by Fiona Harper
Mia came over, mug in hand, and sat next to her. ‘It’s not really your responsibility.’
Nicole sighed. ‘I know. But Alex only lined it up because I lied to him. I feel really bad about letting him deal with the fallout of my bad judgement.’
‘I know. While I said it wasn’t your responsibility, I also knew there was no way in hell you would do that to him—to anyone. You’re just not that selfish.’ Mia paused for a moment. ‘So what are you going to do?’
Nicole let out a weary little laugh. ‘I don’t suppose you’re doing anything tomorrow afternoon, are you?’
Mia shook her head. ‘I’d do it, you know that, but Jonathan and I are supposed to be going down to Elmhurst Hall to check it out as a wedding venue. After all you told us about the place, I just had to see it for myself, but if we don’t book it this weekend we’ll lose the date we want, and it’s been hard enough finding one when Jon’s parents are in the country as it is.’
‘It’s okay. I wasn’t really serious.’ She went over and fetched her mug of wine, finished it off. ‘But that’s not the worst of it. Once Chef Roscoff mentioned the date and the location, all the pieces fell into place. You know whose wedding it is, don’t you?’
Mia stretched her legs out. ‘Society wedding? It’s not Selena Marchant and the earl of something, is it? The glossy celebrity magazines have been abuzz with that for months.’
If only.
‘Nope. Worse than that. It’s as if the universe has decided to play one humungous joke on me at the moment.’ She turned to look mournfully at Mia. ‘It’s—’
At the same moment, a flash of revelation hit Mia’s eyes. ‘You don’t mean…?’
Nicole nodded. ‘Yup. It’s Jasper’s wedding. Of all the lousy five-star hotels in the world…’
‘It never rains but it pours,’ Mia whispered quietly.
Nicole was all out of platitudes. She decided to put it a little more pithily. ‘In other words, I’m screwed.’
Mia sat up. ‘Forget Elmhurst Hall,’ she said, looking quite fierce. ‘I’ll do it for you. There are plenty other lovely places to get married.’
Nicole shook her head. ‘No. Thanks, but no. This is my mess and I’m just going to have to deal with it.’ She couldn’t let Mia do that. One of the reasons she’d waxed so lyrical about Elmhurst was because she’d thought it was perfect for Mia and Jonathan. She already had one doomed proposal on her conscience; she didn’t need to add a wedding to that list as well.
Mia looked seriously into her mug. ‘Maybe this is a good thing.’
Nicole was too tired to laugh, otherwise she might have howled until the tears rolled down her face. ‘How do you reckon that?’
Mia put her mug on the floor and turned to face Nicole. ‘It’s been more than five years since you split with Jasper. You really should have found someone else by now, but there’s been no one. No one really serious, anyway.’
‘I’ve been busy,’ Nicole said. ‘Hatching the idea for my own business while working full-time for Elite Gatherings wasn’t easy. I took all the extra hours I could to pad my start-up fund. And since launching Hopes & Dreams, I just haven’t had the time or the energy.’
‘I know,’ Mia said patiently. ‘But sometimes I get the feeling that your hectic schedule, the pace at which you live your life, isn’t a reason but an excuse.’
Nicole frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I think you keep yourself deliberately busy so you don’t have time for romance. I mean that the ghost of Jasper is haunting you still. And that’s why I think this wedding might have a silver lining. You can go, see him again, put that ghost to rest, as well as paying Alex back for his kindness.’
Nicole’s stomach churned at the thought. ‘Get some closure, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can’t I just sleep with a rugby team and get a tattoo?’ she asked a little desperately.
Mia shook her head then took another measured sip of her wine. ‘If that would have worked for you, I think you would have done it already.’
Nicole huffed. Now she wished Peggy was here instead. Why did Mia have to make so much sense? ‘So, basically, you’re saying I’ve got to endure a whole day in the company of the two men who have ballsed up my life the most, and I’ve got to get sore feet and aching legs doing it.’
‘That’s pretty much it.’
Nicole stood up and marched over to the desk, where the wine bottle was dripping condensation on her block of Post-it notes. ‘In that case, I think we’re going to need another one of these.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Nicole pulled down the white blouse of her waitress uniform. It just wouldn’t sit right, confirming that her life was slowly becoming a nightmare that would never end. She gave it one last tug and headed off to where the other waitressing staff was waiting for a briefing.
Unfortunately, Mia had been right about her. What else could she have done but turn up at the wedding? She couldn’t get Alex into hot water just because he’d been trying to help her out. She sighed. Unfortunately, all Alex’s efforts to ‘help’ in the last few weeks had done was make her life even more complicated.
And then there was the fact that this was her ex’s wedding and that the bride, Penelope, was clearly worth walking down the aisle with, whereas Nicole hadn’t come up to scratch. Lovely.
It was going to be a bit awkward if she and Jasper came face to face. However, she was counting on the fact that just wouldn’t happen. She was the lowest of the lowly servers and wouldn’t get within fifty feet of the top table. That much had been made clear to her already. Thankfully, the scale of this wedding meant that she’d be able to lose herself amidst the hundreds of bodies.
One thing she’d also realised when she’d woken at five that morning, eyes wide open, heart pounding, was that she might know some of the guests. Jasper’s sister, Helena, had been a good enough friend for her to keep in touch with after school, although communication had dwindled to the occasional comment on each other’s Facebook posts after Nicole had split with her brother. Thankfully, Helena was four years younger than Jasper and since Hurstdean had only taken girls he’d gone to an equally exclusive boys’ school. Brother and sister shouldn’t have too many old friends in common.
And if they did? Well, Nicole was counting on the fact that after so many years, she’d just be a vaguely familiar face out of context, that she’d remain as anonymous as the rest of the army of servers who’d be working there that day. All she had to do was keep her head down, do her job quietly and efficiently and everything would be fine.
She stifled a yawn as she listened to the head waiter’s instructions. She’d had to be here at seven for a lengthy training session, which she hadn’t dared fail. Thank goodness she’d done plenty of waitressing in her university days to help pay the bills. It wasn’t quite the same as the silver service they used at the Wardesley, but at least she knew the basics already and the rest had come fairly quickly.
After the talk they were assigned to their jobs. Nicole was fairly relieved to discover she wasn’t going to be required to carry plates. First, she was going to stand with trays of champagne to offer to arriving guests, and then she’d be responsible for filling up water jugs and making sure the tables had enough butter and things like that.
When she was given her tray, she went to stand on duty in the reception area where the guests would be gathering before luncheon was called. She checked the clock on the wall. One-thirty. The service had ended more than half an hour ago, according to the timetable the staff had been given. Some of the wedding guests—the thirstier ones who didn’t want to stand around in the cold throwing confetti, she guessed—started to trail in.
She managed to bag herself a spot away from the entrance, so she wouldn’t be the first person people saw when they walked into the room, but made sure she had a good view of the doors. Not only because her heart was thudding slightly at the thought of seeing Jasper with the woman who’d ou
tclassed her, but also to see if there were any other guests she needed to avoid.
The doors swooshed open and a group of women entered. Nicole closed her eyes and sent a thought heavenwards. You’re having a joke, aren’t you? she mentally whispered. Minty and Celeste? Really?
What she wouldn’t have given for a long fringe. She angled her face away from them while still keeping them in her sights. She should have known this wasn’t going to be that easy. Okay, she’d spotted them tucked away somewhere in Helena’s long list of Facebook friends, but she hadn’t realised they’d been close. Either that or the divine Penelope knew them.
Uh. It didn’t really matter, did it? They were here and she was going to have to deal with it.
Thankfully, with a couple of hundred guests to lose herself in, it turned out to be not as hard as she’d anticipated. When Celeste and Minty, who always seemed to travel as a pair, looked as if they were heading her way, Nicole just turned and altered her trajectory, smiled at a group of guests on the other side of the room and offered them a champagne cocktail.
She’d just performed a particularly effective manoeuvre, when she became aware of a commotion outside, lots of cheering and whistling. The bride and groom must have arrived. The noise got louder. Nicole’s heart went into overdrive. This was it. The moment she’d been dreading. The moment Mia had said she needed to endure in order to find some closure. That didn’t mean she’d been looking forward to it. She pressed herself back against the wall, tray in hand, and slapped on her best professional smile. No one needed to know she was shaking inside.
But then she heard a noise that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end.
The whirr of a camera shutter.
How she detected it above the hum of conversation, she’d never know, but her hungry eyes found him instantly, shooting the guests at the entrance to the reception room. Her heart felt as if it had heaved to a stop, just for a few seconds, before starting up again at double the speed.
Moments later, Jasper and his new bride appeared in the doorway and swept past the guests and into the ballroom in a cloud of joy and trailing confetti. Nicole hardly noticed them. She was too busy looking at Alex, drinking him in. It was at that moment she realised the nerves that had been skittering up her spine all day had nothing to do with seeing her ex get married and everything to do with a consummate charmer who hid his artist’s soul deep away inside.
He didn’t see her at first, too busy chatting with a group of women in hats, before taking their photograph, but then he turned his head. Their eyes met for just a split second, but she felt as if a crossbow bolt had shot through her, impaling her to the pillar she was pressing herself against.
Oh, she was a sick little puppy. While most of her had been frustrated at not being able to wangle her way out of a twelve-hour day on her feet handing other people drinks, a tiny part of her had been pleased. A tiny, masochistic part she hadn’t realised existed. She’d felt as if there’d been an inevitability about ending up here today. Something she just hadn’t wanted to fight, if she were honest with herself, even before that conversation with Mia. How could she have denied herself one last chance to see him before Saffron proposed?
It was only a week away now. Everything was booked, even a top-notch venue. Saffron’s credit card had opened doors that would have been firmly closed to normal mortals. Guests had been invited. It was real now. And the closer she got to the twentieth, the sicker Nicole felt. That was all wrong. She should want it to happen. It was her job to make it happen, after all.
And he was all wrong for her. It was as if he had some destructive force field around him, so every time she got near she turned into someone else, someone she thought she’d forgotten who to be.
A psychologist would have a field day with her, probably suggesting she only wanted him because he was Saffron’s, because Saffron represented “those girls”, and this was her chance to finally come out on top.
She blamed the whole thing on Molly Ringwald. Without that Cinderella scene in the car park with Andrew McCarthy, she’d never have been holding out for her own Pretty in Pink moment all these years.
But you liked him before he ever met Saffron. What about that?
She ignored that thought and turned and smiled brightly at another group of mingling guests, thrusting the tray of champagne glasses into their midst. Instead of taking any, they all looked at her, puzzled. It was only when Nicole took a good look at her tray she realised why. Somewhere along the way, all the full glasses had been taken, and she’d offered them four empty glasses and a half-drunk one with a napkin stuffed into it.
See? Even thinking about Alex had her messing up and doing stupid things, a pattern that had emerged from the very first moment she’d laid eyes on him.
But the empty tray wasn’t all bad. At least it gave her an excuse to leave the room, to get away from him for a few moments and gather herself together.
She needed to do this. To prove to herself and the rest of the world that she could cope with being around him without falling apart. Otherwise, come the night of the party, when Saffron was all dressed up and on bended knee in front of him, she was going to fall to pieces.
With a fortifying breath, Nicole straightened her spine and headed for the kitchen.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Nicole was stationed at the back of the large rectangular ballroom, as far away from the top table as she could possibly get, a tray of champagne flutes balanced on her hand. The main course had been both eaten and cleared and other waiters and waitresses were similarly poised around the room, waiting for the signal to start placing a glass in front of each of the two hundred and ninety-six guests.
She looked across the ballroom to the bride and groom, deep in conversation with each other. It was weird, seeing Jasper after all this time. Like a dream. As if he was a person who resembled someone she’d known well once but wasn’t actually him.
They looked happy, he and his new bride. Penelope was petite and blonde, pretty and elegant. They were perfect together. If she hadn’t had a personal connection to him, she’d have applauded him for his choice. Maybe she did anyway, because standing here looking at him, she could finally remember the good times, the way he’d boosted her confidence and made her feel special, but she didn’t ache for him the way she once had. No, he’d passed that privilege on to someone else.
She slipped her aching foot from her court shoe and carefully rubbed it against her other leg just as the signal came to start serving the champagne. She quickly slid her toes back into her shoe and made her way to the first of her allotted tables.
She’d thought the team had been huge when she’d first arrived, but now they were all separated and dotted around the vast ballroom, she realised how badly they were outnumbered and just how much energy was required if she was going to do her bit. And it didn’t help that the sheer hard graft wasn’t the only thing sapping her energy this evening. Just the effort of not sneaking constant glances at Alex, filtering out his voice through the clink of cutlery and glasses, was draining her last reserves.
As she reached the final table in her section she got a shock. Celeste was right there. That wasn’t where she’d been for the first part of the reception!
It didn’t take long to work out she had eyes for the floppyhaired blond on that table and had ousted the rightful occupant of her current chair just before dessert. Nicole spotted the other woman sitting next to Minty over on table fifteen with her arms folded, sending Celeste daggers and refusing to eat her white-chocolate-and-lavender profiteroles in protest.
Still, no one had even glanced Nicole’s way all day while she’d been serving. It was almost as if she’d been invisible. And if she just did her job well, Celeste would probably never even realise she’d been there.
Four glasses to go…Three…Two…
She leaned in and placed a flute in front of her rival, dipping in silently to the right, the way she’d been taught. Celeste glanced up slig
htly at the sight of the champagne coming her way, but her gaze only made it as far as Nicole’s hand. Like the rest, she didn’t bother looking at her face.
Nicole controlled the urge to exhale long and hard and saved it for the moment when she’d strode quickly from the ballroom and leaned back against the wall. Unfortunately, she hadn’t noticed the tray of empty glasses on a nearby table and she toppled one or two as she put out her hand to steady herself.
They dived towards the carpet in a graceful arc, but the thickness of the pile saved them from shattering. Nicole quickly bent to scoop them up and felt a rush of warm air as the double doors that led to the ballroom opened.
‘Nicole?’
Oh, no. She recognised that voice.
Of course she did. True to form, this day just kept getting better and better. Slowly, she rose and turned to face Celeste Delacourt, who was smiling sweetly back at her.
‘It is you!’ she said. That smile was about as genuine as an alligator’s. She looked Nicole up and down, taking in her plain black skirt and her badly fitting blouse, and her mouth widened just a fraction. ‘I didn’t realise things were so sticky at Hopes & Wishes that you were having to do a bit of moonlighting to make ends meet. That’s too bad.’
Nicole corrected her through clenched teeth. ‘It’s Hopes & Dreams.’
Oh, and look now. Where Tweedle Dum was, Tweedle Dee was sure to follow. Minty slid through the heavy doors that led to the ballroom and stopped in her tracks.
‘I didn’t know you knew Penelope,’ she said to Nicole. ‘Or that you’d been invited. Great wedding, isn’t it?’
Nicole wasn’t fooled for a second. Minty knew she wasn’t a guest. Nicole stared back at her, daring her to say something else.
Minty took in her stony expression and let out a musical little giggle, pretending she’d just realised her mistake. ‘Sorry, darling,’ she drawled. ‘Too much champers…Should have realised.’
