A Midnight Kiss to Seal the Deal

by Sophie Pembroke

  Finally, Celeste Hunter tapped a last key on her laptop, looked up at him, and scowled. ‘Can I help you?’ She didn’t sound as if she wanted to help him. Maybe he shouldn’t have interrupted her work.

  ‘Hi there! I’m Theo Montgomery, the host of today’s show.’ He gave her his most charming smile, and hoped for the best.

  ‘Yes.’ Her gaze flicked back to her computer screen, then up to him again.

  Right. ‘Since you’re the only contestant today I haven’t met before, I thought I’d come and introduce myself.’ Like a normal, friendly person.

  This usually worked a lot better than this.

  She stared at him. ‘Okay. Do you need me to introduce myself too?’

  She sounded reluctant. Theo took a seat beside her anyway. ‘You’re Celeste Hunter. I liked your piece on the Roman Empire in Britain on the radio last week.’

  That earned him a surprised look, but a scowl soon settled back across her face, as she looked back at her screen. ‘Apparently it was derivative and reductive.’

  He didn’t contradict her, even though he hadn’t thought that at all. His opinion wouldn’t matter to her, he guessed, and even on five minutes’ acquaintance he was sure she wouldn’t hesitate to tell him so. He had enough experience of being told that his job was meaningless or didn’t qualify him to talk on any subject except charming people. He suspected Celeste would say the same about him, and he couldn’t imagine that tonight’s quiz was going to change that.

  Shame. This was one guest he’d actually been looking forward to meeting, had lobbied to have included because he’d assumed she’d be as fascinating and engaging in real life as she was when presenting on the radio. He’d hoped he’d be able to talk to her about his own interest in history, his own studies and hopes to move more into that sphere.

  Apparently not. This was why people should never meet their heroes.

  Theo got to his feet, fairly sure Celeste wouldn’t notice or care if he just left now. Still, the good manners his mother had ingrained in him long before his agent had insisted on them meant that he couldn’t just walk away. So he smiled, and said, ‘Well, I’d better go and get ready—we’ll be starting filming soon. I’ll see you out there. Break a leg!’

  Celeste winced at his words, then nodded at him in acknowledgment, before beginning to type again.

  Right, then. Clearly not a people person—which was a shame, since apparently charming people was the only thing Theo was qualified to do. Celeste Hunter was uncharmable, though, it seemed.

  Which was fine. After all, once they got through filming tonight’s show, he’d never have to see her again anyway.

  Whistling to himself, Theo waved goodbye to the other guests and headed back to his dressing room to perform his traditional pre-show routine.

  This was going to be a great show, a great night, and Celeste Hunter wasn’t going to ruin that for him.

  * * *

  Where the hell are Damon and Rachel?

  Celeste paced the corridor outside the green room, waiting for her brother and best friend to finally show up. She’d tried working on her manuscript to distract her from her growing nerves and her mother’s voice in her head, telling her that this show was an insult to her PhD, but then Theo Montgomery had interrupted her with that charming TV-star smile, and reminded her all over again that this sort of show was not what she’d studied all these years to do.

  God, her parents were going to be so disappointed when they found out about this. A TV series of her own, she might have just about been able to swing. Well, probably not, but she could dream... The Christmas Cracker Cranium Quiz? No. She’d tried mentioning it before, in rather vague terms, but the look on her mother’s face had stopped her even considering going into details.

  Normal parents would be excited for her. Proud, even. But then Jacob and Diana Hunter had never pretended to be normal. Never wanted to be, either.

  Which was why she needed Damon and Rachel to just get here. They were normal people. They’d remind her that, actually, this was fun and festive and a boost to her career. The chance to show that production company that she had what it took to front her own show. It was the kind of opportunity most people would be hugely grateful for, even if she had no idea who at the network had dredged her name out of the halls of academia to take part.

  She had a feeling it wouldn’t happen again, not after that moment in the green room.

  She’d been rude to Theo Montgomery. She hadn’t meant to be, exactly. She just didn’t deal with interruptions well. And since she’d already been freaking out a little bit about the company she was keeping in there—people her parents would probably recognise, and they didn’t even own a television—well, she’d sort of just reacted, without thinking about it. Damon had been trying to break her of that habit for most of his life, but it never seemed to take.

  She should probably apologise. Later.

  First, she needed to get through the filming.

  Celeste had never done anything like this before. Radio, sure, where she just had to answer a few questions she definitely knew the answers to—that was why they asked her to come on the show, because she knew about it. They were always pre-recorded, and usually she had an idea of the questions the presenter was going to ask before she even showed up, so she could prepare.

  She liked being prepared.

  But this...as she’d looked around the green room it had been obvious that this was a general knowledge quiz, ranging from science and maths to literature and arts, and hopefully history somewhere in between. She would be expected to know things outside her area of expertise.

  The exact opposite of what she’d been training for her whole life.

  ‘You have to specialise, Celeste,’ her parents had been telling her, ever since she was in her teens. ‘If you don’t know exactly what matters to you, then you won’t matter at all. Generalists never get anywhere. You need to find a niche, squat in it, and defend it with your life.’

  Her parents were academics. She’d wanted to be an academic. Of course, she’d listened to them.

  Her brother, Damon, meanwhile, had rebelled, gone completely the opposite way, and become the quintessential Jack of all trades. While she had settled into her niche—women in the ancient world—and only dabbled in other areas of historical research as a bit of a hobby.

  A well-rounded view of world history was generally encouraged in the Hunter household. A well-rounded view of anything else was generally not.

  And appearing on a Christmas quiz show that reduced human knowledge to questions about Christmas number ones was definitely frowned upon.

  She’d swotted up on a lot of festive history, ready for the occasion, though. Just in case.

  ‘We’ll be starting soon, Ms Hunter,’ a production assistant told her as she hurried past.

  Celeste’s heartbeat jumped, and she fumbled for her phone in her pocket. She needed to remember to switch it off. Or leave it in the green room, probably.

  But first... She hit autodial for her last number and tapped her foot impatiently as it rang and rang.

  ‘Where are you?’ Celeste asked, as soon as her best friend, Rachel, answered. ‘We’re starting filming any minute!’

  ‘We’re here, we’re here,’ Rachel replied soothingly. But Celeste could hear a car door opening, which suggested they weren’t, actually, inside the building or anything. ‘We’ll be there any second now, I promise.’

  ‘Okay. Hurry!’ She hung up. Hopefully that was Rachel getting out of the car, rather than into it, or they’d never make it. And Celeste wasn’t at all sure she could do this without them. Actually, she wasn’t sure she could do it with them there, either, but the odds seemed slightly better, so she was going with it.

  Three endless minutes later, Damon and Rachel tumbled through the doors into the lobby, and Celeste’s whole body seemed to sway with
relief. Only for a moment, though, because really they were very late.

  ‘What took you so long?’ she asked, grabbing Rachel’s arm and pulling her into step with her. ‘Let me guess, Damon was flirting with your stepsisters?’ She should have predicted that. Allowed time for it. Historically, adding extra time to any schedule to compensate for Damon flirting was never a bad idea.

  ‘Actually, it was my fault. I had to fix a window display before we left.’ Rachel sounded apologetic, and Celeste felt briefly guilty for being so cross. She was sure that Rachel’s stepmother would have been the one nagging her to fix it. For reasons Celeste only kind of understood, Rachel was reluctant to break the fragile peace that existed in her family, so of course she’d have risked being late to make her stepmother happy.

  She still reckoned that Damon would have been flirting with Rachel’s stepsisters in the meantime.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Damon asked, all charm and confidence and totally at ease with himself, as usual. How her little brother had got all the charm in the family, Celeste wasn’t sure, but it did seem rather unfair. He always joked that it was because she got all the brains, but his highly successful business argued otherwise.

  ‘Not really,’ she admitted.

  But it was too late. It was showtime, and there was already a production assistant hurrying down the corridor towards them ready to usher Celeste onto the set, while Damon and Rachel slipped into the audience.

  ‘Break a leg,’ Rachel whispered to her as they headed for their seats.

  ‘Hopefully not,’ Celeste muttered to herself. But she felt better for knowing that Damon and Rachel were out there anyway.

  This would be fine.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THIS WAS HORRENDOUS.

  Maybe if Theo broke some sort of minor bone he could get out of doing the rest of the show. There was bound to be someone else in the building who’d be happy to take over from him. Let them deal with the quiz show guest from hell. Because he was pretty sure this festive televisual outing was going to do nothing to repair his fractured reputation.

  As Celeste explained—not for the first time—why the answer card he’d been given was actually inaccurate, Theo could see the producer, Derek, glaring at him from just off set. Damn. Apparently, Derek remembered exactly whose idea it had been to invite Celeste on the show in the first place. He’d been kind of hoping everyone would have forgotten about that.

  The worst part was, under other circumstances, the stuff she was saying would be interesting. And she was passionate and engaged as she talked about it—far more than she had been during that awkward meeting in the green room. Theo found he genuinely wanted to know more about why the story about Prince Albert bringing Christmas trees to Britain from Germany was wrong. Just...not right now. Not in front of a studio audience that was clearly getting more uncomfortable by the second. Not when they had to finish another three rounds of this damn quiz, and the other celebrity contestants were getting restless.

  Had she finished? He thought she might have done. To be honest, he’d stopped listening, and focussed instead on his inner panic about his career circling the drain.

  Theo grabbed the next card from the pile and prayed that it would be about anything other than history. Thank God, children’s literature. That should buy him a minute or two. He was sure there was a question in the stack somewhere about who sent the first ever Christmas card, and he had a feeling the answer was going to be wrong.

  Had she been reading up about festive history, ready for tonight? She must have been.

  ‘Move it along, Theo,’ the impatient voice came in his ear, and he tried to focus on the words on the card.

  ‘In your teams now, can you name all eight of the reindeer that feature in the classic Christmas story, The Night Before Christmas?’ That should be safe enough, right? For starters, Celeste wasn’t a team captain. David would have to give the answer to this one. And then it was the end of the round, and Theo was pretty sure they would call a break after that. They’d been at this for hours longer than they should have been already.

  David buzzed and gave the correct answer, while Celeste sat silent beside him. Had she even weighed in on that question? Theo didn’t think so. Obviously, she didn’t know absolutely everything, then. That was kind of reassuring.

  A break was called, and Theo jumped out from behind the presenter’s desk, desperate to move. He’d never been good at staying still, one of the reasons he’d rejected any kind of office job as a career option. He needed variety, and the ability to wander about and chat to people.

  He veered left, away from the production team, though, when he realised they were in a serious-looking huddle, presumably discussing this disaster of a show. The rest of the contestants similarly had gathered around the red team’s side, leaving Celeste sitting alone behind her team’s desk.

  Theo sighed. This kind of was his fault. He’d suggested bringing her in when, clearly, this wasn’t a good fit for her. She must be hating every minute.

  He’d never been any good at letting a situation fester—not at work, anyway—so he moved towards her, ignoring the part of his brain that told him that, on past evidence, this was a stupid idea. She looked up as he approached, and Theo could see the resignation settle on her face.

  ‘Hey, how are you doing? Do you need more water?’ The jug in front of her was full, and Celeste just gave it a pointed look before returning her gaze to meet his, with a slight smile.

  It was a disturbingly direct gaze, and Theo shifted uncomfortably under it. There was none of the charmed expression and delightedness he usually tried to inspire in people in that smile.

  Celeste Hunter’s eyes said, I am here, you are here, why is this? And nothing more.

  Theo bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself automatically confessing all the reasons for his existence and—more pertinently—her presence on his quiz show.

  ‘Did you need something?’ Celeste asked, eventually, having obviously concluded that he was too stupid to continue this conversation on his own after his ridiculous water statement.

  ‘I just wanted to see how...how you thought this was going.’ Over Celeste’s shoulder, he could see the production team watching him. He was pretty sure the other contestants would be doing the same behind him. All waiting to see if she was about to tear him to shreds again.

  ‘I think your question team need to be a little more thorough in their research,’ she said, folding her hands neatly on the table in front of her. ‘But otherwise, fine.’

  Fine. She thought this was fine. ‘Have you ever actually seen a TV quiz show?’ The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and he heard an audible gasp from Lucy the mathematician.

  Celeste’s expression didn’t change. Her hands didn’t move. She was completely and utterly still and in control.

  ‘Of course, I have. Well, once or twice. Maybe just once, start to finish. They weren’t exactly required viewing for my PhD. But I did my research and watched you on some of those shows. Clips of you anyway.’ She tilted her head to study him. ‘Your face is less shiny on TV.’

  His face was less shiny when he wasn’t so stressed.

  ‘Why did you agree to do this show?’ he asked desperately. He couldn’t be the only one to blame here, right? Yes, he’d suggested she take part. But she’d agreed.

  ‘I wanted to...’ For the first time, she flinched, and looked away. ‘My agent thought it was a good idea. He said it would build my profile.’

  Of course. Even if Celeste clearly had no showbiz instincts, her agent would. He wondered if the poor guy was sitting out there watching, seeing all his dreams of discovering the next big docu-star going up in the smoke coming out of Celeste’s ears as she argued with the answer card.

  Come to that, he hoped his own agent wasn’t out there tonight. She hadn’t said she’d be coming, had she? He’d rather
delay the inevitable tongue-lashing until after the thing had been aired.

  He glanced out towards the audience and frowned. Was it less full out there than it had been before? He turned to the door and saw a queue of people leaving the studio. Surely it hadn’t been that bad?

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ he said to Celeste, and crossed the set in a few long steps, collaring a young production assistant called Amy, who coloured prettily when he asked what was going on.

  ‘They’re needed in another studio,’ she replied.

  ‘There’s another show stealing my audience?’ He tried to sound outraged, but it came out rather more petulant, he thought. Damn, he was tired.

  Amy glanced towards where Celeste was now disagreeing with David, her team captain, about something. ‘To be honest, I’m pretty sure they all went willingly.’

  Theo sighed as the studio doors closed and the call went up to resume filming. ‘I don’t blame them. Come on, let’s get this over with.’

  * * *

  Oh, that had been horrible. Whose idea had this been anyway? Why on earth had she ever thought that she could do a show like this anyway? She wasn’t built for it. She couldn’t smile prettily or charm people as Theo could. She could educate them, correct them. But make them like her? No.

  She was never going to get her TV show after this. But what else was she supposed to do? This was who she was.

  Okay, maybe she hadn’t needed to get into that argument with Theo about who sent the first Christmas card. And she probably shouldn’t have told him his face was shiny; TV guys were sensitive about that sort of thing, right? But in truth, she’d been flustered. And nervous. And lots of other things she wasn’t used to being.

  In her confined, academic world, she was in control. She could be calm, collected and sure, safe in her knowledge and her education. Out here in the showbiz world...not so much.

  There had just been so much she didn’t know. Oh, not so much the specialist stuff, where the questions had clearly been put in to cater to individual contestants’ knowledge base. She didn’t care about them; they weren’t her speciality, why should she know the answers?