by Fiona Harper
‘Alex?’
The voice that came from behind him was soft and hesitant. Benign even. But it still chilled the blood in his veins.
He steeled himself, took a few moments to prepare before he turned round. She was probably dressed as something amazing, that Holly Golightly outfit or something even more dangerous to his blood pressure. He had to be ready to resist it, whatever it was. He took a deep breath and put his beer bottle down on the bar.
Nothing could have prepared him for what met his eye when he turned round to look at her.
‘Wh-what…? What on earth are you wearing? What have you come as?’
So not the cool, don’t-care greeting he’d planned. But that was hardly surprising, seeing as Nicole was standing in front of him, dressed in an outfit he’d never have even imagined her in, let alone seen her wearing.
‘Me,’ she said simply, calmly, but he could see the hint of nervousness in her eyes.
He looked her up and down again. Couldn’t help it.
No heels. Instead the soft cream furry slipper boots she’d sent him in that picture message. On top was a stretched and oversized grey T-shirt, with the Flashdance logo printed across it. It was old enough that the colour was cracked and worn, peeling off in a few places. Its only saving grace was that it had dipped off Nicole’s shoulder the way the girl’s in the film did, revealing a rather tantalising glimpse of smooth skin. And under it she wore the tattiest, ugliest pair of tracksuit bottoms he’d ever seen.
She swallowed and held his gaze when it finally travelled back up to meet hers. He realised her face was totally free of make-up too and her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail.
‘This is me,’ she repeated quietly. ‘The me that no one ever sees outside the four walls of my flat. The me that I turn into after a hard day at work or when I’ve got a broken heart…’ She looked away as her voice turned husky, but was brave enough to look him in the eye again when she’d recovered herself. ‘I’ve been this me a lot lately.’
‘B-but…? Why…?’
Smooth, Alex. Really cool and in control of yourself.
He didn’t get it. It was the ugliest thing he’d ever seen Nicole wear and yet he could hardly control the raging heat that had started to pulse through his veins. He must be sick. Very sick. It was all he could do to keep his arms welded to his sides so he didn’t reach out and touch her.
‘You said you wanted to see the real me,’ she said, lifting her chin, not looking apologetic, but looking a little proud, a little defiant. ‘Well, here I am. It’s taken me a long time to work out who she is. I didn’t even know she existed until I met you, but no matter how hard I tried to lock her up, she just kept leaking out. And that’s because you made me feel it was okay to be this girl…’ She trailed off, her voice hoarse again.
He felt a lump form in his throat.
She sniffed and straightened her spine. ‘For the first time in as long as I can remember I am not dressing up. That’s why I came here tonight…To tell you that you did see the real me, that the Nicole you laughed and danced and snapped photographs with was the real deal. And that she’s all yours…if you want her.’
Nicole felt as if her heart were going to jump out of her ribcage and tap-dance along the bar. Alex was just staring at her. She’d seen him do this before, hadn’t she? Just shut down when anything involved deep emotion. Had she left it too late? Was the whole proposal deception too much to come back from?
But then he stepped forward and smoothed her messy hair away from her temples, held her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. Without heels she was a good few inches shorter than usual and she had to crick her neck to look back up at him.
‘I think you’re beautiful,’ he said, his voice hoarse, his eyes intense. ‘Just like this. Always like this.’ And then he kissed her, softly at first, but then deeply, as if he couldn’t get enough of her. Nicole finally stopped holding her breath and joined him. Inside, she felt as if she were flying. She felt as if she were running up the side of a mountain, then standing at the top, shouting her joy into the wind.
She was reminded of the prayer she’d sent up, just before Saffron had crashed into her life and set this whole mess in motion. She’d asked for someone, hadn’t she? Someone to fulfil her hopes for the future. She just hadn’t expected the answer to come in a package with shaggy black hair and a killer dimple.
Because that was what he’d done, and not just because she was a pathetic sap who needed a man in her life to make her complete, but because he’d pushed her into taking a good hard look at herself; he’d challenged her to be more than she’d even planned to be. Because he’d seen the best in her before she’d even seen it herself.
They broke apart for a moment. She heaved in some oxygen and tried to get her breathing under control. Alex wound his arms around her back and pulled her close.
‘That was almost as good as last year,’ she whispered into his ear.
He pulled back and looked at her, expression stern. ‘What do you mean almost?’
She smiled sweetly at him. ‘It’s just an incentive to do better when midnight rolls around.’
Alex clearly wasn’t patient enough to wait for midnight. He set about delivering a kiss twice as scorching. When he’d finished Nicole felt dizzy. For a few moments there, she’d forgotten they were in a crowded bar full of people. The bubble around them had pulled so tight it had shut the rest of the world out completely.
‘You know,’ she whispered, smiling at him, watching the little dimple appear as he responded, seeing the warmth in his eyes as he looked at her, warmth she could just curl up and float away on, ‘Peggy’s gran says the way you start a new year is the way you end it. I didn’t think it was going to be quite so literal.’ Alex glanced over his shoulder to the clock behind the bar. ‘It’s not quite midnight yet. But, hey, I don’t mind finding a way to fill the next hour if you don’t.’
‘That,’ she said, reaching up and pulling him down towards her again, ‘sounds like a plan.’
Somewhere behind her she heard Peggy’s trademark wolf whistle and Mia’s triumphant cheer.
Alex ignored them, just smiled against her lips and held her tighter. ‘And if Peggy’s gran is right,’ he said, kissing the corner of her jaw in a way that made her toes tingle, ‘I think I’m going to make sure I’m going to be doing exactly this every New Year’s Eve for a very long time to come.’
Nicole kissed him back. There was no way she was going to argue with that.
One year later
Alex Black, landscape photographer, and Nicole Harrison, proposal planner, are pleased to announce their engagement. The groom-to-be surprised his new fiancée by proposing at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve while they enjoyed a romantic break at a secret location.
Ms Harrison described the moment as a total surprise and ‘utterly perfect’, but has remained tight-lipped, only consenting to say that she was thrilled it was one proposal she didn’t have to plan herself and that she intends to keep the details to herself so it will always remain one of a kind.
The couple plan to have a winter wedding at Elmhurst Hall in Kent.
Below is a photo, taken in black and white, of Alex in a sharp sixties suit and Nicole in a little black dress and pearls, smiling into each other’s eyes, clearly besotted but caught sharing a moment of private laughter.
The caption reads: Photographer—Michael Gatson.
ISBN: 978-1-472-05489-0
THE LITTLE SHOP OF HOPES AND DREAMS
© 2014 Fiona Harper
Published in Great Britain 2014
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited
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