Gambling On Love

Helen and Daniel met at a charity event in London. The company she worked for was hosting the event for the evening and she was the lucky person who had been picked to compere it. Or rather, unlucky person. It was her worst nightmare. She would be inviting the representatives of companies that had made big donations to the cause to join her onstage, where she would be thanking them obsequiously and giving them an award. It brought her out in a cold sweat just thinking about it.

Helen was petrified of speaking in public and her boss Simon knew of this. But he still selected her for the role. Just after she found out the dreaded news, he approached her in the office corridor with a smile on his face. ‘Think how empowered you’re going to feel afterwards, when you’ve faced your demons head on.’

If she wanted to feel empowered she would stand in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest practising Tai Chi.

Helen had never warmed to Simon and the feeling was mutual. From the very first day she started at the accountancy firm in London there had always been tension between them. Some might call it a clash of personalities but Helen wasn’t so sure.

The evening finally arrived, and as Helen stepped out of the taxi and into the hotel on Park Lane a feeling of despair swept over her. The sign in the foyer directed her up to the Gala Lounge where the event was being held. As she walked into the grand room she could see the waiters and waitresses rushing around, preparing for the evening ahead, filling jugs of water on the tables, stocking up the bar and perfectly positioning the cutlery on the well-dressed tables. There were ice sculptures situated in every corner of the room. This was clearly a fastidiously organised event.

Her boss hadn’t arrived yet so there was still time to run away, to escape, she thought. She hated her job and Simon so what would it matter anyway? Just then a voice came into her head. It was her uncle’s voice. He’d given her a pep talk that afternoon. And what’s more, she idolised her uncle. ‘You can do this, princess. You will be amazing. All you need to do is focus on your lines and stay away from alcohol until after the speeches, and then you have my permission to get drunk.’ She had to see this thing through, if not for herself then for him.  

‘Right, I can do this,’ she said out loud, readjusting her posture to a more self-assured one. Surely one glass of wine would be ok? She felt guilty but her uncle would never know.

Walking confidently to the bar she asked the waiter for a large glass of Pinot. He raised an eyebrow at her as he poured the wine, and within the space of a few minutes she was on her second large glass. Starting to feel more relaxed she finished the second glass and made her way to the powder room. In there she stopped to admire herself in front of the long mirror. Even if the night ended up being a complete disaster, as she’d imagined it would so many times in her head, at least she could say she looked gorgeous whilst doing it.

Helen had an amazing figure. She wasn’t from a family with the right sort of genes. No, she’d worked seriously hard for the body she had, and as she assessed her rear in the mirror she realised all of those painful early-morning gym sessions were starting to pay off. She’d spent a small fortune on her outfit for this evening and looked beautiful in her long black evening dress adorned with silver sequins. Her jewellery matched perfectly with her Jimmy Choo shoes, her best buy for the entire year.

Sitting on the toilet, she decided to make use of the short time remaining by reading through her lines. By now she was feeling quite tipsy and searched her bag for the piece of paper. She unfolded it as carefully as she could and began reading her lines out loud.

Suddenly there was a knock on the cubicle door.

‘Are you okay in there, my dear?’

Heavens, she hadn’t heard anyone walk in.

‘Oh, yes thanks,’ Helen replied feeling flustered, fumbling around with her paper whilst trying to pull up her knickers at the same time. Multi-tasking had never been her strong point and as she got her underwear into position and straitened down her dress, she realised her notes were now missing. Looking fruitlessly around the floor and then in her handbag, it suddenly dawned on her where the all-important piece of paper was. Peering into the toilet, she could see it. There was no way she could bring herself to stick her hand in and salvage the soggy, unhygienic piece of paper, so instead she flushed it away with a sinking feeling. She realised she was doomed. What was she going to do now? There was only one thing for it: she would have to find her boss and tell him the awful news.

She quickly glanced at her watch, noting she was due up on stage in less than thirty minutes. Rushing out of the toilet in search of him, she saw Jenny, one of her work colleagues, standing at the bar. Apparently Simon was running late and wouldn’t be at the event until the very last minute.

Panic began to set in. Jenny could see the distress in Helen’s face and ordered her a large glass of wine to try and calm her down. Little did she know this was Helen’s third glass and that the only solid food she’d consumed for the entire day was a stick of spearmint gum which she’d accidently swallowed while in the taxi on the way to the hotel.

As the clock ticked by, Helen’s mind drew a blank as to how she was going to cope with the forthcoming ordeal. In fact, she’d been brain dead for the last twenty minutes. Even Jenny wasn’t quite sure what to do to help.

Helen stood behind the curtain waiting nervously for her name to be announced. She was feeling decidedly off-kilter. Slightly disorientated and dizzy, she began sweating profusely. She’d hoped the wine would have taken the edge off things and calmed her nerves a bit but instead the three large glasses had made things a hell of a lot worse.

Just then she heard Simon, still sounding breathless from his rush to get here on time, introduce her onto the stage. Taking in a deep breath she closed her eyes. Smile, breathe, you will remember your lines, she told herself, repeating it in her head like a mantra. A new Radley handbag would get her through this awful ordeal. She’d buy herself one tomorrow. But at this moment Helen hated her boss more than she’d ever hated anyone in her entire life.  

Walking onto the stage Helen was dazzled by the bright lights. She couldn’t see more than two feet in front of her. Luckily this meant the audience was hidden from her. Immediately she felt some of the pressure lift. She still knew there were hundreds of people out there but if she couldn’t see them, then who cared.

‘Thank you, God,’ she muttered under her breath.

Despite her nervousness, Helen managed to smile out to the audience. Fumbling with the microphone, pretending to prepare for the introductions, she was stalling but she knew she would have to say something very soon. Clearing her throat as the silence became awkward, she knew there was no other option. Here goes nothing, she thought.

Going All In

‘Good evening, ladies and gentleman, and welcome to the charity event of the year here at the Grey House Hotel,’ she announced, trying to put on her poshest voice but well aware she was slurring her words in the process. ‘As I’m sure you know, many of you have donated generously to the Faircare Charity, and I take great pleasure in presenting all of those companies each with an award tonight.’ She paused. Now what? ‘Okay, so I would really, really love to present these wonderful awards but unfortunately I seem to have misplaced my list with all the names of you fab people on.’

With that came a chorus of gasps and whispering from the audience. It suddenly dawned on her, through her drunken haze, that her career was over and the very minute she stepped into the office tomorrow she was going to be fired on the spot. As the whispering became more obvious with the faint sound of laughter echoing around the room, Helen felt the blood drain from her. She could feel Simon’s eyes boring into her. Could her life get any worse?

Suddenly a young man appeared on stage beside her.

‘I’m here to save your life,’ he whispered in Helen’s ear. ‘You can thank me later for it.’ Helen was frozen to the spot. Who was this guy? With a confident smile, he picked up a piece of paper that was lying on the table with the awards and began reading from it. Helen was mortified as she realised it was actually all the details she’d needed. Did this mean she still qualified for the Radley handbag? She could have done the job if she’d known the list was there.

‘The first company we’re going to introduce tonight are McMillan Properties who have kindly donated ten thousand pounds. Please give them a round of applause,’ said Helen’s white knight.

The crowd applauded as two men made their way up onto the stage to receive the award. After a short speech the men shook hands with the mystery guy, kissed Helen on the cheek and headed back to their table. Helen hardly moved the entire time until every company had received their awards.

Before long everyone was sitting down to dinner. Simon was nowhere to be seen but Helen didn’t care. She told the head waiter she wouldn’t be having dinner, even though there was a place held for her on Simon’s table. She didn’t dare go anywhere near him until she had to, which would be the next day at the office.

Right now all she could think about was this gorgeous saviour in front of her.

‘I cannot thank you enough for helping me tonight,’ she gushed gratefully, gazing up at him adoringly. ‘How did you know that list was on the table?’

He smiled at her with a sparkle in his eyes. ‘Let’s just say my cousin has some involvement in the event, and it so happened he told me about it over a coffee this afternoon. Lucky, really, otherwise you would still be standing up on stage getting all hot and bothered,’ he teased gently in a charming voice.

Helen felt giddy around him. They officially introduced themselves. His name was Daniel. Helen was smitten.

As they sat chatting away at the bar, Helen noticed how miraculously sober she suddenly felt. She couldn’t be sure if it was because of all the adrenalin pumping around her body or the excitement of meeting Daniel.

‘Can I at least buy you dinner tomorrow, Daniel, to say thank you?’ she asked.

‘No thanks,’ he replied, and with that he turned away from her. Helen felt embarrassed wanting the ground to open up and swallow her for the second time that evening. That was until he turned back to face her giving her a cheeky grin. ‘But how about I buy you dinner tonight? Right now I think you need cheering up more than me.’

Before she knew it they were in a taxi on their way to a cosy restaurant Daniel recommended.

Over the wonderful meal Helen started to relax and see the funny side of things. Laughing and joking about the whole experience, Daniel managed to put Helen’s mind at ease after telling her an equally embarrassing story about one of the directors who worked at his firm. This director was a powerful lady in her fifties. A complete diva whom everyone hated. It was a Monday morning and the director walked out from the ladies’ toilets passing the row of desks filled with workers to her office. Her flowery dress was tucked into her unflattering, baggy undies and, even worse and totally inexplicable, trailing out behind was a long tail of soft, white toilet paper.

Daniel guffawed. ‘‘When she finally realised, she was extremely distressed as you can imagine and had to take a week off to recover from the embarrassment. It was like something out of an Andrex advert,’ he continued, ‘although the Andrex puppy is a hell of a lot cuter!’

Helen had never laughed so much in her life. Instantly she knew she and Daniel had something special and that this wasn’t going to be the last time she saw him.

She arrived at work the next morning with a slightly sore head and very bruised ego, but nothing was going to ruin how she felt after meeting Daniel. He had dropped her off just after midnight in a taxi. They’d exchanged polite kisses on the cheek and he’d walked her to her door. She hadn’t slept a wink from thinking about him.

Nobody in the office said a word to her and as her computer came alive she saw an e-mail from her boss with the subject: My office 10am sharp.

Well, she certainly wasn’t expecting a promotion.

Against The Odds

Helen knocked on the office door on the stroke of ten o’clock, as requested.

‘Enter,’ called Simon.

She walked in and closed the door behind her and sat down quietly. Simon was busy writing something. She waited for a minute or two, then cleared her throat. ‘You wanted to see me?’

He looked up at her, the expression on his face blank. He inhaled deeply.

‘So, how do you think it went last night, Helen?’ Was he really going to punish her more than necessary?

‘Um, not very well, given the circumstances.’

There was a long pause.

‘Well, I have to disagree and say that considering the turn of events you did the company proud.’ Helen almost fell off her chair in shock. Was she hearing him correctly? ‘I had a call this morning from Alan Turner, the director of the charity. He was singing your praises. He thought you did a wonderful job and said that we should be proud to have you as one of our team. So I would like to thank you for your efforts.’

With that he handed her an envelope, which she later found out contained a gift voucher for one hundred pounds.

She walked out of the office and called Daniel straight away. Once Simon had mentioned the name Alan Tuner she’d understood. Alan Turner was in fact Daniel’s cousin, the one who had left the list on the awards table. Daniel had told her that much in the restaurant. She guessed, correctly, that Daniel must have called Alan that morning to ask him to ensure Helen would not get into any trouble with her boss. Daniel was becoming more special than she could ever have imagined.

After that eventful evening, Helen and Daniel became inseparable. It was evident after a short amount of time their feelings for each other were extremely strong, and so she ended up moving into Daniel’s house within a couple of months.

Moving out of her poky studio flat in the East End and into Daniel’s beautiful five-bedroom Georgian house in North London was the icing on the cake. His house was perfectly decorated with antique furniture and a built-in Bang and Olufsen surround-sound system. In every bedroom there were walk-in wardrobes, and to finish it off was a beautiful marble staircase situated centrally in the house. Daniel had exquisite taste and Helen loved the fact he was so in touch with his feminine side.

They shared so much in common, even the same birthday, although Daniel was twenty-nine, two years older than Helen. Daniel was your typical good-looking English gentleman: six