The Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams

Nicole shook her head. It wasn’t impossible, even if it wasn’t the way she liked to do things. Usually, she preferred a couple of days to do some homework before she met the ‘target’, as Mia jokingly called them. It would mean she’d have to meet the guy first and do her research later. She mentally leafed through her diary and rescheduled her gym session for the following morning. ‘No, tonight is fine.’

Saffron immediately brightened, clapping her hands together and bouncing a little on the sofa. ‘Oh, that’s amazing! I am so excited we can kick-start this straight away. I detest waiting for things.’ She pulled a scrap of paper from her handbag and scribbled down an address on it. ‘It’s a photography exhibition. I may well turn up at some point. That’s okay, isn’t it?’

Nicole nodded. ‘I might not speak to you when you do. It will be better if we’re not seen together at this stage, but I’ll chat to your man and come up with some personalised ideas from the information you’ve both given me. Then we can meet again in a few days to start setting something up.’

She rose and indicated that Saffron should follow her back down the little corridor.

‘Money’s no object,’ Saffron said loudly as they emerged into the office.

Nicole saw Peggy’s ears prick up, but she kept her head down, hiding her smile as she tinkered with a design on her computer.

‘I want the whole of London talking about this proposal for months. Years, even!’

Both Nicole and Peggy smiled broadly at the socialite. So did they.

‘I have one last question before you go…’ Nicole said. The whole time she’d been talking with Saffron, one big thing had been puzzling her.

Saffron raised her eyebrows. ‘Fire away.’

Nicole cleared her throat and asked the question she knew Peggy was also thinking. ‘Why did you choose Hopes & Dreams instead of…instead of another proposal-planning agency?’ She knew that Celeste and Minty ran in the same circles as Saffron and her buddies. Surely they would have been the natural choice.

For the first time since she’d entered their offices, Saffron dimmed a little. ‘Well, I won’t lie. I did hear of another agency first, but then I discovered who ran it and I kept searching using Google.’

Peggy shot a look at Nicole.

‘I hate to speak badly of anyone,’ Saffron continued, ‘but I wouldn’t trust Araminta Fossington as far as I could throw her.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Peggy piped up, before Nicole could stop her.

Saffron nodded vehemently. ‘She once stole a boyfriend right from under my nose. There’s no way I’d let her within fifty feet of my man.’

Nicole tried not to show it visibly, but inside she was jumping up and down. She sent a glance at Peggy that said, See? I told you stuff would come back and bite themin the butt some day. Peggy rolled her eyes and pretended she hadn’t understood.

‘Well, we’re very glad you chose us,’ Nicole said, shaking her hand. ‘And you’ll find us professional in the utmost, in every area of our service.’

Saffron gave her another of her light-up-the-city smiles. ‘I have a good feeling about this,’ she said as she hitched her handbag up onto her shoulder. ‘See you in a few days!’

And then she swept out of the office in a twirl of fur-trimmed camel cape and a waft of perfume. It seemed her exits were every bit as impressive as her entrances.

They waited until Saffron had disappeared out of the courtyard below before they started jumping up and down and hugging each other.

‘Take that, Celeste and Minty!’ Nicole said, punching the air.

Peggy picked up the swear jar and thrust it her direction. Nicole smiled and dropped a pound coin into the bottom. She didn’t care. That victory shout had been worth every penny.

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_4e9a0acb-0020-5edb-95da-5ba2d375ea94)

When Saffron had mentioned an exhibition, Nicole had assumed it would be an upmarket gallery in Bloomsbury or Chelsea. She hadn’t expected a church, tucked away down a dusty side street in Blackfriars on the south bank of the Thames. Most of Saffron’s circle wouldn’t be seen dead in this postcode. She checked the slip of paper with her client’s large and looping scrawl once again. Trinity Arts Centre. Yep. This was the place.

She walked up the stone steps and pushed one of the glazed wooden doors open enough to slide through. She then stepped through a second set of doors and into a large, bright space.

The original beams and pillars of the large church remained, as did the parquet floor and the organ pipes on the far wall, but the interior had been cleared and everything was painted crisp white, making the stained-glass windows sing with colour.

Off to one side as she walked in was a bar and seating area, while the other held a small shop, and deeper into the church was the exhibition space, carved into different sections by slabs of white walls about seven feet high. Some were set at right angles to each other, arranged near other walls to make a large and open maze, where the artwork was displayed.

There was a small crowd wandering around, wine glasses in hands, perusing the large black-and-white prints that adorned the display space. Before joining them, Nicole checked her phone. Still nothing from Saffron. They’d chatted not long after she’d left the office and Saffron had promised she’d send a photo through of her intended. It had yet to arrive. Until it did, Nicole would just have to mingle and enjoy the exhibition until she found the man she was here to stalk—Alex Black.

She snagged a glass of wine from a passing waiter and headed deeper into the church. She stopped by the first wall and took a sip. The print was of a windswept Highland landscape. Nicole had always loved the rich, peaty colours of a Scottish winter—the mossy greens, slate greys, the ochre of the dying bracken—but there was something about seeing it in black and white that made it look even wilder and more lonely. She could almost feel the wind sweeping off the worn-down mountain tops and into the wide, flat valley below, could almost hear the frothy sea hiss as the gale tossed the waves with no mercy.

She carried on. They were all British landscapes—rugged Cornish beaches, tranquil forest glades, ancient stone circles—but each harnessed a wild and beautiful energy. It made something inside her ache. Just a little. And she didn’t know why.

She’d reached the far end of one of the maze-like avenues now, and she hesitated at which direction to go next. It was clever. There was no predetermined route between the walls. In fact, the layout seemed deliberately designed to make visitors wander and retrace their steps, to seek out the hidden nooks they hadn’t discovered yet. She glanced right, wondering if she’d been that way already, then left.

Just as she did, someone disappeared behind a wall. Nicole hadn’t seen them properly. It had only been a blur at the edges of her peripheral vision, but it was accompanied by a flash of something that was very much like a memory. Something that made her think of soft fur and dancing lights. Without asking herself why, she followed.

As she turned the corner she saw a man with his back to her, talking to a couple of older men in suits. They were discussing a piece halfway down the zig-zag of wall, about fifteen feet away. He was dressed all in black, from his battered biker boots, to his jeans and T-shirt. Even his hair was so dark it almost matched them. Just a hint of chestnut brought out by the overhead spotlights spoiled the effect. His stance was easy, relaxed, as he drank from an open beer bottle and gestured towards the photo in front of him.

Nicole knew she should turn, look at the print right in front of her, but she couldn’t help but linger. There was something about him. Something tickling the back of her brain. Had she met him before? She felt as if she had, but surely she hadn’t, because she’d definitely remember someone like him. Not her type at all, of course, but memorable all the same.

And then he turned and smiled at a woman who joined the group, and a delectable little dimple appeared at one corner of his mouth, apparent even beneath the short black stubble.

A charge shot through Nicole like electricity. So strong it reminded her of the time her pet hamster had chewed through the wire on her bedside light and she’d foolishly picked it up, thinking it wouldn’t hurt her. She’d found herself on the other side of the room a split second later, dazed and confused.

It couldn’t be, could it?

It couldn’t be him. The guy from New Year’s Eve.

For some reason she clutched her handbag closer to her, as if she was protecting that slip of paper folded into the pocket of her purse, as if it might jump out and cause trouble if she didn’t.

He’d been one hot cowboy, as Peggy had called him, when Nicole had been five cocktails to the wind, but the sober version was just as potent. It seemed her beer goggles had twenty-twenty vision. She knew she should feel happy about that, but she couldn’t. Not while her insides were unravelling in loops.

Why, after months of coexisting in the same city, did she have to bump into him now? On the night she had to be on top form if she was going to bag this job of Saffron’s and deliver the proposal of the century?

At least he hadn’t spotted her. She should just sneak back round that wall and…

Uh-oh.

As she was backing away he turned, noticed her. His eyebrows lifted momentarily in surprise and then his smile widened and he started to stroll towards her with that easy stride she hadn’t realised she’d noticed, let alone recalled. Nicole tried to move but her stilettos were glued to the floor. Her phone buzzed in her pocket but she ignored it.

‘Hey, Holly…’ he said, a mischievous glint lighting up his eyes. ‘Long time no see.’

Her mouth moved. Up and down, up and down. She must look like a gaping frog. ‘Holly?’ she finally managed as he stopped in front of her.

‘Holly Golightly,’ he said, brandishing a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘Of course, I realised that wasn’t your real name pretty quickly. One quick Google search put pay to that.’

She’d told him her name was Holly Golightly?

‘So why didn’t you?’ he asked.