Free My Fight to the Top by Michelle Mone

what did you say there?’ I thought I was hearing things. Okay, so I had gone up in the world – I was now living in a five-bedroom house and driving an Audi, but this was unreal. We headed for Prestwick.
    ‘Oh, my god,’ I squealed as we stepped onboard. ‘It’s just like the films,’ I said to Michael. Carpeted floor. Massive leather chairs. There was so much room I didn’t know what to do with myself. Shall I sit in this chair or that chair?
    ‘Would you like a glass of champagne, Mrs Mone?’ The air hostess carried out a tray with two glasses of bubbly.
Is the Pope a Catholic
? Tom treated me like a princess and it didn’t end there. We arrived in London to be picked up by a chauffeur-driven car.
Ring ring
. It was Tom again.
    ‘You know how you booked a Travelodge?’ he said.
    ‘Yeah,’ I replied, still recovering from my private jet experience.
    ‘The driver is going to drop you off somewhere first. I want you to see something,’ he said mysteriously. The driver pulled up outside a hotel opposite Hyde Park.
    ‘This is the famous Dorchester! Oh, my god,’ I said, staring up at the grand Mayfair hotel. ‘Jesus, this is where they have high tea and everything.’
    I was awestruck. This was the pinnacle of everything I had dreamt of. I pulled out my camera, just like any tourist. The driver came up behind us and cleared his throat to get my attention. ‘Mr Hunter has booked you in here tonight.’
    ‘Us? You’re kidding? No way,’ I spluttered.
    The manager approached us with a key card. ‘Mr Hunter has asked me to show you to your suite,’ he said politely.
    ‘Oh Jesus Christ.’ I cupped my mouth with my hand.
    I’d never seen a room like it in my life. Big lounge. Big dining room. Big four-poster bed. Huge bath. There were flowers, chocolates and champagne. I stared at it all in disbelief. A suite would have cost us £10,000 plus for one night.
    Michael was from a different background to me but even he was shocked. I phoned my mum and dad, screaming. ‘Mum, you’ll never guess what’s happened!’ I screeched.
    ‘Calm down, calm down.’ Mum tried to get some sense out of me.
    ‘I’m in a suite in the Dorchester. I’m taking pictures. I can’t believe it.’
    Remember I’d just had a baby, but that didn’t stop me jumping up and down on the bed like a big kid. ‘Calm yourself down, Michelle,’ Michael laughed, tugging me back to earth.
    That night my thoughts soon turned to the next day’s launch. I couldn’t sleep a wink. I kept turning over and writing in my notebook. We’d spent our last £500 on hiring 12 actors to dress up as plastic surgeons and picket Selfridges. The message was, ‘You don’t need a surgeon, this bra is the answer to your dreams.’ I kept imagining how it was going to turn out. Was it the best way to spend the money? Too late now. So much was riding on this. There was nothing Michael could say to me to get me to switch off. I was wired. I woke up with butterflies in my stomach. We jumped in a taxi and headed down to Selfridges to meet Tom in time for the launch.
    ‘Oh, my god.’ I turned to Michael in disbelief.
    The plastic surgeon actors were blocking Oxford Street, waving banners and chanting ‘Ban the Ultimo bra, ban the Ultimo bra.’ When I say they blocked the road I’m not kidding – one of them even lay down to stop the traffic. The ‘surgeons’ were carrying kidney bowls as part of their outfits and people threw money, thinking they really had lost their jobs. The story swept across all the news desks within 15 minutes and the next thing I knew, Sky News, BBC and ITN were on the scene. I remember standing outside the department store in my massive maternity gear. I was leaking milk out of my lime-green shirt when the presenter for Sky News came up and asked if she could interview me for the 6 o’clock news.
    ‘You want to ask me questions for the TV?’ I stammered, overwhelmed by what was going on. I felt like a fish out of