Invitation to the Boss's Ball

He nodded. ‘Fine. Make the arrangements, would you?’

She gave a hasty nod and sidled round the half-open door.

He walked back to his desk. Before he sat down, he ran his fingertips over the flat, square and now empty jewellery box sitting next to the phone. Until very recently there’d been at least one woman in his life who hadn’t quivered with fear when he’d walked into the room. Far from it.

Jessica Fernly-Jones. High society darling and professional butterfly.

She was the woman every red-blooded male in London was dying to have on his arm. And for a while she’d been his. His triumph, his coup.

She’d made him dance through hoops before she’d consented to date him regularly. Not that he’d cared. It had all been part of the game—part of the sacrifice to win the prize. And there was always a sacrifice if something was worth having. When she’d finally relented and agreed to go out to dinner with him, he’d relished the looks of envy and awe on other men’s faces as he’d walked through the restaurant with her. It had been even better than when he’d dated a supermodel.

But after two months the hoop-jumping and game-playing hadn’t relented, as he’d expected. And he’d started to wonder whether one woman really was worth all the aggravation.

His answer had come the night he’d given her the jewellery box. Lesser women would have squealed and gone all dewy-eyed when they saw the logo of a rather exclusive jewellers on the box. But, give Jessica credit, she’d merely raised an eyebrow and given him a sexy smile. A smile that said she’d knew she’d deserved it, that she was worth every carat the box contained—probably more.

She’d prised open the lid and her eyes had roved the contents of the box.

It had been a diamond pendant. Simple. Elegant. Outrageously expensive.

A small pout had squeezed Jessica’s lips together. ‘It’s lovely, Cameron,’ she’d said. ‘But don’t you remember? It was the pink diamond I wanted—not a boring old white one. You will be a darling about this, won’t you?’

At that moment Cameron had known suddenly and unequivocally that he wouldn’t be a darling about anything for Jessica any more. Still, there had been no need to make a scene. They’d gone out to dinner, and he’d explained it all quite carefully before Jessica had flounced off.

Now he had his own little empire he supposed he would need a woman to stand by his side, someone to share all this bounty with. On the climb up he’d always imagined she’d be someone exactly like Jessica. Now, though…

Instead of sitting down he turned round and walked back to the window.

The view was starting to bore him. Just as well he’d be changing it soon.

‘Alice? Alice Morton?’

Alice’s hand closed around a pound coin in her money belt. She hadn’t heard that voice in years. She looked up to find a stylishly dressed woman with a wavy blonde bob smiling at her.

‘Jennie? I can’t believe it!’

It looked as if Jennie’s trademark stripy legwarmers of a decade ago had finally been declared a fashion no-no, because the woman in front of her oozed sophistication. However, there was no mistaking Jennie’s bright smile and the aura of excitement she carried with her wherever she went. In a flash Alice had scooted round the velvetdraped stall and the two women launched themselves into a rib-crushing hug.

A polite cough from Alice’s left reminded her of what she’d been doing just seconds before Jennie had arrived. She handed the customer she’d been serving her change.

‘I’m so sorry! Here you go.’

The woman shrugged and wandered off, with a genuine ‘Choose Life’ T-shirt in her shopping bag.

Coreen braced her hands on the stall and leaned forward, her eyes practically out on stalks. ‘Who’s this? Long-lost sister?’

‘Almost,’ Jennie said, as she and Alice smiled at each other. ‘I was engaged to Alice’s brother for a couple of years. The fact I didn’t get to be Alice’s sister-in-law was the thing that made me the saddest when we broke up,’ she said.

‘Anyway, what are you doing selling vintage lace and platform shoes? The last I heard your IT consultancy was just getting off the ground.’

‘Oh, I’m still doing that. It helps pay the bills. In fact, that’s how I met Coreen…’ She paused briefly to introduce the two women properly. ‘When Coreen started selling her stock online a few years ago, she decided to upgrade her system. I sorted her out with what she needed.’

‘That doesn’t explain how you’ve ended up selling Wham! T-shirts on a chilly Thursday morning rather than hooking up cables to PCs,’ Jennie said to Alice.

Just at that moment another customer walked up and asked Coreen something in-depth about alligator handbags. As she talked to the woman, Coreen made shooing motions with her hands. Bless Coreen! Alice mouthed her a silent thankyou and guided Jennie away from the stall, so they could walk and talk, browsing the clothing and arts and crafts stalls and catching up on over ten years’ worth of gossip. She filled Jennie in on what the family were doing now, and she seemed genuinely interested in what Alice had been up to since she’d known her as a shy sixth-former. Alice gave her a potted history—there really wasn’t that much to tell—and finished up with how she’d fallen in love with vintage clothes herself after getting friendly with Coreen.

‘We’re saving hard so we can open up our own vintage clothes boutique,’ she said as she finished off.

Jennie smiled at her. ‘That’ll be just fabulous,’ she said, nodding her head, and then she pressed her lips together and looked skywards. ‘Tell you what, when you finally open your shop give me a call—I’ll organise a launch party that will put you firmly on the map.’

‘A party?’

Jennie reached into a soft leather handbag the colour of clotted cream—the stitching on it was fantastic, and screamed quality. She pulled out an elegant business card and handed it to Alice.

‘You’re an event planner?’

Alice couldn’t have thought up a better job for Jennie if she’d tried.

Jennie nodded. ‘Isn’t it a scream? I get paid to have fun!’ She sighed. ‘Actually, sometimes the “planning” bit of event planning is a bit of a drag. That’s why I’m down here at the market this morning—hunting for inspiration.’ She gazed at a stall filled with home-knitted baby cardigans. ‘Did you ever meet my stepbrother?’

Alice blinked. Okay—swift change of subject, but she could keep up. She’d heard a lot about the stepbrother during the years Jennie had gone out with Patrick, but he’d been away at university for much of the time they’d been together.

‘Tall?’ She resisted adding skinny, mainly because she hated being described that way herself. ‘With glasses?’

Jennie laughed. ‘Yes! That was Cam back then. He hasn’t shrunk any, but he’s lost the specs.’

A flood of memories entered Alice’s head and she smiled gently. She’d met Cam—Cameron—just once or twice, the most memorable occasion being at a Christmas do at Jennie’s parents’ house. She’d been living in fear that she’d get picked next for charades, and had sneaked into Jennie’s father’s study to hide. She’d almost jumped out of her skin when she’d found a tall, lanky young man sitting in an armchair with a book. He hadn’t said anything—just raised an eyebrow and nodded at the other chair.

They’d spent a couple of hours like that, reading quietly, chatting occasionally, until Jennie had discovered them and dragged them out again to join the ‘fun’. They’d both pulled a face at the same time. Then he’d smiled at her, and she’d smiled back, and just like that they’d become co-conspirators.

The details of their conversation that evening were fuzzy in her memory, but she hadn’t forgotten his smile—or his eyes. Dark brown, streaked with warm toffee, like the tiger’s eye stones in a bracelet she’d inherited from her grandmother. What a pity those eyes, with all that warmth and intelligence, had been hidden behind a pair of rather thick, ugly glasses.

‘I remember him,’ she said quietly. ‘He was nice.’

More than nice. But he’d been older. And she’d been sixteen, and still a little terrified of boys she wasn’t best buddies with. But that hadn’t stopped her wishing it had been New Year’s Eve instead of Christmas Eve, just in case he’d been in need of an available pair of lips when midnight struck.

‘Well, he’s driving me nuts at the moment, because his company is doing up some old building and he wants—and I quote—a “different” opening bash. Something distinctive, he says.’ Jennie gave a little huff, as if she were offended that anyone would think she would do anything less.

They’d come full circle, and were now standing next to Coreen’s stall again. Jennie reached out and lightly touched the bow on the front of the sixties cocktail dress. ‘This really is exquisite,’ she murmured.

‘Try it on,’ Coreen said brightly. ‘I’ve got a deal going with Annabel, who runs the posh children’s clothes shop over there. She lets me send customers across to use her changing cubicles as long as I give her first dibs on any gold lamé that comes in.’

Jennie bit her lip.

‘Go on—you know you want to,’ Alice said. ‘The dress is lovely, but you need to see if it works for you. Things that look great on the hanger can suddenly look all wrong once you get them on.’

‘And sometimes,’ butted in Coreen, ‘you find something that’s—oh, I don’t know—more than the sum of its parts. Like somehow you and the dress combine through some kind of synergy to create…well, a vision…’

Alice smiled, glad to see that Coreen wasn’t as oblivious to the magic of her stock as she claimed to be. Jennie disappeared with the dress into the ultra-white, minimalist decor of Annabel’s emporium.

‘Just you wait!’ Coreen punched Alice lightly on the arm. ‘One day you’ll put a dress on and it will happen to you. You’ll see!’

Alice imitated one of Coreen’s little snorts. ‘Yeah, right. Like that’s ever going to happen.’

Coreen shook her head. ‘You’ll see…’

There was only one way to deal with Coreen when she got like this: agree, in a roundabout way, and then change the subject quickly. Alice started off gently. ‘You’re right about some dresses looking magical…’

Pretty soon she’d managed to steer the conversation on to the fashion shows the vintage clothessellers staged each year, to advertise their spring and autumn ‘collections’. They were always a huge success, and Coreen had heaps of tales about amateur models, slippery-soled shoes and fragile vintage stitching. It wasn’t long before they were giggling away like a pair of schoolgirls.

All laughter stopped when they realised Jennie had emerged from Annabel’s shop and was staring at herself in the full-length mirror Coreen always placed next to her stall.

‘Wow!’ both Alice and Coreen said in unison.

It was stunning. The pale colour complemented Jennie’s skin tone perfectly, and the skilful tailoring accentuated all her curves. Somehow the dress made her look positively translucent.

An elbow made contact with Alice’s ribs. ‘Told you,’ Coreen said. ‘That’s her dress.’

Okay, perhaps Coreen had a point. But it wasn’t hard to look fabulous if you had a figure like Jennie’s. She was tall and slim, and she swelled and curved in all the right places. Finding a dress that did that for someone who had more angles than curves, and no chest to speak of at all, would be nothing short of a miracle.

Jennie twirled in front of the mirror. ‘I don’t care how much it is,’ she said, striking pose after pose and never once taking her eyes off her reflection. ‘I have to have it.’

Coreen grinned and high-fived Alice as Jennie glided away to get changed. When she arrived back at the stall she had a thoughtful look on her face. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing what you were saying earlier—about the fashion shows, that is.’ She looked from Alice to Coreen and back again. ‘I’ve got a proposition for the both of you. And, if I am right about this, this idea could put you well on the way to owning that shop you’re after.’

CHAPTER TWO

ALICE sat on the edge of her bed and gazed at the one good photo she had of her and Paul together. One word echoed round her head.

Why?

Why hadn’t she been good enough for him? Why had he gone back to Felicity when by all accounts the old trout had made his life a misery by being the ultimate high-maintenance girlfriend?

‘Alice,’ he’d said, ‘you’re such a relief after her.’

Relief.

At the time she’d been too caught up in the first flush of a new relationship to be anything but flattered. Now his words just stung.

Her nose was running badly enough for her to give in and sniff. She had promised herself she wouldn’t cry any more. She was made of sterner stuff than that.

A phone started to ring. Probably the one in the hall. It rang on.

Alice blew her nose.

It still rang.

‘Al-lice!’ It was one of her housemates. She shared a house with the two biggest geeks on the planet. The untidiest geeks too. Roy and Matthew were no doubt on their brand new games console, occupied with slaying aliens and zombies and saving the universe. There was no way they would shift themselves unless their thumbs had locked up and they’d gone cross-eyed. She swiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, then ran down the stairs into the hall and grabbed at the phone before this very persistent person hung up.

‘Hello?’ she said, not a little breathless.

‘Can I speak with Alice Morton?’ a male voice said.

Alice’s heart began to hammer a little. That was one sexy voice. Deep and warm.

‘Hello?’ he said again.

‘Hi…yes…sorry. This is Alice.’ She winced. Compared to The Voice, she sounded all silly and schoolgirlish.

There was a brief pause, and then he spoke again. ‘It’s been a long time, Alice.’

Was it her imagination, or had his voice got just a little bit softer and warmer—almost as if he were smiling?

‘Erm…who is this?’

Please don’t let it be a prank caller. Just for a few seconds she’d had the giddy feeling that a man was actually interested in talking to her, in hearing what she had to say. And if this turned out to be a huge joke it would make her life unbearably pathetic. Which was actually quite an accomplishment at this present moment.

‘It’s Cameron Hunter.’

Cameron? She didn’t know anyone called—oh.

‘Jennie’s step-brother…’ he added. ‘Didn’t she tell you to expect my call?’

Realisation hit Alice like a bolt of forked lightning. Of course! The voice was deeper, and more mature, but all of a sudden she recognised the quiet precision, the slight edge of dry humour.

‘Oh, of course. Erm…hi, Cameron.’

Blast. Jennie had warned her that Cameron would be calling some time soon. According to his stepsister, he was a bit of a control freak, and if they wanted him to agree to the idea that they’d hatched with Jennie for this new building launch party of his, either Alice or Coreen would have to pitch it to him. Alice had begged Coreen to do it—after all, she had all the experience—but Coreen had refused, saying Alice and Cameron had prior history. Alice had argued that reading books on the opposite side of a room from each other while their tipsy families had embarrassed themselves could hardly constitute a ‘history’, but Coreen would not be budged.

‘You’re right,’ she said, finding her voice had gone all soft and girly. ‘It has been a long time.’

‘Almost twelve years.’

Wow. He hadn’t even taken a few seconds to work it out—he’d just remembered. Not many people remembered things about her. Mostly because she kept her head down and kept herself to herself. If it wasn’t for her hair she’d be instantly forgettable.

Alice had been staring at the textured glass on the front door while she’d been listening to Cameron. Now she turned around and wandered off in the direction of the kitchen.

Jennie had obviously pitched her idea to him, and now she was going to have to convince him to agree to it. The plan had all seemed so stunningly brilliant when she and Coreen and Jennie had hashed it out over drinks last Thursday. The three of them had bounced ideas around, waved their hands in the air, and generally talked over the top of each other for most of the evening.

But now she was on her own, without the benefit of a couple of cocktails inside her, she suddenly realised there were gaping holes in her knowledge of the project. Like what Cameron Hunter’s company actually did.

There was no point trying to blag her way through this. The Cameron she remembered was too sharp for that, and besides, blagging was a foreign language to her. Maybe when all this was over she’d have to get Coreen to give her lessons. She had a feeling it might come in handy in her future career.

‘Jennie said your company is computerrelated?’ Might as well get the facts straight before she dug herself an even bigger hole. And she might find some common ground.

‘Trust my darling stepsister to be a little sketchy with the details. She’s normally very efficient, but recently…well, she’s been somewhat distracted. Just so you know, my company produces software.’

‘And how’s it going? I know myself that starting up your own business can be hard. Are you doing okay with it?’

She heard him smile. ‘Yes, I’d say I’m making ends meet.’

‘Good for you!’ she said brightly. Oh, dear. That had sounded all fake and patronizing, and she hadn’t meant it to be that way at all. She entered the large kitchen she shared with the boys and flicked on the light, hoping that Cameron would take the comment in the spirit it had been meant.

It was time to turn the conversation to something more solid—something she couldn’t put her foot in. ‘What exactly has Jennie told you so far?’ she said.

‘Not much. I don’t know what’s got into her lately—she’s been disappearing for hours at a time and being very mysterious. It’s more than I can manage to get any sense out of her.’

There was a gentle huff and Alice smiled, knowing how infuriating her own siblings could be.

‘She phoned me up and yabbered away at me about a ball and jazz bands and a show-stopping highlight to the evening.’ Cameron said in a dry tone. ‘I got the impression that bit had something to do with you. Jennie tells me you’re some kind of fashion guru these days?’

She’d just been about to perch herself on one of the high stools by the breakfast bar, and she almost burst out laughing and very nearly missed plonking her bottom on the seat of the stool. Alice Morton a fashion guru? Hah!

She almost said as much, but an image of a scowling Coreen flashed across her mind and she quickly changed tack. She was supposed to be inspiring confidence in her abilities as a vintage fashion retailer, not ridiculing her new choice of career. The PR this job would generate for Coreen’s Closet could be priceless.

‘I see what you mean about Jennie being sketchy with the details,’ she said, and then proceeded to give him a potted history of Coreen’s Closet. When she’d finished he didn’t say anything for a few seconds.

His voice held a hint of surprise when he answered. ‘I would never have guessed you would have chosen that as a profession.’

Alice opened her mouth to tell him about the IT work, then closed it again. She kind of liked the fact she’d surprised him, and she decided she wasn’t about to kill the first little hint of mystery anyone had ever held about her. She was going to enjoy this while it lasted.

‘Well, I think if you love something you should pursue it, no matter the cost.’

That was her new motto. Starting right now. No more distractions. She was going to stop moping about Paul and throw herself into her work. At least with the vintage clothes business it was work she actually liked.

‘My thoughts exactly.’

Just for a split second Alice sensed a common bond, a feeling she and Cameron were both wired the same way. The sensation was so strong she wondered if he felt it too. This was how it had been when they’d been younger. Even though he’d been nearly six years older than her, they’d just clicked.

‘So, this is what we envisage for the launch party…’

Alice had been folding and unfolding the corner of a takeaway menu, and now she flattened it with her free hand and tucked it between the salt and pepper shakers, removing the distraction.

Jennie had told Coreen of her plans for a lavish ball to celebrate the opening of Cameron’s new premises—the fact that the building was ‘old’ and ‘a bit different’ was all Alice had been able to get out of her. Jennie had been struggling to come up with something to set the evening apart, something that encapsulated the idea of new and old coming together, and then she’d overheard Coreen and Alice’s conversation about the market fashion shows and she’d made a connection.

Cameron wanted something that spoke of class, success, elegance. And what could pull all these things together better than a unique charity fashion show, full of the glamour and romance of a bygone age, but showing how vintage clothes could add individuality and style to a twenty-first century wardrobe? And if they sold the idea to Cameron, Coreen’s Closet were going to supply and source the clothes. Alice explained all of this to him, and as she talked she forgot she was selling a business idea and just rambled on about the glorious clothes, the icons of yesteryear, and how everyone who attended it would feel as if they’d stepped back into a magical time.

Cameron listened. He said ‘mmm-hmm’ and ‘okay’ quite a few times as she outlined the plan to auction the clothes off as the show progressed. But she knew that they weren’t the normal noises of a man who was pretending he was listening when he was really thinking about last night’s game. She knew he was taking it all in, capturing every detail with his quick mind and mentally sorting it all.

‘I presume, from what you’ve told me about the history of your new business venture, that you and your partner aren’t just going to be giving the clothes away? How does the charity angle work?’

‘I wish we could give them away. However, we’ve worked out a plan with Jennie. We’d set very reasonable reserve prices on all the pieces—similar to what we’d get if we were selling them one-by-one on the stall. As each piece is auctioned off we’ll keep the reserve price, and anything that is bid over that will go to charity.’

‘What if the reserve isn’t met—or all the clothes only just reach the set figure?’

‘Jennie suggested my business partner, Coreen, should be the auctioneer. She’s extremely knowledgeable, and believe me, she could sell mink coats to…well, minks.’

A loud and unexpected snort of a laugh erupted from the earpiece of the phone.

‘Alice,’ he said, his tone still full of warm laughter, ‘you always did have a very singular way of looking at things.’

Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Had she just blown it?

‘With Coreen doing the talking you’ll have more than enough to donate to charity, I promise.’

‘If this Coreen is anything like you say she is, I don’t doubt it.’

‘And Jennie said you’d put in a hefty donation yourself.’

‘Did she, now?’

Alice winced. ‘Yes.’

Coreen’s Closet could handle giving the extra money to one of the local children’s charities because they’d be shifting a whole lot of stock in one go—and, even better, they’d be attracting the attention of a lot of well-to-do potential customers. The free publicity would be fantastic. With the extra money in their account, and the press coverage, she and Coreen might just be able to twist the arm of their business manager at the bank to give them a loan for the rest of the capital needed to lease and outfit a small shop.

‘If we do this right, this won’t just be another party—same drinks, same faces, same canapés. It will be something truly memorable. Each piece of vintage clothing we sell is unique, one of a kind. For those that buy at the auction, every time they wear that jacket or carry that handbag they’ll remember your company and think one of a kind. Even those that don’t buy anything will have their memories jogged when they turn on the TV and catch an old movie, or see a poster in a shop display. They’ll be instantly transported back to the elegant and original night when you opened your new offices and your company started a new chapter in its history. And that’s what you want, isn’t it? For the event to be distinctive, because then it will be remembered.’