that attending alone was a mistake. Every other woman there was paired up with a girlfriend, so, quite apart from whether there were any men in the room, she felt like a failure already. Learning to love doing things solo was going to be a much bigger challenge than just growing accustomed to doing things without a man by her side. Hard enough to be doing things that weren’t in her comfort zone, but to be doing them alone...

      Effectively alone. Her eyes snuck to Zander again, briefly.

      ‘Alors.’ Chef clapped his chopping board onto the bench top a few times to call the unruly crowd to order. ‘Places.’

      What did that mean? Her first reaction was to watch Zander but if he was any wiser he wasn’t giving anything away, so she took her cues from the other participants instead. They each dragged a tall stool along one edge of the oversized kitchen bench as Chef laid out a generous wine glass in front of each place from the other side. Two women practically turned an ankle vying for the spot closest to Zander who—wisely—took up the seat right at the end so that he only had to negotiate one interested feminine neighbour.

      Georgia waited until last and found herself in the space furthest from him. She filled her glass with water before anyone could put anything more ill-advised in it from the rapidly emptying bottle of chardonnay doing the rounds.

      Getting tipsy in front of Zander once was bad enough.

      ‘First point of the evening to the woman down the end. What’s your name, petite fleur?’

      All eyes snapped her way, including Zander’s.

      Every awful moment of her school career came rushing back with the unexpected attention. It never paid to be the brightest—and poorest—at secondary school. It led to all kinds of unwanted attention. ‘Georgia.’

      ‘Well, Miss Georgia,’ Chef improvised in ever-thickening French, ‘while wine is perfection for enjoying the consumption of a meal, water is, without question, the best choice for preparing one. Until you know what you’re doing, of СКАЧАТЬ