A Midnight Kiss to Seal the Deal by Sophie Pembroke

Author:Sophie Pembroke [Pembroke, Sophie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-10-07T15:11:47+00:00

* * *

Forty minutes later, Celeste had a new respect for Theo Montgomery, and his ability to keep smiling and stay polite in the face of abject rudeness. She’d thought he’d done a good job at being pleasant to her, even after she’d spent their first meetings arguing about everything.

Now she knew his secret. He’d been training for this his whole life.

His father, Francis Montgomery, was easy enough to figure out. Perpetually disappointed by life, as far as she could see, and passing that disappointment onto Theo. He was every historical figure who’d ever lost a kingdom, or power, or influence, and blamed everyone but himself. Even the way Theo passed him the gravy wasn’t satisfactory.

It was much easier to understand people when you thought of them as historical figures, she decided. Maybe that was the trick she needed, and hadn’t realised until now. Something else Theo had given her.

‘He dropped out of university, you know,’ Francis told Celeste, apropos of nothing, over dessert.

She hadn’t known. It had never come up. She wasn’t entirely sure why it had come up now. And Theo clearly had no intention of telling them about his current studies, so she wouldn’t. ‘Well, it doesn’t seem to have stopped him,’ she said cheerfully.

Really, a dinner at which she was the cheerful, pleasant, upbeat one was a definite first. And not a good sign.

She glanced across at Theo, who sat staring sullenly at his syrup sponge pudding and custard. She’d never known him go so long without smiling before.

‘I think it was the expectation,’ Maria, his mother, said, almost as a secret aside, as if Theo couldn’t hear them.

‘I think he was too stupid,’ Francis interjected. Maria ignored him.

‘Oxford does come with certain expectations, don’t you think?’ Maria went on. ‘And really, all that pressure on young minds. Some people just aren’t cut out for that kind of life, are they? But he so wanted to go... I always knew my Theo wasn’t really going to set the world aflame. It takes a special something for that, don’t you think? And we knew early on that Theo didn’t have it. But he’s found his niche, and that’s something,’ she added, sounding doubtful.

‘He never wanted to work hard, that was the problem,’ Francis opined, leaning back in his chair, wine glass in hand. ‘That’s what happens when people get everything handed to them on a plate, like Theo has. They don’t know how to work for it. Born lazy.’

‘Well, Theo does actually have a job,’ Celeste pointed out. She stared at Theo, waiting for him to say something, to defend himself, but he barely even looked up from his pudding. ‘I’ve seen him do it—that’s how we met, in fact. He works hard.’ She thought of all the meetings and filming he’d had scheduled at odd times that week, all the time spent making sure everything was in place for the New Year’s Eve Spectacular. All the emails and calls. Theo was properly involved in the projects he took on; he did a lot more than show up and smile, whatever people thought.

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