by Fiona Harper
It was a habit she’d picked up at school, when fitting in had been as necessary as breathing. She might have not had as much money as most of her school chums, but that hadn’t meant she’d wanted to stand out in cut-price highstreet polyester knock-offs. As a result, she’d developed a talent for breaking down an outfit into its component parts, working out how she could copy it on a shoestring or use what she already owned to pull off the look. It had helped her blend into the privileged world of Hurstdean Academy.
‘Marvellous!’ Celeste said, beaming. For some reason her smile reminded Nicole of a chihuahua baring its teeth. ‘And how’s your cute little boutique agency doing? I don’t seem to have heard much about it in ages. I Do, I Do, I Do is going great guns. Did you hear we just did the Patterson–Henley proposal? She said yes, of course. Who wouldn’t when daddy-in-law is a viscount?’
Celeste broke off so she and Minty could congratulate themselves with throaty, slightly horsey laughter.
Nicole kept smiling and gently put a hand on Peggy’s arm. She was sure she’d just heard a snarl from under her flatmate’s breath.
Minty sighed and flicked her hair in a manner that got the attention of all the men in a ten-foot radius. ‘They’ve asked us to do the engagement party as well, you know. Fabulous exposure.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ Mia said tightly. ‘Congratulations.’
Celeste started scanning the crowd. Obviously, they’d ceased to be entertaining now the gloating had finished, and she was looking for her next victim. ‘Ooh! There’s the new owner of the Hamilton, Jayce Ryder. He did say he wanted a word with us. Come on, Minty.’ She waved above the crowd. ‘Yoo-hoo, Jayce…!’
Both girls flashed identical smiles at Nicole, Peggy and Mia and then headed off into the crowd without bothering to air-kiss a farewell.
The name Peggy called them when they were out of earshot wasn’t nice.
Nicole shook her head. ‘We shouldn’t criticise the competition in public. It’s not professional.’
Peggy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Professional, schmessional. Sometimes I just can’t help myself, and I don’t know how you can be so calm, cool and collected about it, either. Not after they copied your idea and set up a rival proposal-planning agency right under your nose!’
Nicole sent a laser-targeted stare after the two disappearing willowy figures. ‘They only got that job because Minty’s daddy plays polo with Hugo Patterson’s daddy.’ Mia followed her gaze. ‘Oh, yes. I forgot you used to work with them at that big event-planning firm.’
‘Me and my big mouth,’ Nicole muttered, turning back to her friends and sighing. ‘I shouldn’t have bragged to them that I was branching out on my own.’
Mia nodded understandingly. ‘And have you seen a drop in business recently? I know you said you were worried about that when you started out.’
Nicole sighed again. She’d hoped for a fun, glitzy evening after a hard week with sleepless nights and ten-hour days. ‘A bit. I run a full range of services. The lowest tier is personalised proposal ideas that clients buy for a small fee and then they do the rest themselves—inspiration, if you like. Next is helping to find venues and vendors who match the client’s requirements, but the top tier is the no-holds-barred planning service, where I take care of everything. Not only are those the most fun to do, but they’re the ones I make most money on, and it’s interest in those kind of proposals that seems to have tailed off.’
She glanced over again at her rivals, who were busy fawning over the hotel tycoon who’d been responsible for the Hamilton’s upswing in fortune. ‘And I have a feeling I know who’s hoovering up all that kind of business.’
Peggy glared over at them. ‘Those two are toxic on so many levels it isn’t funny.’
Nicole angled her body away from Celeste and Minty. She didn’t even want to look at them. They didn’t count. She wasn’t going to let girls like that get the better of her ever again.
‘Ever since school I’ve had to deal with girls like that, girls whose lives are charmed, because someone waved a magic wand over them at birth, so they get everything their hearts desire. So life comes easy to them. So success drops easily into their laps because of their names or their connections, but it doesn’t mean they have to have it all, leaving nothing for us.’
Nicole was prepared to work for it. Work hard. She’d get there in the end.
‘It doesn’t matter how well they’re doing now,’ she said slowly. ‘Celeste was slapdash when we worked together at Elite Gatherings and I bet she’s slapdash now. She was always swanning around doing what she felt like doing and palming off the boring stuff on other people.’
‘Sounds about right,’ Peggy said grimly. ‘Look up “entitlement” in the dictionary and you’d see her ugly mug staring right back at you.’
Nicole nodded and smiled. ‘That was all fine and dandy while Celeste was working for a big event-planning firm, with plenty of victims to take up the slack, but now it’s just her and Minty, and Minty’s just as bad. It doesn’t matter if they’ve got the connections, access to the Old Boys’ Club through their fathers…They’ll trip themselves up eventually. What matters are drive and talent, and Hopes & Dreams has plenty of that, especially now Peggy has come on board part-time.’
All three women stared after their number one—well, their only—competitors.
‘Won’t matter if we go under and they continue to float around London like it’s their own personal garden party,’ Peggy muttered darkly.
Mia, ever the practical one, laid a hand on Nicole’s arm. ‘Well, if you ever want a hand with the books, just let me know. I might as well use all those fancy letters I got after my name for something I really care about.’
Nicole smiled and nodded. Mia hated her job as an accountant in a big city firm. If she could have joined her and Peggy at Hopes & Dreams, she’d have done so in a heartbeat. In fact, that was the plan if the business survived into next year.
Peggy hated any talk of boring things like numbers and spreadsheets. She let her head loll and pretended to snore softly, and when Mia poked her in the arm with a sharp fingernail she lifted her head and said, ‘Time for another drink.’ She handed her glass to Mia, who rolled her eyes but waved at the barman anyway.
‘I’d settle for a glass of fizz and change of subject,’ Nicole said. She’d been on a nice little high after Warren’s triumph that evening, but Celeste’s news about Hugo Patterson and Sarah Henley had thrown cold water all over it. Somehow, a draughty office building in Lambeth just didn’t have the same cachet. It was great having satisfied clients, but what she really needed was high-profile satisfied clients. Ones who would shell out a ton of money on a high-end proposal, then brag about it to all their friends and get Hopes & Dreams mentioned in Celebrity Life.
‘Change of subject? Oh, well in that case…Guess who dropped by our flat while you were out being a Bond girl?’ Peggy waggled her eyebrows and waited, smiling.
‘The Sultan of Brunei,’ Nicole replied, not missing a beat.
Peggy tutted. ‘It’s no fun if you don’t play along.’
‘It’s no fun for you, you mean…’
Mia leaned over and put a hand on Nicole’s arm. ‘Just humour her. You know she’ll bug you until she gets it out of her system one way or the other.’
Peggy grinned at Nicole. ‘Well, if you’re going to be boring, I’ll just tell you…Your dad came in to check that damp patch on the bathroom ceiling this afternoon, with hunky plumber Steve in tow. They were sad to have missed you—especially Steve.’
Nicole shrugged.
‘And when I say “sad”, I mean very sad. You ought to put him out of his misery and call him sometime, you know. I’m sure the only reason he keeps coming back to check the work he did on the boiler is because he wants an excuse to see you.’
‘Sorry, Peg. Steve just isn’t my type.’
‘Then find someone who is your type!’ Peggy said, flicking her artfully curled platinum locks. ‘It’s been to
o long since you’ve been out on a date. It’s making you very crabby.’
Nicole opened her mouth to say there was a difference between ‘crabby’ and ‘taking your life seriously’, but Mia jumped in ahead of her.
‘A woman can exist without a man in her life, you know, Peg. It’s not the 1950s any more, even though you dearly like to pretend it is. Sometimes it’s about the quality, not the quantity.’
Peggy gave Mia a well-worn look. ‘There’s not going to be any quality at all if the quantity is zero.’
‘Well, we all know you like to prove that point with a different man every week.’
Nicole could see where this was going. Mia and Peg were firm friends really, but sometimes they really could rub each other up the wrong way. ‘Calm down, children,’ she said in a soothing tone. ‘We’re supposed to be here to check out the Hamilton and schmooze for new clients, remember?’
Both women nodded reluctantly, but Peggy had to get the last word in, as always. ‘You can’t chip in anyway, Miss Mia, seeing as you’ve now got a ring on your finger, are sickeningly loved-up and can’t even remember what it’s like to be single.’
Mia suddenly stopped scowling and her whole face lit up in a beatific smile. ‘I am sickeningly loved-up, aren’t I? And who wouldn’t be with a man like Jonathan? He’s perfect, isn’t he? Tell me he’s perfect.’
Nicole laughed. It was true; Mia’s fiancé really was lovely. He’d been so nervous about popping the question that he’d asked Nicole for help and it was then she’d realised not only was there a gap in the market, but that proposal planning was only a sidestep from event and party planning. There was so much pressure on guys these days, not only asking the question but how they did it. Suddenly booking a table at a nice restaurant and buying a ring wasn’t enough. Jonathan had been very aware of all those YouTube videos out there of creative and romantic proposals. So that was where the idea to start Hopes & Dreams had been born.
‘He really is perfect,’ she reassured Mia. Perfect for Mia, at least. Not that Jonathan wasn’t a great guy, but Nicole had yet to meet the man who lived up to her idea of Mr Right, the man who was a perfect fit for the life she was dressing to have.
The only one who’d come close was Jasper.
He’d been one of her old school friend’s brothers. Their dad was head of an old and prestigious insurance company and his son had been not only rich, but gorgeous and charming. She’d fallen helplessly in love with him. Who wouldn’t have done?
She hadn’t been able to believe her luck. After all, his whole world was populated with girls like Minty and Celeste—confident, stylish, privileged. He’d told her he loved her. He’d said he liked spending time with her because she was spontaneous and unspoilt, such a refreshing change from all those rich girls who liked to dangle a chap from a piece of string just because they could. And she’d fallen completely under his spell, believing her own fairy tale had finally landed in her lap.
They’d been together for two years when Jasper had announced he had something important to discuss with her. It had come hot on the heels of a visit home to the rambling manor house his parents owned in the Berkshire countryside. He’d seemed nervous too, a look Nicole had seen more than once since then, in the faces of the men who knocked on the door of Hopes & Dreams.
So she’d gone out and bought a horribly expensive dress from one of the boutiques on Bond Street and had waited slightly breathlessly for him at the restaurant, with its imposing pillars and stern-faced waiters. And at the end of the meal he’d reached across the table and pulled her hand into his and had stared into her eyes.
She’d held her breath. And then her smile had melted from her face. She still hadn’t been able to breathe, but not because she was delirious with joy. Because Jasper had been telling her it was over between them, that he was at that age when he needed to think about getting serious and settling down. She’d known his father had been pressuring him about joining the family firm for some time, but he’d always resisted up until that point.
After the shock wore off, as she was being ferried home in the cab that Jasper had insisted paying for, the truth had hit her. Jasper wanted to settle down, but not with her. Because in his eyes she wasn’t what his family thought was the ‘right sort’. The daughter of a builder from South-East London just wasn’t good enough. And she’d hated him for being weak enough to give in to them.
Never in her whole life had she felt so small and worthless and insignificant.
Three months later she’d found out he was seeing a girl whose father owned half of Shropshire. Right there and then she’d realised she’d been fooling herself all along. She sighed. ‘Maybe if the perfect guy fell out of the sky tomorrow, I’d make time for romance, but it’s not a bad idea to concentrate on the business for the moment.’
Peggy just snorted. ‘It’s not a bad idea to be wrapped around a hot guy once in a while, either!’ She shook her head. ‘Your love life has been in drought since we started planning to open Hopes & Dreams, and the one time you did get close, you chickened out. I never understood why you didn’t call that total cutie of a cowboy you pinned down under the mistletoe on New Year’s Eve.’
Once again Peggy was playing fast and loose with the facts. ‘There was no mistletoe, and he was the back end of a pantomime horse, not a cowboy.’
Nicole went quiet then, assailed by a rather vivid flashback of that kiss—his arms pulling her close, the scent of his aftershave as she’d let her head fall back and he’d pressed his lips to that quivery little spot just under her ear.
She shuddered, then shook herself. Damn. She hadn’t had one of those for months.
‘That doesn’t count,’ she told Peggy. ‘I told you I lost his number. It was hardly surprising, seeing that under your influence, I got very…well…under the influence.’
Peggy shook her head. ‘Squiffy or no, it was very careless of you. That was one dreamy cowboy…’
Nicole sipped her drink, worried that she might incriminate herself if she said any more.
Peggy wasn’t the only one playing a little fast and loose with the facts this evening. Because Nicole knew exactly where that little scrap of paper he’d written his phone number on was. She’d known it all year.
She didn’t know why she’d lied when Peggy had asked about it the following day; she just had. She’d had too much of a hangover to have the energy to resist her flatmate’s insistence to call him and arrange a date. This year was very important. She couldn’t afford to lose focus. Besides, she didn’t do that kind of thing, not since Jasper. These days she played it cool and let the guy do all the running.
Okay, she didn’t usually go around kissing random strangers, either, but maybe one out-of-character action each year was allowed. One per year was certainly enough. She’d spent a long time grooming herself into the woman she was now. She wasn’t about to let go of all that because of one drunken kiss.
Even if it had been one seriously hot drunken kiss…
Another flashback hit. Instead of being a muted aftershock, it was double the intensity. Nicole’s ears grew warm and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She rubbed her hand over the spot to shoo the feeling away.
On a purely physical level the fizz of awareness was pleasant, but she didn’t welcome it. This was how Jasper had made her feel, as if she were one buzzing, whirling mass of sensation, churning her up so she couldn’t think straight, so she couldn’t see the truth or even remember who she was. She definitely didn’t need a man like that in her life.
So she hadn’t called the cowboy. She’d tucked the scribbled number into a little pocket inside her purse and had tried to forget about it. She probably should throw it away. In fact, she would. As soon as she got home that evening. When Peg wasn’t looking.
What she needed right now was a distraction, something to veer the subject away from her love life—or lack of it. She flashed her friends and business partners a smile, straightened her skirt and stood up tall.
/>
‘Come on, ladies. I spy Jayce Ryder’s right-hand woman over there—and smart girls like us know that the real connection to make is the power behind the throne. Let’s go and wow her socks off before Celeste and Minty get to her.’
CHAPTER FOUR
The Hopes & Dreams office was east of Clerkenwell, a stone’s throw from the Golden Lane housing estate. While many of the old buildings of the area had been demolished during the Blitz, there were still little pockets of Victorian and Edwardian architecture. Tucked away from the main roads was a half-forgotten little courtyard that had once been home to tradesmen’s shops, like cobblers and ironmongers.
Nicole’s dad had come across the premises while repairing a leaky roof on a nearby shop. He had wandered down an alleyway in search of a decent cuppa and found a small, organic cafe in what had once been a hardware shop. There he’d spotted an old tailor’s and haberdasher’s shop, which he’d thought would be perfect.
Nicole hadn’t been quite so sure of the location when he’d shown it to her earlier that year, but she’d realised that while she could do a lot of the proposal organising at home, constantly having meetings in coffee shops wasn’t ideal. She’d really needed a base where she could meet clients discreetly and give the sense of an up-and-coming business, not a one-man-band affair.
Then her dad had taken her down the road to Clerkenwell and shown her how its regeneration meant that young and trendy businesses were flocking to the area: art galleries and bistros and independent bookshops. It would only be a matter of time before the effect rippled outwards. She should sign the lease while the rent was still within her reach.
Mr Chapman, the softly spoken, white-haired tailor who owned the shop, hadn’t used the upstairs of his premises for a while, on account of his arthritis. The haberdasher’s, which his wife had run and had occupied the ground floor of the premises, had been closed for years, so he’d moved his work downstairs and had put the upstairs space out for rent. Seeing as the late Mrs Chapman hadn’t wanted dirty great men who needed their suits altered tramping through her shop on a regular basis, they’d chosen a place with a separate entrance to the first-floor studio.