Tiffany?’
She went from shocked to amused in a heartbeat, hitting him gently on the chest. ‘No, silly!’
He caught her hand and kept it trapped under his.
‘I’m Holly!’ she said with a weary sigh, as if even his two-year-old niece would know that. But then again, she probably did. Women seemed to know everything about every chick flick ever made from the moment of their births.
‘Well, Holly…Can I have your number? I’d like to call you.’
She closed her eyes and rested against him, mumbled sleepily, ‘Sure.’
He waited for a moment. ‘Care to enlighten me?’
One eyelid lifted. ‘Huh?’
‘Your number?’
The eyelid slid closed again. ‘It’s oh-nine-three…no, seven…no, three…’ She lifted her head and peered at him from under half-mast false lashes. ‘I can’t seem to remember.’
‘How about I give you mine?’
She nodded. He tore a corner off a flyer on a nearby table and scribbled his number down for her. When he handed it to her she blinked twice, very deliberately, then tucked it down in the front of her dress. All the saliva evaporated from his mouth.
He caught a flash of baby-pink moving towards him and realised her friends had come to rescue her.
She smiled dreamily at him. ‘Thank you…for my midnight kiss. It was very nice.’
His smile grew wider. ‘Yes, it was.’
Over her shoulder he saw Tom heading back in his direction, down but not out, according to the rueful smile on his face. His mystery woman’s friends weren’t far behind. They pushed their way through the dance floor, stopped a short distance away and beckoned for their friend.
The one in the pink gave him a saucy wink, while the Lara Croft lookalike kept an eye on Tom, making sure he was heading away from her.
‘Call me,’ he said, as they led her away.
Pinky looked back at him over her shoulder as they headed for the door. ‘If she doesn’t,’ she said with a little smirk, ‘I will.’
Tom sighed as he leaned back against the wall beside him. ‘Damn. Knew I should have gone for Doris instead.’ He took a swig of beer and smiled at the polka-dotted hips wiggling their way out of the door. ‘The good girls are always so much fun when they’re persuaded to be just a little bit bad.’
Ten months later
Nicole stood on top of an office building in Lambeth, arms wrapped around her for warmth. The sun had set half an hour ago, leaving just a smudge of peach peeping out between the glass towers and church spires that crowded the London horizon.
She risked a glance over the edge and instantly regretted it. Twenty storeys below, the November wind tugged papery leaves from trees then threw them carelessly in the path of the rush-hour traffic.
‘Are you ready, Warren?’ she asked, only just managing to stop her teeth chattering. She forced her cheeks into the soothing, yet professional smile she always used on her clients at this part of the proposal process.
Warren, a baby-faced, slightly balding forty-something, was fastening an abseiling harness over the top of his dinner suit. He looked up and nodded, nervous but determined.
Nicole caught the eye of Kirk, the ex-army guy she’d used a few times for similar stunts. He was one of those wordless, beefy types, who Nicole had been worried would intimidate men preparing to be the most vulnerable they’d ever been in their life, but somehow he inspired laddish camaraderie, and even the most timid of clients seemed more ready to do something high-risk and daring under his guidance. He finished testing Warren’s harness then stepped back and nodded at Nicole.
Warren’s face paled.
Nicole stepped forward and handed him an earpiece, similar to the one she was wearing. She looked him in the eyes. ‘It’s going to be fine,’ she told him. ‘A minute from now you’re going to be face to face with the woman you love, and she’s worth all of this, isn’t she?’
He nodded and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat.
Nicole stepped back as Warren jammed the earpiece into place. ‘Now you’ve got your very own piece of high-tech gadgetry—just like James Bond,’ she added, warming the ever-present smile up a notch.
Warren fidgeted with his harness a little. She guessed it was probably pinching in places she didn’t want to know about. ‘That’s the idea,’ he said. ‘Cheryl’s always had a bit of a thing for 007. I’m not under any grand illusions, but I thought if I could show her I could be the tiniest bit like him, it might improve the chance of her saying yes.’
Nicole looked across at his smooth receding forehead, his slightly chubby cheeks, the torso that suggested he’d spent more time at the kebab shop than at the gym. She wished she really could tell him he was the spitting image of Pierce or Roger or Sean. ‘You look extremely dashing,’ she said. ‘You’re going to blow Cheryl away.’
Warren smiled softly. ‘Like a real Bond film…Something always gets blown away—or up—in a Bond film.’
The thought of an explosion of any kind featuring in the proposal she spent the last month meticulously planning sent a shiver of fear down Nicole’s spine. However, she glued the smile in place and projected it back at Warren with even greater force. ‘As long as it’s an explosion of love, and love alone, everyone will be happy.’
Especially her.
She checked her watch. ‘Do you remember what to do?’
Warren went back to looking very serious. He nodded. ‘Abseil down slowly two floors, then wait for your signal before doing the last bit.’
‘You can do it,’ she said, handing him the sign he was going to clip to his harness and a single red rose. ‘Just remember…Kirk is here at the top if you need help and I’ll be waiting for you on the seventeenth floor.’
Warren nodded weakly and backed towards the edge. With Kirk’s help he started to lower himself down. Nicole stood, calm and serene, smiling as he went. Just before he vanished she did a little thumbs-up gesture, but as soon as his eyes disappeared below the parapet, and only the thinning fluff on the top of his head was left in view, she set off running like a greyhound towards the door that led to the fire escape.
Her heels clattered on the stairs as she raced down two flights. They weren’t really practical for this kind of thing, she knew, but she had a professional image to maintain.
She paused briefly outside the room where the action was due to take place and sucked in as much oxygen as she could. Five seconds was all she had, so five seconds would have to do. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she waited for her pulse to stop stampeding, then slipped gracefully through the fire-exit door and into the open-plan office.
