The Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams. Fiona Harper

of the rush-hour traffic.

      ‘Are you ready, Warren?’ she asked, only just managing to stop her teeth chattering. She forced her cheeks into the soothing, yet professional smile she always used on her clients at this part of the proposal process.

      Warren, a baby-faced, slightly balding forty-something, was fastening an abseiling harness over the top of his dinner suit. He looked up and nodded, nervous but determined.

      Nicole caught the eye of Kirk, the ex-army guy she’d used a few times for similar stunts. He was one of those wordless, beefy types, who Nicole had been worried would intimidate men preparing to be the most vulnerable they’d ever been in their life, but somehow he inspired laddish camaraderie, and even the most timid of clients seemed more ready to do something high-risk and daring under his guidance. He finished testing Warren’s harness then stepped back and nodded at Nicole.

      Warren’s face paled.

      Nicole stepped forward and handed him an earpiece, similar to the one she was wearing. She looked him in the eyes. ‘It’s going to be fine,’ she told him. ‘A minute from now you’re going to be face to face with the woman you love, and she’s worth all of this, isn’t she?’

      He nodded and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat.

      Nicole stepped back as Warren jammed the earpiece into place. ‘Now you’ve got your very own piece of high-tech gadgetry—just like James Bond,’ she added, warming the ever-present smile up a notch.

      Warren fidgeted with his harness a little. She guessed it was probably pinching in places she didn’t want to know about. ‘That’s the idea,’ he said. ‘Cheryl’s always had a bit of a thing for 007. I’m not under any grand illusions, but I thought if I could show her I could be the tiniest bit like him, it might improve the chance of her saying yes.’

      Nicole looked across at his smooth receding forehead, his slightly chubby cheeks, the torso that suggested he’d spent more time at the kebab shop than at the gym. She wished she really could tell him he was the spitting image of Pierce or Roger or Sean. ‘You look extremely dashing,’ she said. ‘You’re going to blow Cheryl away.’

      Warren smiled softly. ‘Like a real Bond film…Something always gets blown away—or up—in a Bond film.’

      The thought of an explosion of any kind featuring in the proposal she spent the last month meticulously planning sent a shiver of fear down Nicole’s spine. However, she glued the smile in place and projected it back at Warren with even greater force. ‘As long as it’s an explosion of love, and love alone, everyone will be happy.’

      Especially her.

      She checked her watch. ‘Do you remember what to do?’

      Warren went back to looking very serious. He nodded. ‘Abseil down slowly two floors, then wait for your signal before doing the last bit.’

      ‘You can do it,’ she said, handing him the sign he was going to clip to his harness and a single red rose. ‘Just remember…Kirk is here at the top if you need help and I’ll be waiting for you on the seventeenth floor.’

      Warren nodded weakly and backed towards the edge. With Kirk’s help he started to lower himself down. Nicole stood, calm and serene, smiling as he went. Just before he vanished she did a little thumbs-up gesture, but as soon as his eyes disappeared below the parapet, and only the thinning fluff on the top of his head was left in view, she set off running like a greyhound towards the door that led to the fire escape.

      Her heels clattered on the stairs as she raced down two flights. They weren’t really practical for this kind of thing, she knew, but she had a professional image to maintain.

      She paused briefly outside the room where the action was due to take place and sucked in as much oxygen as she could. Five seconds was all she had, so five seconds would have to do. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she waited for her pulse to stop stampeding, then slipped gracefully through the fire-exit door and into the open-plan office. No one would ever have known she’d been a heaving mess only seconds earlier.

      Cheryl, Warren’s fiancée-to-be, was tapping away on her keyboard right next to the floor-to-ceiling windows. Every now and then she glanced up at the large clock on the far wall and sighed. The rest of the office carried on with their business, as if it were the end of a normal Friday afternoon.

      Nicole made eye contact with Felicity, Cheryl’s best friend, who’d been only too happy to be the office ‘mole’ for this part of the operation. Then she checked her watch. ‘Where are you, Warren?’ she mumbled into her Bluetooth earpiece.

      She could hear panting and the wind whistling. ‘Just about there,’ he said in a high-pitched voice. ‘Passing the eighteenth floor now.’

      She gave Felicity a nod, and Felicity turned and gave a signal to a large man sitting at a desk in the centre of the room. His name was Morris, and he had the most soulful voice Nicole had ever heard. He stood up, cleared his throat and started singing the opening bars to ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’.

      A few of the other workers looked up, but most kept on about their work. One by one they joined in the song until the whole seventeenth floor was singing its heart out. Nicole grinned. Those endless choir practices at Hurstdean Academy had come in useful after all.

      Warren might not be James Bond, but Nicole dearly hoped that Cheryl was going to say yes. Not only was he a really nice guy, but it said a lot about him that their workmates had spent hours perfecting the song in secret over the last fortnight.

      Nicole crept a little further into the office so she could see Cheryl more clearly round the edge of a row of cubicles. She’d stopped typing now and was staring open-mouthed at her colleagues, who sang and smiled as they gathered round her. And, just as Morris took the song to its lungbursting climax, Warren lurched into view outside Cheryl’s window, fumbling to pull the red rose out of his lapel and holding it towards her.

      For a moment Cheryl didn’t see him, but that sixth sense that comes when someone is looking over one’s shoulder must have kicked in, because she twisted round and screamed at the same time. She would have fled halfway across the office if Felicity hadn’t caught her and steered her back.

      ‘Warren!’ Cheryl shrieked, both hands pressed against her sternum, one on top of the other. ‘What the heck are you doing out there?’

      Warren, bless his little cotton socks, managed to stop looking quite so nervous. He flashed her a truly 007-worthy smile, then swung the sign dangling from a short rope attached to his harness up into his hands with one swift move.

      On it were written four words: Will you marry me?

      He’d wanted to go with something Bond-themed, but Nicole had convinced him to keep it simple. When it came to this part of the proposal, no fuss, no frills were needed. That was all a woman needed to hear.

      The hairs on the back of her neck lifted as a hush fell on the whole office. Cheryl covered her mouth with her hands then nodded slowly. Once. Twice. Then a flurry of bobbing as she pressed her hands against the glass and started crying.

      Nicole smiled as she whispered into her headset, ‘We are go!’

      Right on cue, fireworks erupted from the park opposite and Warren and Cheryl’s colleagues cheered and rushed to the windows to watch. Nicole waved at Warren to catch his attention and pointed downwards with an exaggerated action. He was just hanging there, a stupid grin plastered all over his chubby face. He’d completely forgotten the next part of the plan was to get him down and on this side of the glass ASAP.

      She sighed and looked around at the mayhem. It was lovely. It really was. And romantic. But…

      She shook her head and plucked her earpiece out of her ear. Maybe she was getting a little jaded. In the ten and a half months since she’d started Hopes & Dreams she’d helped numerous men pop the question, but maybe the daily diet of OTT was starting to wear on her.

      It was lovely to see all these