Your Room or Mine by Charlotte Phillips

‘It should be fine but still you might want to consider repotting it,’ she added automatically, the part of her that spent her entire working life around plants taking over. ‘It looks to me like it might be potbound – did you see there were mostly roots there rather than soil? And some of the leaves are turning yellow?’

The concierge stared at her as if she were an alien. Her shoulders sagged. Why was she bothering?

‘Sorry,’ she mumbled and grabbed her bags, leaving the remains of the mess behind her as she took the stairs.

She was a few steps up when she realised the man from checkin was keeping pace next to her.

‘Thanks,’ she said, because he was wearing a suit and still he hadn’t hesitated to get soil under his nails on her behalf.

‘You’re welcome,’ he said. ‘You obviously know your way around pot plants.’ His voice was deep and smooth. A voice that could draw you in.

‘Not literally, unfortunately,’ she said.

He smiled and she offered a polite smile back.

‘I’m a gardener,’ she said, turning at the first landing. He stayed alongside her.

‘Really? You don’t look like a gardener.’

‘What does a gardener look like?’

He shrugged.

‘Sweaty, old jeans, grimy hands, crack of butt on show.’

She laughed.

‘Yeah well, it is my day off,’ she said.

He smiled a delicious lop-sided smile that lifted the left corner of his mouth and crinkled the warm hazel eyes at the corners. A smile that had meaning beyond politeness.

Izzy looked away as her heart gave a skip of triumph, such a long-forgotten sensation that it nearly brought her to a standstill.

He was flirting with her.

When had she last flirted with anyone? Three years of pouring 5