Warren’s fiancée-to-be, was tapping away on her keyboard right next to the floor-to-ceiling windows. Every now and then she glanced up at the large clock on the far wall and sighed. The rest of the office carried on with their business, as if it were the end of a normal Friday afternoon.
Nicole made eye contact with Felicity, Cheryl’s best friend, who’d been only too happy to be the office ‘mole’ for this part of the operation. Then she checked her watch. ‘Where are you, Warren?’ she mumbled into her Bluetooth earpiece.
She could hear panting and the wind whistling. ‘Just about there,’ he said in a high-pitched voice. ‘Passing the eighteenth floor now.’
She gave Felicity a nod, and Felicity turned and gave a signal to a large man sitting at a desk in the centre of the room. His name was Morris, and he had the most soulful voice Nicole had ever heard. He stood up, cleared his throat and started singing the opening bars to ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’.
A few of the other workers looked up, but most kept on about their work. One by one they joined in the song until the whole seventeenth floor was singing its heart out. Nicole grinned. Those endless choir practices at Hurstdean Academy had come in useful after all.
Warren might not be James Bond, but Nicole dearly hoped that Cheryl was going to say yes. Not only was he a really nice guy, but it said a lot about him that their workmates had spent hours perfecting the song in secret over the last fortnight.
Nicole crept a little further into the office so she could see Cheryl more clearly round the edge of a row of cubicles. She’d stopped typing now and was staring open-mouthed at her colleagues, who sang and smiled as they gathered round her. And, just as Morris took the song to its lungbursting climax, Warren lurched into view outside Cheryl’s window, fumbling to pull the red rose out of his lapel and holding it towards her.
For a moment Cheryl didn’t see him, but that sixth sense that comes when someone is looking over one’s shoulder must have kicked in, because she twisted round and screamed at the same time. She would have fled halfway across the office if Felicity hadn’t caught her and steered her back.
‘Warren!’ Cheryl shrieked, both hands pressed against her sternum, one on top of the other. ‘What the heck are you doing out there?’
Warren, bless his little cotton socks, managed to stop looking quite so nervous. He flashed her a truly 007-worthy smile, then swung the sign dangling from a short rope attached to his harness up into his hands with one swift move.
On it were written four words: Will you marry me?
He’d wanted to go with something Bond-themed, but Nicole had convinced him to keep it simple. When it came to this part of the proposal, no fuss, no frills were needed. That was all a woman needed to hear.
The hairs on the back of her neck lifted as a hush fell on the whole office. Cheryl covered her mouth with her hands then nodded slowly. Once. Twice. Then a flurry of bobbing as she pressed her hands against the glass and started crying.
Nicole smiled as she whispered into her headset, ‘We are go!’
Right on cue, fireworks erupted from the park opposite and Warren and Cheryl’s colleagues cheered and rushed to the windows to watch. Nicole waved at Warren to catch his attention and pointed downwards with an exaggerated action. He was just hanging there, a stupid grin plastered all over his chubby face. He’d completely forgotten the next part of the plan was to get him down and on this side of the glass ASAP.
She sighed and looked around at the mayhem. It was lovely. It really was. And romantic. But…
She shook her head and plucked her earpiece out of her ear. Maybe she was getting a little jaded. In the ten and a half months since she’d started Hopes & Dreams she’d helped numerous men pop the question, but maybe the daily diet of OTT was starting to wear on her.
It was lovely to see all these couples happily planning their futures, but it only seemed to emphasise that once they’d taken each other by the hand and waltzed off into the sunset, she was left standing there alone.
She’d come close—once—to being proposed to. Or so she’d thought. She shook her head to dislodge the memory of that night. She didn’t need to go back there. Life was all about moving forward, about making the future count, not about moping over things that should have been but weren’t.
Warren, who’d finally made it down to the balcony two floors below and unharnessed himself with Kirk’s help, appeared in the doorway to an almighty cheer from his colleagues. He marched over to Cheryl looking ten feet tall, a bit of a Bond swagger in his usual lolloping gait. His fiancée watched him approach, her eyes wide and moist, and Nicole couldn’t help but shake off the mood that had been troubling her a few moments earlier.
She caught Warren’s eye across the top of the crowd and he winked at her as he drew Cheryl into his arms then dipped her for a kiss. Nicole smiled back and tucked her earpiece in her pocket.
Her job was done here. Everything had gone according to her meticulous plan—as everything in her life always did. And she didn’t know why she was getting all maudlin about the lack of proposals in her own life. It was a moot point. She wasn’t even seeing anyone at the moment. There’d been no one since…
She mentally swatted that thought.
She wasn’t seeing anyone, and that was fine, because she was too busy getting a fledgling business off the ground in tough economic times. So right now she was perfectly content organising everyone else’s happy-ever-afters. As long as everything kept going to plan, hers would get here eventually.
Feeling a little windswept and definitely a lot tired, Nicole walked into the foyer of the Hamilton Grand Hotel and quickly disposed of her coat and bag in the cloakroom. She checked her watch. She was late. Just a little. But it didn’t sit well with her. She didn’t do late. Or unprofessional. Or disorganised.
Her outfit wasn’t perfect, either. But that was what happened when you had to go from the top of an office block to a party in one evening. She usually preferred a cocktail dress, but her pencil skirt and classic chiffon blouse would just have to do.
Since both Peggy and Mia had both invested money in Hopes & Dreams and were hoping to join Nicole in the business full-time when things took off, Nicole had invited both her friends to come along with her. She found them in the Terrace Bar with a view over the Thames, along with a hundred or so event planners, hoteliers and media bods. The Hamilton had recently undergone an extensive refurbishment and this was their ‘we’re back!’ party, designed to wow former clients who’d been less than impressed with gradually dilapidating facilities.
Nicole had to admit, they’d done a marvellous job. It was now chic and modern. Flat matt walls in both neutral and bold colours, textured fabrics, funky light fittings. No hint of the dated plasterwork, thank goodness. Nicole shuddered at the memory. She’d always had a hatred for that fussy eighties faux-Victorian look, ever since one of her posh boarding-school friends had come to stay, taken one look at Nicole’s mother’s stripy wallpaper under the glued-on dado rail and had wrinkled her nose a little.
None of the other girls at Hurstdean had homes like that. They’d had antiques instead of orange pine that had darkened to an almost radioactive tone, real oil paintings instead of Monet prints from IKEA. But that
