The Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams. Fiona Harper

come close—once—to being proposed to. Or so she’d thought. She shook her head to dislodge the memory of that night. She didn’t need to go back there. Life was all about moving forward, about making the future count, not about moping over things that should have been but weren’t.

      Warren, who’d finally made it down to the balcony two floors below and unharnessed himself with Kirk’s help, appeared in the doorway to an almighty cheer from his colleagues. He marched over to Cheryl looking ten feet tall, a bit of a Bond swagger in his usual lolloping gait. His fiancée watched him approach, her eyes wide and moist, and Nicole couldn’t help but shake off the mood that had been troubling her a few moments earlier.

      She caught Warren’s eye across the top of the crowd and he winked at her as he drew Cheryl into his arms then dipped her for a kiss. Nicole smiled back and tucked her earpiece in her pocket.

      Her job was done here. Everything had gone according to her meticulous plan—as everything in her life always did. And she didn’t know why she was getting all maudlin about the lack of proposals in her own life. It was a moot point. She wasn’t even seeing anyone at the moment. There’d been no one since…

      She mentally swatted that thought.

      She wasn’t seeing anyone, and that was fine, because she was too busy getting a fledgling business off the ground in tough economic times. So right now she was perfectly content organising everyone else’s happy-ever-afters. As long as everything kept going to plan, hers would get here eventually.

CHAPTER THREE

      Feeling a little windswept and definitely a lot tired, Nicole walked into the foyer of the Hamilton Grand Hotel and quickly disposed of her coat and bag in the cloakroom. She checked her watch. She was late. Just a little. But it didn’t sit well with her. She didn’t do late. Or unprofessional. Or disorganised.

      Her outfit wasn’t perfect, either. But that was what happened when you had to go from the top of an office block to a party in one evening. She usually preferred a cocktail dress, but her pencil skirt and classic chiffon blouse would just have to do.

      Since both Peggy and Mia had both invested money in Hopes & Dreams and were hoping to join Nicole in the business full-time when things took off, Nicole had invited both her friends to come along with her. She found them in the Terrace Bar with a view over the Thames, along with a hundred or so event planners, hoteliers and media bods. The Hamilton had recently undergone an extensive refurbishment and this was their ‘we’re back!’ party, designed to wow former clients who’d been less than impressed with gradually dilapidating facilities.

      Nicole had to admit, they’d done a marvellous job. It was now chic and modern. Flat matt walls in both neutral and bold colours, textured fabrics, funky light fittings. No hint of the dated plasterwork, thank goodness. Nicole shuddered at the memory. She’d always had a hatred for that fussy eighties faux-Victorian look, ever since one of her posh boarding-school friends had come to stay, taken one look at Nicole’s mother’s stripy wallpaper under the glued-on dado rail and had wrinkled her nose a little.

      None of the other girls at Hurstdean had homes like that. They’d had antiques instead of orange pine that had darkened to an almost radioactive tone, real oil paintings instead of Monet prints from IKEA. But that was what came from being the scholarship kid, she supposed.

      But after that incident Nicole had decided it was better to go without if you couldn’t have the real thing, and she’d started building her furnishings, her wardrobe—and her life—according to that code. ‘Dress for the job you want…’ someone had once said. Well, Nicole dressed for the life she wanted, a fabulous one.

      ‘So, did Cheryl say yes to tubby old Warren?’ Peggy asked as Nicole approached.

      Nicole nodded and the other two girls breathed out a sigh of relief. While a negative to a proposal really came down to the relationship in question, too many refusals could make the Hopes & Dreams look bad. So far, though, Nicole had a really good success rate. Only one ‘no’, and that had been right back at the beginning, a big-headed plonker whose ill-fated proposal idea had only convinced his girlfriend that he loved himself more than he did her.

      That one blot on her otherwise perfect record still smarted. Still, she’d been on a huge learning curve since then and had come up with protective measures to stop herself falling into that kind of situation ever again.

      Thankfully, her proposer tonight had been nothing like Mr Arrogant.

      ‘He got right into the part too,’ Nicole said. ‘Not sure what Cheryl’s going to do with him now he’s discovered his inner Bond.’

      Peggy’s red lips stretched slowly into a smile. ‘I know what I’d do with a man who’d discovered his inner Bond…’

      ‘Oh, there you are, darlings! Doesn’t the Hamilton look super? I’m sure Minty and I are going to use it for one of our next parties.’

      Nicole’s stomach sank, but she turned round, smiling—if not genuinely—widely. ‘Celeste…Araminta…How are you?’

      The two women were both tall and had cascading, thick honey-coloured waves. They looked as if they’d blown in off the King’s Road after an afternoon’s shopping. The dresses were bang on trend, the make-up artfully suggesting a healthy glow, and the legs went on for centuries.

      However, despite her irritation at their presence, Nicole couldn’t help taking a mental note of how their outfits were put together, noting details like designers, fabrics, cut…As much as she didn’t like them, Celeste and Minty always looked fabulous, and it was never good to be outshone by the competition.

      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