Читать книгу The Little Shop of Hopes and Dreams - Фиона Харпер - Страница 13

Later that afternoon, as the clouds hung heavy across the city, bringing a premature twilight, and the wind bounced itself off the windows at the front of the Hopes & Dreams office, the door crashed open.

Nicole looked up to find a tall, long-legged blonde wrapped stylishly in a cape, her tumbling golden waves teased slightly out of place by the wind. ‘Are you the proposal planners?’ she asked, bracing herself dramatically in the doorway.

Nicole and Peggy shot a look at each other across their desks, looked at their guest and nodded.

‘Then I want you to plan the best proposal ever for me,’ she said, a tinge of desperation in her cut-glass tone. ‘The best one you’ve ever done!’

Peggy mouthed across at Nicole, ‘You know who that is?’

Nicole nodded, ever so slightly, ever so discreetly. Either this was famous-for-being-famous socialite Saffron Wolden-Barnes or her double had just crashed her way into their office.

‘Flipping heck,’ Peggy muttered under her breath and shooting a look heavenwards. ‘It actually worked.’

‘God does indeed move in mysterious ways,’ Nicole mumbled back. In the ten and a half months since Hopes & Dreams had been in business, she’d not once had a woman walk through her door.

Peggy shrugged and added, ‘You prayed for her. You’d better take her.’

Nicole rose and walked towards their new client and held out a hand. ‘Lovely to meet you. I’m Nicole Harrison, founder of Hopes & Dreams Proposal Planning Agency. If it’s something unique you want, you’ve come to the right place.’

The blonde shook her hand back. ‘Saffron,’ she said, exhaling, and nodded towards the door, as Peggy scurried over to close it. ‘Sorry about that. People expect me to make an entrance when I’m out doing public appearances and what have you. Sometimes I just forget to switch it all off.’

‘Why don’t we sit down and talk through some ideas,’ Nicole said smoothly. She led Saffron down the narrow corridor and opened the door to the proposal-planning room.

Once inside she breathed a sigh of relief. Here, at least, she’d been allowed free hand to decorate, and it was an oasis of cream and off-white, clean lines and stripped wood. Black-and-white photos graced the walls and there was just enough room for a low glass coffee table and two oatmeal-coloured armchairs.

As they settled themselves down, Nicole took a closer look at their client. She’d seen pictures of her in Celebrity Life, of course, but had never laid eyes on her in person. That charisma that oozed from the glossy pages of the magazine was not exaggerated. There was something about her that made you want to look at her. Maybe it was the long, tumbling blonde waves. Maybe it was the designer jeans and boots, the way she’d slung her outfit together with a careless sophistication that Nicole had taken years to get down pat. Whatever that elusive X factor was, Saffron Wolden-Barnes had it in spades. It was as if someone had taken all the best bits of all ‘those girls’ Nicole had battled with all her life and rolled them into one perfect package.

A package that they sorely needed, if Nicole’s diminishing bank account was anything to go by. She couldn’t let that faze her, though. Pretending her heart wasn’t pounding a little harder, that this was any other, non-famous, non-make-or-break client, Nicole picked up a large notebook from the coffee table, which was adorned with folders full of different proposal ideas. She removed the lid of her fountain pen, poised it ready to write, then looked up.

What she saw took her by surprise. Saffron was looking back at her, leaning forward with her hands clasped. Her knees were pressed together, allowing her to rest her elbows on them, but her feet jutted out at odd angles, giving her long legs the appearance of those of a just-born foal who wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. She leaned forward, stared Nicole straight in the eye and sighed. Her eyebrows pulled upwards in the centre, creating a little arch-shaped wrinkle in the skin above her nose.

‘You think I’m bonkers, don’t you? Go on, say it. All my friends do. They think I should wait for him to pop the question.’

Nicole blinked. She’d expected Saffron to be the queen of ‘those girls’, full of confidence and easy words, but there was something about her…She reminded Nicole of the girl she’d been at school. On one hand, having everything going for her, but on the other, awkward, vulnerable, maybe a little too desperate to please. She put her pen down, stopped smiling her ‘client’ smile at the other woman and leaned forward. ‘There’s nothing bonkers—I mean, crazy—about wanting to ask the person you love to marry you.’

The rest of Saffron’s eyebrows lifted and her mouth opened a little. Then she smiled at Nicole. A big, glowing smile that lit up her face and made her blue eyes sparkle. Nicole couldn’t help smiling back. There was something very open and refreshing about Saffron Wolden-Barnes.

‘Why don’t you tell me about the man in your life,’ she asked gently. ‘We’re going to need to find out a little about him before we start planning in earnest.’

Saffron didn’t need to be asked twice. She launched instantly into a full description of the paragon she dearly wanted to marry. He was sexy. He was clever. He was cool and funny. He had the best smile in the world and made her feel safe and grounded in her crazy life.

‘He’s a bit publicity shy, though,’ she added, thoughtfully. ‘Doesn’t really like the limelight. So we’ve been dating not exactly in secret, but quietly.’

‘And you think he’s ready to make this step too?’ Nicole asked. Nobody—not her, not the client—wanted a ‘no’ after all the expense and planning, so it wasn’t a bad idea to make sure the proposer had really thought about it before they put the wheels in motion.

Saffron nodded vigorously. ‘I’m sure he does. At least…’ She frowned again. ‘No…I’m sure. I think so.’ She gave Nicole another blast of her famous smile. ‘There are no guarantees when you’re doing something like this, right?’

‘Right,’ Nicole said, heartily relieved Saffron wasn’t one of those clients she had to remind about this point. She was good, but she couldn’t achieve the impossible.

‘I mean…part of the point of the exercise is finding out the answer to that question, isn’t it? And I really want to know the answer. Now.’ Her shoulders drooped a little. ‘I just haven’t got time to wait for the next leap year.’

‘Well, what kind of proposal were you looking for?’ Nicole asked. ‘We can arrange just about anything you want. Intimate meetings in the midst of the city or an idyllic woodland trail with a Michelin-starred picnic at the end. Flash mobs or a romantic assignation at a castle or in a luxury penthouse. We can do big and dramatic or cosy and intimate. Obviously, we can’t do magic…’ she paused to smile softly, as she always did when she delivered the next bit ‘…but we’ll do our best to make your hopes and dreams come true.’

Cheesy line, she knew. But the clients loved it.

Saffron exhaled and her shoulders relaxed. ‘Thank you. You don’t know what this means to me.’

Nicole smiled again. She hadn’t expected to like Saffron, but she did. There was a lack of guile about her that was surprisingly disarming. Suddenly she understood why it was this girl and not the hundreds of other bright young things like her that the tabloids followed round.

‘I don’t even know where to start…’ Saffron said mournfully, flicking through one of the folders in front of her. ‘Just that I want it to be monumental, spectacular. And that I want to do it the weekend before Christmas, so it’s all done and dusted by the time I get together with my father, step-mother and step-sister on Christmas Eve.’

‘Well, I’ve got a questionnaire I can run through with you that will throw up some ideas, but we don’t have to decide anything right now,’ Nicole said.

‘I usually do a little homework on the fiancé-to-be when someone comes to me to plan a proposal. I also try to engineer a face-to-face meeting so that we can get a feel for their personality and tastes.’ After Mr Arrogant she wasn’t taking any chances.

It had turned out to be a genius idea. While a lot of the men who came to her knew their partners very well, she’d discovered that there were also things many women hadn’t communicated to their significant other, secret wishes that the man of their dreams should just instinctively know without being told. After her mock interview, Nicole was well placed to weave them into her proposal ideas and let the proposer take the credit.

Saffron looked a little panicked. ‘You won’t tip him off, will you?’

Nicole shook her head reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry. We’re very discreet. Usually, I pose as a journalist or a market researcher doing a questionnaire and ask them a few key questions about themselves, what they feel about love and romance. It’s all very quick and painless.’

She didn’t add that it was usually a bit easier when the target was a woman. It wasn’t hard to run into someone in a coffee shop or in a high street and start chatting about weddings and boyfriends. Saffron was spooked enough as it was. Nicole wasn’t going to scare her off by mentioning this would be her first girl-asks-boy proposal.

‘What we need from you is information on how we can informally “bump into” him. Preferably a public place where there’s an opportunity to chat, hopefully within the next week.’

Saffron thought hard for a moment. ‘I have the perfect event! Oh! It’s tonight…like, in a couple of hours. That’s not too soon, is it?’

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 them in 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.