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 was what came from being the scholarship kid, she supposed.
But after that incident Nicole had decided it was better to go without if you couldn’t have the real thing, and she’d started building her furnishings, her wardrobe—and her life—according to that code. ‘Dress for the job you want…’ someone had once said. Well, Nicole dressed for the life she wanted, a fabulous one.
‘So, did Cheryl say yes to tubby old Warren?’ Peggy asked as Nicole approached.
Nicole nodded and the other two girls breathed out a sigh of relief. While a negative to a proposal really came down to the relationship in question, too many refusals could make the Hopes & Dreams look bad. So far, though, Nicole had a really good success rate. Only one ‘no’, and that had been right back at the beginning, a big-headed plonker whose ill-fated proposal idea had only convinced his girlfriend that he loved himself more than he did her.
That one blot on her otherwise perfect record still smarted. Still, she’d been on a huge learning curve since then and had come up with protective measures to stop herself falling into that kind of situation ever again.
Thankfully, her proposer tonight had been nothing like Mr Arrogant.
‘He got right into the part too,’ Nicole said. ‘Not sure what Cheryl’s going to do with him now he’s discovered his inner Bond.’
Peggy’s red lips stretched slowly into a smile. ‘I know what I’d do with a man who’d discovered his inner Bond…’
‘Oh, there you are, darlings! Doesn’t the Hamilton look super? I’m sure Minty and I are going to use it for one of our next parties.’
Nicole’s stomach sank, but she turned round, smiling—if not genuinely—widely. ‘Celeste…Araminta…How are you?’
The two women were both tall and had cascading, thick honey-coloured waves. They looked as if they’d blown in off the King’s Road after an afternoon’s shopping. The dresses were bang on trend, the make-up artfully suggesting a healthy glow, and the legs went on for centuries.
However, despite her irritation at their presence, Nicole couldn’t help taking a mental note of how their outfits were put together, noting details like designers, fabrics, cut…As much as she didn’t like them, Celeste and Minty always looked fabulous, and it was never good to be outshone by the competition.
It was a habit she’d picked up at school, when fitting in had been as necessary as breathing. She might have not had as much money as most of her school chums, but that hadn’t meant she’d wanted to stand out in cut-price highstreet polyester knock-offs. As a result, she’d developed a talent for breaking down an outfit into its component parts, working out how she could copy it on a shoestring or use what she already owned to pull off the look. It had helped her blend into the privileged world of Hurstdean Academy.
‘Marvellous!’ Celeste said, beaming. For some reason her smile reminded Nicole of a chihuahua baring its teeth. ‘And how’s your cute little boutique agency doing? I don’t seem to have heard much about it in ages. I Do, I Do, I Do is going great guns. Did you hear we just did the Patterson–Henley proposal? She said yes, of course. Who wouldn’t when daddy-in-law is a viscount?’
Celeste broke off so she and Minty could congratulate themselves with throaty, slightly horsey laughter.
Nicole kept smiling and gently put a hand on Peggy’s arm. She was sure she’d just heard a snarl from under her flatmate’s breath.
Minty sighed and flicked her hair in a manner that got the attention of all the men in a ten-foot radius. ‘They’ve asked us to do the engagement party as well, you know. Fabulous exposure.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ Mia said tightly. ‘Congratulations.’
Celeste started scanning the crowd. Obviously, they’d ceased to be entertaining now the gloating had finished, and she was looking for her next victim. ‘Ooh! There’s the new owner of the Hamilton, Jayce Ryder. He did say he wanted a word with us. Come on, Minty.’ She waved above the crowd. ‘Yoo-hoo, Jayce…!’
Both girls flashed identical smiles at Nicole, Peggy and Mia and then headed off into the crowd without bothering to air-kiss a farewell.
The name Peggy called them when they were out of earshot wasn’t nice.
Nicole shook her head. ‘We shouldn’t criticise the competition in public. It’s not professional.’
Peggy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Professional, schmessional. Sometimes I just can’t help myself, and I don’t know how you can be so calm, cool and collected about it, either. Not after they copied your idea and set up a rival proposal-planning agency right under your nose!’
Nicole sent a laser-targeted stare after the two disappearing willowy figures. ‘They only got that job because Minty’s daddy plays polo with Hugo Patterson’s daddy.’ Mia followed her gaze. ‘Oh, yes. I forgot you used to work with them at that big event-planning firm.’
‘Me and my big mouth,’ Nicole muttered, turning back to her friends and sighing. ‘I shouldn’t have bragged to them that I was branching out on my own.’
Mia nodded understandingly. ‘And have you seen a drop in business recently? I know you said you were worried about that when you started out.’
Nicole sighed again. She’d hoped for a fun, glitzy evening after a hard week with sleepless nights and ten-hour days. ‘A bit. I run a full range of services. The lowest tier is personalised proposal ideas that clients buy for a small fee and then they do the rest themselves—inspiration, if you like. Next is helping to find venues and vendors who match the client’s requirements, but the top tier is the no-holds-barred planning service, where I take care of everything. Not only are those the most fun to do, but they’re the ones I make most money on, and it’s interest in those kind of proposals that seems to have tailed off.’
She glanced over again at her rivals, who were busy fawning over the hotel tycoon who’d been responsible for the Hamilton’s upswing in fortune. ‘And I have a feeling I know who’s hoovering up all that kind of business.’
Peggy glared over at them. ‘Those two are toxic on so many levels it isn’t funny.’
Nicole angled her body away from Celeste and Minty. She didn’t even want to look at them. They didn’t count. She wasn’t going to let girls like that get the better of her ever again.
‘Ever