The Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams

She thought of all the weddings she’d planned when she’d worked at Elite Gatherings, when she’d been part of an army of worker bees who’d found the day anything but ethereal and magical.

She refocused on him. ‘I’m going to do a piece on the unsung heroes of the wedding industry, you know…all the people who work in the background to make the magic happen.’ She shot him a smile. Her brain was whirring now and she went with it. ‘Rather than just chatting to people on the phone and doing the superficial stuff, I want to follow each professional round for a couple of weeks, do different kinds of weddings, make it really in-depth. Then I can do an interest piece, but also with some really good tips about getting the most out of that professional when someone plans their own big day.’

He nodded. ‘So who would you follow round?’

She shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know. People like caterers and waitresses, florists or bakers.’

The grin was back. ‘People like photographers?’

She could have sworn her insides turned to chocolate. Melting chocolate.

‘People like photographers,’ she echoed, a slight dryness in her voice.

‘Then you’ve come to the right guy,’ he said then waved an arm to encompass the photos on the walls. ‘This is what I really love to do, why I pick up my camera on a daily basis, but I earn my bread and butter doing weddings. At least for now.’

‘Oh,’ she said, forgetting to keep calm and collected, letting her eyes widen. She hadn’t expected him to say that. There was nothing about this guy that made her think of weddings and rings and happy-ever-afters.

‘So why don’t you follow me around for a couple of weeks?’ he asked, his dimple putting in another appearance. Nicole couldn’t quite tear her eyes from it.

He lowered his voice. ‘I could give you the low-down on slaves and f-stops?’

F-stops? She knew it was probably a technical term, but in that voice and with that smile it sounded kind of naughty.

‘So…are you interested?’ he said, leaning in close enough for her to get a whiff of his aftershave.

She swallowed again. The tiniest glimmer of interest in his eyes suggested he was asking about more than a professional opportunity. He didn’t want to just score a point; he wanted total defeat. Revenge for skipping out on him all those months ago.

So she would say no. To the offer to shadow him—because that wasn’t her real job anyway, and it would be a total waste of time—and to the offer to spend more time with him, because…because…

Although he’d moved back, she could still smell his scent, and it prompted one of those New Year flashbacks, a particularly potent one of his lips on the soft skin of her neck, his hands round her waist. Suddenly she was very tempted to say yes. To everything.

She knew she should walk away a second time, but something was sticking her feet to the floor like Velcro. Something was telling her to go with that wild feeling his photographs had stirred inside her, to tell the voice of caution inside her head to go to hell.

He was watching her, taking in the emotions, the thoughts, flitting across her features. The knowing expression told her he knew exactly what she was thinking, knew exactly what decision she was teetering on the edge of.

Nicole was about to open her mouth, suggest they go for a coffee after the exhibition to discuss his offer, when her phone buzzed in her pocket again.

It brought her back to reality with a bump.

Oh, heck. Saffron.

She glanced up at him as she pulled her phone out of her coat pocket. ‘I’m sorry…I really need to check this.’

He shrugged one shoulder carelessly as she swiped her phone screen to pull up the message.

‘Maybe we can discuss this shadowing thing after—’

The rest of the sentence never left her mouth. Because the message was indeed from Saffron. An hour later than they’d planned, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the picture message that accompanied the text.

She was staring down at a photo of a windswept photographer with a bewitching little dimple.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_c50dfd59-1aaf-5d66-a144-fb8997e068f0)

She seemed to have frozen looking at her phone. She was clutching it so hard her finger joints were going white. Alex coughed softly. ‘Nicole?’ Still she stared at the screen, not moving, not speaking. He started to regret teasing her quite so hard. What if it was horrific news, if someone had died or her house had burnt down? ‘Are you okay?’

She snapped upright then, shoving her phone back in her pocket, and bestowed a bright smile on him. ‘Fine.’ She blinked. ‘Absolutely fine. Nothing wrong at all.’

Okay, then…

He frowned a little. In his experience women often said ‘fine’ when they meant ‘my life is going down the toilet’. He had a feeling this might be one of those times, but he really didn’t know her well enough to push. He also didn’t know her well enough to read her correctly. She could be as fine as that fluorescent smile said she was.

Or she could be faking it just as hard as he was.

As much as he liked to think he’d been in control of the conversation up until now. He’d been doing what he always liked to do in a hairy situation—winging it and hoping it would turn out his way in the end—but he couldn’t ignore the chemistry popping between them any more than she could. Trying to get under her skin had backfired on him spectacularly.

He should have come up with a better plan. Or maybe any kind of plan at all.

He exhaled and swigged his beer.

Their timing stank. Why couldn’t he have met her nine months ago, when he’d still been free and single?

He hadn’t been lying. He’d looked for her for ages. Way longer than was sensible. Maybe that was why he’d listened to that little voice in his ear telling him to mess with her a little, because his ego had taken a knock when she hadn’t got back to him. He’d decided maybe he’d been wrong about New Year’s Eve, that she hadn’t felt the same way. However, she’d demonstrated very nicely with her stammering and blushing this evening that just wasn’t the case.

So why hadn’t she called? It was going to drive him crazy if he never found out. Even if he did, he couldn’t ask her out again. As much as he liked women, he liked them better one at a time. Not only was he not that much of a sleazeball, but it cut down on the inevitable drama. He didn’t like drama. A life that was free and easy and cool suited him much better.

She was fiddling with the stem of her wine glass. Somehow he knew what she was thinking about saying. It was as if he could see the subtitles, like watching a foreign film. And if these ones were printed out in stark white letters, hovering in the air below her face, they would say, ‘Find an excuse to get away. Now.’

He made up his mind to let her.

‘Well, it’s been lovely bumping into you again,’ she said, smiling her ‘fine’ smile again, ‘but I’ve really got to…’

He nodded. So did he.

This time he didn’t reach out and grab her hand, but watched her walk on to the next photograph, pretend to peruse it. He fully intended to head off in the opposite direction, but just as he was turning to go she let a little bit of that iron composure slip, closed her eyes and heaved out a weary sigh.

It was as if she’d slammed down a matching card in a game of ‘Snap’. An identical tug of war was going on inside him. There were reasons he should walk away. Good reasons. Not only Saffron, but the fact that he’d promised himself he was going to stick to women who knew what they wanted, who were as easy to read as a picture book.

But…

Something was telling him he’d been a fool to let her slip away a second time.

He found himself striding back to her. ‘When do you have to have this article thing done by?’

She looked mournfully at him, as if she was begging him for something. Finally she sighed and said, ‘The weekend before Christmas.’

‘I’ve got five weddings lined up between now and Christmas. Different types too—some small and quirky, a couple that have pulled out all the stops. It could be just what you need.’

This was insane. He knew it was insane. But he was still doing it.