The Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams

CHAPTER SEVEN

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.

He needed a chance to see her again, to find out if this was really something or whether he was just smarting because he wanted what he couldn’t have. He also wanted to see if the warm, funny, sexy girl he’d met on New Year’s Eve was hiding away somewhere inside this starchy suit. And this was a totally innocent way of being around her so he could find out. Nothing had to happen. And if he was wrong about her…Well, he’d be free and clear to walk away. No harm done.

She started shaking her head. ‘I don’t think…Maybe we should just…’

‘Have you got any better offers?’

She sighed. ‘No.’

‘I could do with the extra pair of hands,’ he said, sending her a begging look of his own. ‘At this time of year the weather always conspires to make things more complicated.’

She opened her mouth to brush him off, he could tell, but before she could get the words out she jumped and pulled her phone out of her pocket again. It must have been on vibrate.

Her eyes widened as she read the message then dropped her hand to hang by her side. ‘I’m sorry, Alex. I really have to go.’

She moved to push past him without making eye contact, but he stepped in front of her. ‘At least let me take your number this time. You might regret it if you don’t.’ He waited until she looked at him, tried to tease a smile out of her, but there was sadness in her expression that hadn’t been there before.

She shook her head. ‘I can’t…’

‘Not even prepared to suffer my company for your art?’

Her forehead crumpled into little lines. ‘Huh?’

‘Well, if not your art…your article,’ he said. ‘If you don’t find someone else to shadow—a cake maker or a florist or a dove trainer—you might regret not being my assistant for the next few weeks. Here…’ He picked up her hand, phone still in it, and deftly entered his number in her address book. ‘No excuses this time,’ he said, watching her flush a little bit pinker. ‘Use it.’

The look she gave him told him it was unlikely. ‘Bye, Alex,’ she almost whispered, and then she darted past him. He didn’t stop her, just watched as she straightened her spine and walked out the door without looking back.

He was still standing there, only half aware of the sparse traffic darting past the glazed doors, when someone clapped him on the shoulder. He turned round to find Tom grinning at him.

‘Who was that?’

Alex shook his head. ‘You’ll never guess.’

But that didn’t stop Tom trying. He’d gone through most of the minor royals and had started on the cast of TOWIE by the time Alex stopped him. He would have interrupted sooner, but his head had been swirling with thoughts of his mystery woman. He knew her name now, but somehow that hadn’t made her any less mysterious. It was as if he could see two versions of her superimposed on top of each other, mostly in sync, but occasionally the image jumped and he could see one more clearly than the other. He had no idea which was the real Nicole Harrison.

‘It was Holly Golightly. From New Year’s Eve.’

Tom let out an appreciative whistle. ‘Did you flirt with her?’

Alex opened his mouth to deny it. There was a difference between playing a bit of a game and actual flirting. However, Tom, as usual, didn’t stop to wait for anything as mundane as an answer.

‘Of course you did.’

Alex shook his head and tipped up his beer bottle, only to discover it empty. Damn.

‘You know, some people use flirting as part of the hunt, but you’re the only guy I know who uses it as a defence mechanism.’

Alex smiled, looked at the photo he’d taken of Tintagel, high on a stormy coast. ‘Seriously, mate, you’ve been spending too much time in LA. You’re starting to sound like a shrink yourself. Any more startling insights to wow me with?’

He glanced to his left and found Tom smirking at him. ‘Okay, I’ll bite. How long have you been going out with Saffron now?’

Alex pulled his mouth down at the corners while he thought about it. ‘What…? Five months? Maybe a little longer?’

Tom made a great show of looking at his watch. ‘Yup. Right on time.’

Alex knew he didn’t really want to ask him to elaborate, but he did it anyway. ‘For what?’

‘It’s always around the six-month mark in any relationship that you get the jitters, start questioning everything—especially why you’re with her and not some other wonderful creature you’ve just spotted—and ultimately end up backing out and breaking her heart.’

No. This wasn’t what this was. It wasn’t the same with Nicole. Besides, Tom was wrong about the six-month thing. He’d split up with Vicky after…Well, okay, maybe that one did fit. But then there had been Meg, who’d lasted…Damn. What about Rachel…?

He shoved his empty bottle in Tom’s direction. ‘Shut up and get me another beer.’

Tom grinned at him and headed off to the bar, whistling.

He’d just returned and handed Alex a fresh one, before scooting off to chat to one of their other climbing buddies who’d just arrived, when Alex saw a flash of honey-coloured hair by the front door. He heard the clop of her boots as she made her way towards him, carving a wake through the throng of entranced visitors.

‘Wonderful turnout,’ she said, before leaning in to air-kiss his cheek, prising his latest beer from his fingers, taking a swig and not giving it back to him.

He grunted. For some reason he was feeling ticked off with her. ‘Hi, Saffron. Nice of you to show up.’ And then he added, under his breath, ‘Finally.’

She gave him one of her saucy looks, the kind she must have given her doting daddy when she was little to make him shower her with dolls and sweeties and ponies. ‘I know I’m a tad late…’

He exhaled. Normally he didn’t mind that Saffron operated in her own time zone, but this evening had been important to him. He thought she could have at least made the effort for once. ‘One hour and twenty-five minutes to be exact.’

She rolled her eyes and gave him a who’s counting kind of expression as she leaned in and laced her fingers between those of his free hand. ‘Well, I’m here now. That’s what matters.’

He sighed. Well, at least she hadn’t given him some lame story. That was why he’d been attracted to Saffron in the first place—she was who she was, no apologies, no excuses, and he’d never once caught her lying about anything. Which was just as well. Because he’d had enough of women who pretended to be one thing and turned out to be something entirely different. That was a fast track to a broken heart, and he wasn’t buying tickets for a return visit any time soon.

Saffron slid her free arm in his and turned to a print of a picture he’d taken in Glen Coe. ‘Now…which bog exactly did you immerse yourself in to take this one…?’

CHAPTER EIGHT

When Nicole got back to the flat she shared with Peggy, she didn’t stop walking until she crashed the door to her bedroom open. There she stepped out of her skirt, heels and blouse, pulled a soft pair of tattered tracksuit bottoms from a drawer and topped them off with a well-loved and well-stretched grey T-shirt. Leaving her clothes in a heap on the floor, she marched to the kitchen, buried her head inside the freezer, then emerged again with a carton of clotted-cream vanilla ice cream in her hand.

She grabbed a spoon and headed for the living room, where she dropped onto the neutral-coloured sofa that she’d chosen, snuggled up against the bright, psychedelic cushions that Peggy had bought and aimed the remote at the TV with more than a hint of fierceness. Sometimes the clash of hers and Peggy’s very different decorating styles made their flat seem a little schizophrenic.

It was only as the opening credits to Pretty in Pink, her favourite 1980s high-school movie, filled the screen that she exhaled and let her shoulders sag.

Peggy wandered into the room in her polka-dotted bathrobe, rubbing her damp hair with a towel. ‘Uh-oh,’ she said, as she spotted Nicole on the sofa, feet stretched out on the coffee table that normally was only allowed drinks on top if a coaster was involved. ‘What happened?’

Nicole kept staring at the screen as the credits rolled. A young Molly Ringwald was getting dressed in an explosion of pink lace and floral prints. ‘The cowboy happened.’

‘Oh?’ Peggy murmured, pretending she knew what Nicole was talking about as she dropped down onto the sofa next to her.

‘From New Year’s Eve…?’

Peggy kept frowning and then her eyes widened. ‘Oh!’

Nicole nodded. ‘Yes, oh!’

Peggy’s forehead bunched again. ‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’

Good. That was an interesting word. Not one Nicole knew if she’d apply to Alex Black, either. He looked good if you meant want to eat him up with a spoon, but not the wings-and-halo type of good, far from it, with that shaggy dark hair, perma-stubble and that infuriating little dimple.

An image of Saffron flashed through Nicole’s memory from the meeting they’d had at Hopes & Dreams that afternoon. Saffron had hesitated, hadn’t she, when she’d answered the question about whether her intended fiancé was having the same thoughts of happy-ever-after? Maybe their relationship wasn’t as solid as she assumed?

Get real, Nicole. You’re grasping at straws. It’s serious. Serious enough for Saffron to propose to him, anyway. Unless there was a ring on a finger, things didn’t get much more serious than that, and even if it wasn’t serious, he was taken.

‘Not good, then…’ Peggy said, answering her own question as she inched closer to Nicole and laid her head on her shoulder. They both watched the movie in silence for at least five minutes. ‘I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with this film. She should end up with Duckie, not the rich jerk.’

Nicole sighed. Part of her knew that. But another part of her knew what it was like to be the girl from the wrong side of the tracks and yearn for the perfect boy who would always be out of her league. It was nice to see the underdog triumph for once. Instead of like real life.

Peggy sat up and turned to Nicole. She prised the ice-cream carton out of her hand and stole a spoonful. ‘So…it’s obvious you don’t want to talk about the cowboy, so tell me about the meet with Saffron’s man instead.’

Nicole swiped the carton back off her friend and indulged in another spoonful of ice cream before she answered. ‘One and the same.’

Peggy opened her mouth and shut it again. ‘You don’t mean…?’

Nicole nodded again. ‘Yup.’

‘Wow…’ Peggy shook her head. ‘Talk about complicated.’ She shifted position to face Nicole fully. ‘But don’t give up. It’ll work itself out.’

Nicole stopped watching Molly moon over Andrew McCarthy for a few seconds. ‘How?’

Peggy shrugged. ‘I was just thinking about Pillow Talk or Move Over, Darling. Those were really tricky romantic situations, but it all turned out right for Doris in the end.’ The smile she gave Nicole was so sweet, so genuine, that Nicole didn’t have the heart to tell her that Doris Day films weren’t real life, something Peggy needed reminding of on a more and more regular basis.

And she thought Nicole’s John Hughes addiction was weird.

She lifted one corner of her mouth in her best attempt at a smile. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. It was just a physical thing. I could do without the complication.’

Peggy smiled and nodded. She took the ice-cream carton from Nicole and headed back towards the little kitchenette. ‘I think ice-cream hour is over and wine time has begun.’ Nicole would have chased her all the way back to the freezer if she’d had the energy. Instead she turned back to the screen, but as much as she stared at it, the images floating through her head weren’t colour, but black and white, and instead of love-struck teens, she could see wild moors and heather and billowing clouds that filled the sky. It made her feel like running out into the night to feel the icy November wind on her cheeks or climbing a tall building to see how far she could see. There weren’t many mountains in the N1 postcode, so that would be the best she could do to exorcise this feeling whirling inside her.

Peggy returned and handed her a rather full glass of wine. Nicole accepted it gratefully. Usually she didn’t partake on weekdays, but— Ugh. Who cared? She took a large gulp and exhaled. Hard.

‘Can I take the job over?’ Peggy asked. ‘I am a proposal planner in training, after all.’

Nicole shook her head. ‘It’s fine. I can handle it. I told Saffron I’d be dealing with her proposal personally, and I don’t want to do anything to spook her.’ She looked Peggy meaningfully in the eye. ‘We need this job to go well if Hopes & Dreams is going to grow. In fact, if we’re not doing better by the new year I might have to go back to regular event planning and do Hopes & Dream part-time, and I really don’t want to do that.’

She couldn’t bear the thought of having to take a backwards step.

‘And then there’s the money both you and Mia have put in…’

‘No pressure, then,’ Peggy said.

Nicole shrugged. It was what it was. ‘All it boils down to is that we need a “yes”. I can’t let anything interfere with that.’

Peggy nodded sadly. ‘Fate is cruel,’ she said melodramatically, and Nicole couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

‘What?’ Peggy asked, wrinkling her nose and looking a little offended.

‘No, you’re right. Fate is cruel. But you’ve gotta laugh or you’ll cry, right? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…’

Peggy nodded, instantly joining in the game they liked to play when either of them was down—coming up with inane-sounding platitudes in the hope one of them would make sense. ‘You forgot “There are plenty more fish in the sea.”‘

‘So I did.’ Nicole toasted the screen with her glass and snuggled down into the sofa cushions. ‘Now, shut up and let’s watch this movie.’

Peggy slurped her Chardonnay. ‘I mean…thank goodness it’s her asking him and not the other way round. At least you won’t have to spend much time with him. Just see him on the night, that’s all. And we can make it so you direct things from afar, if you like, and I can do the hands-on stuff…’ She trailed off as she saw the look on Nicole’s face. ‘Oh, no. What have you done?’

Nicole jabbed the pause button and scowled. Then she explained about the fake magazine article, about Alex’s offer. When she’d finished Peggy stared at her. ‘Holy crap on a cracker,’ she said. ‘You can’t go through with it!’

‘I have to,’ Nicole said glumly. ‘I didn’t get any info from Alex this evening—I was too shocked. I know I did the questionnaire with Saffron, but she’s got one of those butterfly minds that leaps all over the place. I hardly got anything useful, partly because I don’t think she knows what she wants. That means I have to see him again or we can’t possibly tailor her proposal to him properly. I need to find out what he thinks about love and marriage and romance…’ She gave Peggy a morbid little smile while her insides churned. Maybe ice cream and wine hadn’t been the best way to go. ‘And what better place to do that than at a wedding?’

Peggy stared at her. ‘You’re insane. And that’s a lot, coming from me.’

Nicole turned away and let the movie off pause. They were just about to get to the bit when Duckie slides into the record store and sings ‘Try a Little Tenderness’ and she needed a bit of cheering up.

‘I’m only going to do the one week,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘and then I’ll find a reason to pull out—I’ll tell him my editor doesn’t like the angle or something, or that she wants it quicker and I need to investigate the other jobs instead. What else can I do?’

Peggy laid her head back on the sofa cushions and looked at the ceiling. ‘Nothing. You’re just going to have to go along to some horribly romantic winter wedding, spend all day up-close-and-personal with Mr Sex-on-a-Stick. What could possibly go wrong?’

Nicole jabbed her in the ribs, making her jump and slosh her wine on her favourite velvet cushion in a particularly violent shade of lime. ‘Hey!’ When she’d brushed the worst of it off, she looked Nicole in the eye. ‘Can you really do this? Can you resist temptation and control yourself?’

Nicole laughed softly. ‘Of course I can…I’m not you, Peg.’

Peggy knew her own weaknesses too well and just rolled her eyes instead of getting upset. Besides, if there was one thing Nicole excelled at, it was keeping in control.

CHAPTER NINE

When Nicole turned up at the chic little oyster bar tucked away behind the theatres of the West End to meet Saffron, she made sure she looked flawless. There was no way she was going to come off as second best in the fashion department, even if she was a loser in every other arena comparisons were made. Especially in the romance department.

She’d dressed carefully that morning, choosing to echo Saffron’s high-end boho chic rather than her usual sophisticated office wear. She tried adding a chunky woollen scarf, carelessly wrapped around her neck, but instead of looking artsy and casual it just made her look as if she were a farmer about to go milking. Why could she never get this ultra-casual designer look right? It was driving her crazy.

When she reached the restaurant, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and pushed open the dark wood door and entered the cluttered space. There was a large horseshoeshaped bar topped with smooth grey marble in the centre of the room. A brass rail ran around the edge and deep leather-covered stools were tucked underneath. The waiter showed her to a little table beyond the bar.

It was empty, of course. She ordered a sparkling water and settled down to wait. Unlike Saffron, she didn’t have the luxury of turning up late. If she left a client waiting, even for a few minutes, it wouldn’t look good.

The minutes sloped by. The longer she sat there, the more her mind churned with the thought that had woken her up, making her sit bolt upright, at two-thirty that morning.

She should come clean.

It was a conflict of interest or…something. She should tell Saffron she’d met Alex before, tell her they’d been romantically involved.

Except they hadn’t.

It had only been a kiss, one that had lasted maybe three—possibly five—minutes. A drunken kiss that she really shouldn’t remember in quite such vivid detail. But every time she rehearsed in her head how she was going to broach it with Saffron, the conversation always went badly. It was the fact that the whole thing had been so difficult to categorise that made it harder.

If she could just say, ‘We went out for two months about five years ago, but we parted on good terms and I moved on and I’m madly in love with someone else now,’ then maybe everything would be fine. But she couldn’t say that. Even though what she’d done with Alex was way less intimate, somehow saying, ‘I walked up to him and snogged him senseless earlier this year’ just wasn’t going to put a skittish girlfriend at ease.

And that was where she’d been for almost the last twelve hours. Going backwards and forward between telling and not telling, and she wasn’t getting anywhere. She was always up front with her clients. Always. They trusted her to give an unbiased and sometimes not-easy-to-hear opinion when they needed one.

It was her own stupid fault. She’d known when she’d walked into the arts centre the other evening that she shouldn’t have let herself get sidetracked, but she’d done it anyway. If she’d kept professional, stuck to the plan, it would never have got to the stage where Alex Black was flirting with her and she was starting to like it.

It would never have got to the stage when she’d almost listened to Peggy’s advice about wrapping herself around a hot man, either…