Two from her mother, obliquely mentioning Theo’s existence and her disapproval of it, and another one from her father doing the same but without any of the subtlety.
One from her agent, with a thumbs-up emoji next to a photo of her and Theo, and a note about a meeting with the production company first thing in the new year.
And one from Theo, of course.
Igloo cocktails tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at eight. x
CHAPTER TWELVE
IGLOOS ON A roof terrace in a city centre, with integral champagne bars.
‘Only in London,’ Theo observed as they stood outside their own private igloo and took in the city skyline.
The igloos themselves had a large window built in—or left open, really—to enjoy the views, but since Theo had a feeling it would be even colder in there than outside, he was putting it off for the moment. He still hadn’t fully warmed up since his dip in the Thames, and even the fake fur coats provided by the owners of the establishment weren’t doing much except make him feel like an extra in Game of Thrones.
‘Mmm,’ Celeste agreed absently as she leaned against the railings to look out.
She’d seemed mostly absent since he picked her up. As if her body was present, but her mind had gone wandering. When he’d asked her about it, she’d muttered something about her book, and research, and thinking through ideas.
He was glad she was able to think about work. Because the only thing he’d been able to think about for days now was her.
Whatever this thing between them had morphed into, it wasn’t what they’d agreed at the start. Which meant they had to talk about what happened next. And that meant talking about what had happened on Christmas Eve, too—and if she wanted it to happen again.
Theo had done a lot of thinking the day before, once he’d warmed up enough for proper thoughts, but he wasn’t sure he’d come to any sensible conclusions. Despite it being Boxing Day, and a bank holiday, his agent Cerys had been on the phone the moment she’d seen the pictures of them at the jeweller’s shop in the arcade, asking what was going on.
‘I told you that you could call it off,’ she’d said, sounding amused. ‘Do I take this to mean you’re heading in a rather different direction?’
‘It wasn’t what it looked like,’ Theo had told her tiredly. ‘But...but if it was, would it be so bad?’
Cerys had paused at that, and when she’d spoken again, he’d been able to hear the surprise in her voice. ‘Well, I guess that depends on your perspective. I mean, getting married to anyone would kind of dampen your crush appeal a little bit, and I’m guessing you wouldn’t want to court social media by appearing in public with up-and-coming celebrities on your arm any more, so there’s that. But stars settle down and it doesn’t ruin their careers or anything, if that’s what you mean. But really, Theo...her? Are you sure? She decimated you on that quiz show. To be honest, I thought there was solid chance she’d do worse than throw coffee over you on that first date.’
‘She doesn’t like it when history doesn’t tell the truth,’ Theo had replied, automatically. ‘And the answers on those cards were wrong. Well, incomplete, at least.’
Cerys had laughed at that. ‘Well, that tells me everything I need to know. You’ve got it bad. Good luck with that, then.’ And she’d hung up.
Theo had wanted to call back, to tell her that Celeste wasn’t the person people seemed to think. That, maybe, neither was he.
Because when he was with Celeste, he believed that there was more to him than he’d ever been led to believe. More than just a rich kid with every advantage who still couldn’t be anything more than a nice smile and a winning personality.
Something more than just the Montgomery name, as his parents believed, or his face, as the viewing public seemed to think.
The question was, did she feel the same way when she was with him? Or, as he feared, did she think he made her less?
Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out. And that meant having a conversation he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to have.
The one about what happened next.
He waited until they both had fresh drinks, and had taken their icy seats inside the igloo. Celeste still seemed a little as if she were on another planet, but she smiled at least as he handed her an extra blanket, laying it out across both of them as they looked out of the cut-out window.
‘If I interrupt your thinking will you throw a drink at me?’ Theo figured it was best to start with the basics and work up.
Celeste turned to him with a smirk hovering around her lips. ‘You’re tempting fate just asking, you realise?’
‘I know.’
She sipped at her drink. ‘But luckily for you this cocktail is too delicious for me to waste it on you. And I’m being a terrible fake date, right? Sorry. Am I supposed to be fawning over you more?’
‘No one is looking,’ Theo said. It felt weirdly uncomfortable to hear her talk about them that way, after everything. ‘And besides, I think we’re past all that now, aren’t we?’
‘Are we?’ Celeste asked. ‘Have you seen the photos from the Boxing Day swim? Whoever is in charge of social media over at your channel has been having a grand old time showcasing our relationship right alongside the listings for your New Year’s Eve show.’
‘That’s just coincidence. And that’s not about us anyway.’
‘Except it is, right?’ Celeste pressed. ‘I mean, right from the start that’s exactly what we were about. Putting forward the right image for you—and for me too, I guess.’
He didn’t like where this was going. Something was twisting in his gut, and he didn’t think it was the cocktails.
‘At the start, sure. But after Christmas Eve—’
She interrupted him with a laugh, high and tinkling, one that barely sounded like Celeste at all.
He was missing something here. She hadn’t been like this at Henley, had she? What had changed since yesterday?
The photo of them at the jeweller’s. Was that what was bothering her?
‘Is this about the photos yesterday? The stories about us getting engaged?’
‘Why would it be about them?’ She looked down into her glass as she spoke, and Theo knew she was avoiding his gaze. He was right, even if she wasn’t going to admit it. ‘They were just stupid stories. We know it’s not like that between us.’
‘Right.’ Except... ‘Why isn’t it?’
Her shocked gaze met his in an instant. ‘What do you mean?’
Theo took a breath. This was it. His chance.
He wanted this feeling to last—the feeling he had when he was with Celeste. Which meant being honest with her. Being real. No TV charm and smile, no spin for social media. No faking.
Just him. And her.
‘Why isn’t it that way between us? I mean, not getting married exactly, but...we’ve had fun, right? Together? We could keep having fun, maybe?’
* * *
No.
She’d thought she could read him, but she’d never seen this coming. She’d known he was a faker, but she’d never though he’d take it this far.
She’d thought she’d known what she was doing, but now she was pretty sure she had no idea at all.
‘I think we should break up. Fake break up. Send a press release, whatever it is we need to do to end this.’ Celeste started to stand up, pushing the blanket away from her lap, before she realised she was about to bang her head on the rounded ceiling of the igloo, and sat back down.
She wanted to get away, but she didn’t want an audience for this, either. So apparently, she was having the most important conversation of her life so far that didn’t take place in front of an academic board in an igloo. Because that was the sort of thing that happened when a person hung around with Theo Montgomery for too long.
‘You think... Why?’ He shook his head as he
looked at her. ‘You can’t tell me we’re not good together. Christmas Eve—’
‘Was lovely,’ she interrupted him again. The only way she was going to get through this was by not letting him talk too much. That silver tongue of his could probably talk her into anything; wasn’t that how she’d ended up in this mess to begin with?
‘So what’s the problem here, exactly?’ Theo asked.
‘You and me...it’s been fun,’ she admitted. ‘But it hasn’t been real, we both know that. Hell, that was what we agreed! It was all for show. And yes, I’m attracted to you, yes, I had fun with you—’
‘Then why—?’
‘But that doesn’t change the basic facts of this situation,’ she shouted over him.
‘And those facts are?’ His voice was calmer than she thought she’d ever heard it before. He almost didn’t sound like himself. Everything about him was always so alive, so full of fun and mischief. But right now he sounded as dry as her last boyfriend, the philosophy student.
As if this wasn’t an act at all.
Don’t think about that.
‘We come from different worlds,’ she said slowly. ‘Yes, I’m dabbling in TV, but I’ve spent my whole life building up my academic career.’
‘And you think that continuing to be seen with me would undermine your credentials. I’d make you look lightweight.’
‘No! That wasn’t what I—’
‘Wasn’t it?’ His mouth twisted in an unfriendly smile. ‘Or is it worse than that? You’ve had your fun with me, but I’m not an intellectual match for you, right? You were slumming it with the stupid TV star for a while, having fun looking at my little history essays for my meaningless bachelor’s degree, but I’m never going to live up to those professors you meet at conferences, or whatever.’
‘You’re not stupid,’ Celeste said quietly. ‘I never said—or thought—you were stupid.’
‘Didn’t you?’ Theo shook his head. ‘Then you must have been the first. If you think I don’t know what people say about me—’ He broke off.
‘Look, it’s not you,’ she said desperately. ‘It’s me. And, God, I know that’s the most overused line in break-up history, but really. Think about it. I’m grumpy and hyper-focussed, I have no ability to connect with people, really. I can’t help but tell them when they’re wrong. Your parents hate me—’
‘Yours hate me, too.’
‘True. And maybe...maybe they’re right.’
‘To hate me?’ Theo’s eyebrows went up at that.
‘No! They think...they think that your lifestyle, your fame, would distract me from my studies. It would lead me away from academia into the sort of history lite you see in bad documentaries on TV. Like you said, the producers don’t care about my area of expertise—history is just history to them. I wouldn’t be taken seriously as an academic any more.’
‘You might have a lot more fun, though,’ Theo pointed out quietly. ‘You love history, Celeste. Not just certain parts of it—all of it. Is it really so important to you to be an expert in one thing, rather than good at lots of it? More than sharing it with the world?’
‘Yes.’ Because it always had been. That had been the message from her parents from her earliest days. Find what you’re passionate about and pursue it with everything you have. Don’t look left or right, don’t get distracted. Find what matters to you and make yourself matter.
Damon had gone the other way entirely, but she...she’d embraced the philosophy. She’d gone after academia, a professorship, as her ultimate goal. Working to publish her academic tome on women in history, to prove her place in the canon. And if she gave it up now...what did that leave her?
She’d only ever been good at talking to other academics. If she tried to teach the Great British Public about history instead...would they even listen?
What if she was just wasting her time?
This wasn’t one fun quiz show where she was a novelty, a festive amusement. And it wasn’t being seen around town with Theo, a curiosity. This was trying to be the real thing, and make people listen to her—when the only person outside academia and Rachel who’d ever done that was Theo, and she didn’t even know for sure that he wasn’t just faking it.
The university was safer. She knew the rules there, had been training for it all her life.
Life with Theo was the opposite of safe. It was people watching her, commenting on her all the time. It was expanding her secure little bubble so much further outside the university than she’d planned.
This wasn’t a one-off TV show. This was a career change—a life change—she wasn’t sure she was ready for.
Theo’s jaw was clenched, as if he was holding in all the words he wanted to say. He always did, she realised suddenly, surprised that she knew such a detail about him. But this was how he’d been at lunch with his parents, too. Biting his tongue, holding in everything he was thinking.
Was that just how he’d been brought up? Or was it part of who he was now? All the years smiling for the cameras, being the nice guy...hell, he’d only fake dated her in the first place to preserve that image.
But Celeste wanted to hear what he really thought, not what he believed he should think.
He’d said it to his parents on Christmas Day, by all accounts. How much had that taken out of him? To finally speak up to them?
It didn’t look as if he was going to do the same for her, though.
He threw down the rest of his cocktail, swallowing it fast, and slamming his glass onto the ice table. Getting to his feet, his head still bowed to avoid hitting it on the ceiling, he gave her an awkward nod. ‘Do you need me to take you home?’
‘Theo...’ She trailed off. What could she say? He’d asked for something she wasn’t ready or able to give. How could she now ask him to stay?
She shook her head. ‘I’m fine.’
‘In that case... I’ll see you around, Celeste.’ He turned and walked out, leaving her alone in the icy shelter.
She wished her heart were as frozen as the igloo. Then maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much.
* * *
‘Are you sure you’re okay to do this?’ Cerys asked as Theo had his mic checked for what was hopefully the last time.
‘Of course, I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?’ He wasn’t even sure what his agent was doing here for the New Year’s Eve Spectacular. She didn’t normally come to his filming, but maybe she had nowhere else to be for the biggest party night of the calendar.
Although he supposed he was sort of hosting the biggest party on that biggest party night. Other people probably really wanted to be there. Even if he was wishing he were anywhere but.
‘Because you’ve been—how can I put this?—not your charming self over the last few days.’
Days filled with last-minute meetings and planning, and absolutely no Celeste. Except for the photos of her, which were still all over social media, and people asking him about her.
There was even one photo of her leaving the igloo bar, after him. He’d been staring at it for days now trying to figure out if her eyes in it were red from crying or the cold.
Probably the cold. This was Celeste, after all.
As she’d told him, she didn’t really do people. At least, not ones who weren’t dead and were without an interesting backstory or place in history.
He’d known. He’d known from the start that he couldn’t fit into her world, that she’d be another person he wasn’t good enough for. And yet he’d let himself hope...
She was the one person who’d made him believe he was more than his name or his face, more than his TV-star status, and more than his parents told him he could be.
It just turned out she didn’t believe it.
‘And now you look like you’re trying to burn down the Tower of London with lasers from your eyes,’ Cerys went on. ‘Is this about Celeste?’
Probably him, in one of those meetings he hadn’t been paying attention in.
‘Because you haven’t been seen with her in days, you haven’t mentioned her name once until now, and you’ve practically growled at anyone who mentions it to you.’ Cerys was not a touchy-feely, reassuring agent. The fact that she felt the need to pat Theo’s arm gently was a definite warning sign that he was losing it completely. ‘What happened, Theo?’
‘We ended it,’ he said, with a shrug.
She ripped half my heart out with an ice pick, froze it and used it to cool her cocktail.
‘It was all very mutual and friendly. After all, we were never really together in the first place, remember.’
Even if it felt like we were. Even if it felt like everything.
‘Right.’ Cerys did not look in any way convinced. ‘Did you tell her?’
‘Tell her what?’ he asked, confused.
‘That you’re in love with her.’
He had enough practice at looking amused when he wasn’t from listening to the poor jokes told on various shows he’d hosted, but it still took everything in his power to laugh at Cerys’s words, when what was left of his heart felt as if it were trying to break out of his body.
‘Why on earth would I tell her that?’ he scoffed.
Cerys rolled her eyes and patted his arm again. ‘Just get through tonight, yeah? Then we can go get really drunk and you can cry on my shoulder for a while, and in the morning it’ll be a brand-new year and you can move on. Well, after the hangover subsides.’
He waited until she’d moved out of his line of sight to let his amused smile drop.
A Midnight Kiss to Seal the Deal Page 15