Fiona Harper - The Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams

Nicole laughed. It was true; Mia’s fiancé really was lovely. He’d been so nervous about popping the question that he’d asked Nicole for help and it was then she’d realised not only was there a gap in the market, but that proposal planning was only a sidestep from event and party planning. There was so much pressure on guys these days, not only asking the question but how they did it. Suddenly booking a table at a nice restaurant and buying a ring wasn’t enough. Jonathan had been very aware of all those YouTube videos out there of creative and romantic proposals. So that was where the idea to start Hopes & Dreams had been born.

‘He really is perfect,’ she reassured Mia. Perfect for Mia, at least. Not that Jonathan wasn’t a great guy, but Nicole had yet to meet the man who lived up to her idea of Mr Right, the man who was a perfect fit for the life she was dressing to have.

The only one who’d come close was Jasper.

He’d been one of her old school friend’s brothers. Their dad was head of an old and prestigious insurance company and his son had been not only rich, but gorgeous and charming. She’d fallen helplessly in love with him. Who wouldn’t have done?

She hadn’t been able to believe her luck. After all, his whole world was populated with girls like Minty and Celeste—confident, stylish, privileged. He’d told her he loved her. He’d said he liked spending time with her because she was spontaneous and unspoilt, such a refreshing change from all those rich girls who liked to dangle a chap from a piece of string just because they could. And she’d fallen completely under his spell, believing her own fairy tale had finally landed in her lap.

They’d been together for two years when Jasper had announced he had something important to discuss with her. It had come hot on the heels of a visit home to the rambling manor house his parents owned in the Berkshire countryside. He’d seemed nervous too, a look Nicole had seen more than once since then, in the faces of the men who knocked on the door of Hopes & Dreams.

So she’d gone out and bought a horribly expensive dress from one of the boutiques on Bond Street and had waited slightly breathlessly for him at the restaurant, with its imposing pillars and stern-faced waiters. And at the end of the meal he’d reached across the table and pulled her hand into his and had stared into her eyes.

She’d held her breath. And then her smile had melted from her face. She still hadn’t been able to breathe, but not because she was delirious with joy. Because Jasper had been telling her it was over between them, that he was at that age when he needed to think about getting serious and settling down. She’d known his father had been pressuring him about joining the family firm for some time, but he’d always resisted up until that point.

After the shock wore off, as she was being ferried home in the cab that Jasper had insisted paying for, the truth had hit her. Jasper wanted to settle down, but not with her. Because in his eyes she wasn’t what his family thought was the ‘right sort’. The daughter of a builder from South-East London just wasn’t good enough. And she’d hated him for being weak enough to give in to them.

Never in her whole life had she felt so small and worthless and insignificant.

Three months later she’d found out he was seeing a girl whose father owned half of Shropshire. Right there and then she’d realised she’d been fooling herself all along. She sighed. ‘Maybe if the perfect guy fell out of the sky tomorrow, I’d make time for romance, but it’s not a bad idea to concentrate on the business for the moment.’

Peggy just snorted. ‘It’s not a bad idea to be wrapped around a hot guy once in a while, either!’ She shook her head. ‘Your love life has been in drought since we started planning to open Hopes & Dreams, and the one time you did get close, you chickened out. I never understood why you didn’t call that total cutie of a cowboy you pinned down under the mistletoe on New Year’s Eve.’

Once again Peggy was playing fast and loose with the facts. ‘There was no mistletoe, and he was the back end of a pantomime horse, not a cowboy.’

Nicole went quiet then, assailed by a rather vivid flashback of that kiss—his arms pulling her close, the scent of his aftershave as she’d let her head fall back and he’d pressed his lips to that quivery little spot just under her ear.

She shuddered, then shook herself. Damn. She hadn’t had one of those for months.

‘That doesn’t count,’ she told Peggy. ‘I told you I lost his number. It was hardly surprising, seeing that under your influence, I got very…well…under the influence.’

Peggy shook her head. ‘Squiffy or no, it was very careless of you. That was one dreamy cowboy…’

Nicole sipped her drink, worried that she might incriminate herself if she said any more.

Peggy wasn’t the only one playing a little fast and loose with the facts this evening. Because Nicole knew exactly where that little scrap of paper he’d written his phone number on was. She’d known it all year.

She didn’t know why she’d lied when Peggy had asked about it the following day; she just had. She’d had too much of a hangover to have the energy to resist her flatmate’s insistence to call him and arrange a date. This year was very important. She couldn’t afford to lose focus. Besides, she didn’t do that kind of thing, not since Jasper. These days she played it cool and let the guy do all the running.

Okay, she didn’t usually go around kissing random strangers, either, but maybe one out-of-character action each year was allowed. One per year was certainly enough. She’d spent a long time grooming herself into the woman she was now. She wasn’t about to let go of all that because of one drunken kiss.

Even if it had been one seriously hot drunken kiss…

Another flashback hit. Instead of being a muted aftershock, it was double the intensity. Nicole’s ears grew warm and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She rubbed her hand over the spot to shoo the feeling away.

On a purely physical level the fizz of awareness was pleasant, but she didn’t welcome it. This was how Jasper had made her feel, as if she were one buzzing, whirling mass of sensation, churning her up so she couldn’t think straight, so she couldn’t see the truth or even remember who she was. She definitely didn’t need a man like that in her life.

So she hadn’t called the cowboy. She’d tucked the scribbled number into a little pocket inside her purse and had tried to forget about it. She probably should throw it away. In fact, she would. As soon as she got home that evening. When Peg wasn’t looking.

What she needed right now was a distraction, something to veer the subject away from her love life—or lack of it. She flashed her friends and business partners a smile, straightened her skirt and stood up tall.

‘Come on, ladies. I spy Jayce Ryder’s right-hand woman over there—and smart girls like us know that the real connection to make is the power behind the throne. Let’s go and wow her socks off before Celeste and Minty get to her.’

The Hopes & Dreams office was east of Clerkenwell, a stone’s throw from the Golden Lane housing estate. While many of the old buildings of the area had been demolished during the Blitz, there were still little pockets of Victorian and Edwardian architecture. Tucked away from the main roads was a half-forgotten little courtyard that had once been home to tradesmen’s shops, like cobblers and ironmongers.

Nicole’s dad had come across the premises while repairing a leaky roof on a nearby shop. He had wandered down an alleyway in search of a decent cuppa and found a small, organic cafe in what had once been a hardware shop. There he’d spotted an old tailor’s and haberdasher’s shop, which he’d thought would be perfect.