A Midnight Kiss to Seal the Deal Read online

  Cinderellas in the Spotlight

  Could their Prince Charmings be waiting under the mistletoe?

  It all started so innocently at a TV studio...but what happened next would become the start of something neither Celeste nor her best friend, Rachel, would ever forget!

  Because when Rachel is asked to make up the numbers for the filming of a New Year’s Eve party, a pretend midnight kiss with Celeste’s delectable brother Damon feels anything but fake...!

  Meanwhile next door, when Celeste clashes with TV quiz host Theo, she can’t help but wonder if the sparks flying between them could mean something more than television banter...

  What’s clear is now is the time for these two heroines to stand in the spotlight while they discover they are worthy of meeting their perfect prince!

  Awakening His Shy Cinderella

  This Christmas, a shy, awkward Cinderella finally learns to ask for what she really wants—love, with her best friend’s younger brother!

  A Midnight Kiss to Seal the Deal

  Can a pretend romance between two complete opposites lead to true love by the time Big Ben strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve?

  Dear Reader,

  January 1 always feels like such a fresh start. A brand-new year, full of opportunities. But of course, in order to take advantage of them, we have to know what we want to do, where we want to go and who we want to be. How else can we choose the resolutions we want to make?

  Celeste and Theo in this story have both still got a ways to go before they can do that—which is why it’s a good thing the story starts on December 1. They’ve both spent their lives believing what other people said was true about them and following the paths set out before them. Now they’ve got one month to figure out who they really want to be on their own terms. But they’re going to need each other to do to it. Do you think they’ll manage it? Read on to find out.

  To all my readers, I want to wish you a happy New Year, whenever you’re reading this. I hope the next twelve months are filled with wonder and magic and romance!

  Love and wishes,

  Sophie x

  A Midnight Kiss to Seal the Deal

  Sophie Pembroke

  Sophie Pembroke has been dreaming, reading and writing romance ever since she read her first Harlequin novel as part of her English literature degree at Lancaster University, so getting to write romantic fiction for a living really is a dream come true! Born in Abu Dhabi, Sophie grew up in Wales and now lives in a little Hertfordshire market town with her scientist husband, her incredibly imaginative and creative daughter, and her adventurous, adorable little boy. In Sophie’s world, happy is forever after, everything stops for tea and there’s always time for one more page...

  Books by Sophie Pembroke

  Harlequin Romance

  Cinderellas in the Spotlight

  Awakening His Shy Cinderella

  A Fairytale Summer!

  Italian Escape with Her Fake Fiancé

  The Cattaneos’ Christmas Miracles

  CEO’s Marriage Miracle

  Carrying Her Millionaire’s Baby

  Pregnant on the Earl’s Doorstep

  Snowbound with the Heir

  Second Chance for the Single Mom

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  To all the New Year’s resolution makers out there

  Praise for

  Sophie Pembroke

  “Wow, what an amazing story! Sophie Pembroke made me fall in love with her characters in Pregnant on the Earl’s Doorstep from the get-go. This book was such a fun, sweet, romantic rendezvous! I got lost in the sway of emotions, the tantalizing grip of romance and got swept away by the visual detailing that is so well written.”

  —Goodreads

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Excerpt from Tempted by the Tycoon’s Proposal by Rachael Stewart

  CHAPTER ONE

  CELESTE HUNTER GRIPPED the phone in her hand a little tighter and whispered the words she’d never thought she’d say into it.

  ‘What if I’m not good enough?’

  On the other end of the line her agent, Richard, laughed. ‘I don’t believe it. Are you actually nervous?’

  Celeste scowled, even though he obviously couldn’t see her. ‘Isn’t that a perfectly natural response to appearing on television for the first time?’

  ‘I didn’t think you had natural responses, darling.’ Richard sighed. She could just picture him shaking his head, his hand already hovering over his computer mouse as he moved on to more important things.

  ‘I am human, you realise.’

  ‘You’re basically a walking encyclopaedia. Or history textbook, I guess.’ She could hear his dismissive shrug. ‘You’re on a quiz show that is quite literally called the Christmas Cracker Cranium Quiz. I hardly think any of the questions are likely to stump you.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Celeste knew she was intelligent. She’d had an excellent education and had a phenomenal memory for detail. Those were the things that had taken her as far as she’d gone in her academic career so far. She was a great historian.

  That wasn’t the part she was worried about.

  ‘You’re thinking about the new show,’ Richard guessed, correctly.

  ‘Possible new show,’ she corrected him. The TV show they’d pitched for was very much still at the discussions stage, and Celeste just knew that the production company would be watching her appearance on the quiz to decide if she really had what it took to front a history show by herself. ‘No counting chickens, remember?’

  ‘Where does that saying come from, anyway?’

  ‘Aesop,’ Celeste answered absently.

  ‘See! You know everything!’ Richard yelled gleefully. ‘Now stop worrying. I have to go deal with an actress with a secret lovechild with a politician. That’s real problems.’

  Celeste laughed. ‘Good luck with that.’

  ‘And you break a leg on that show, you hear me?’ He paused, just for a second. ‘But not literally. You know that, right? It’s just a saying. Like the chickens.’

  ‘I know that.’ Poor Richard. He still hadn’t quite adjusted to having an academic for a client, rather than actresses and pop stars. She’d never been entirely sure what had made him take her on in the first place—she didn’t think he was, either. Curiosity, maybe. Or boredom.

  Whatever, it seemed to be working out so far.

  ‘Seriously, Celeste. Go sit in the green room with your laptop, and work on that book of yours. Not the academic treatise on whatever it was. The fun one. The popular one.’

  ‘Two things I’ve never been in my life,’ Celeste joked, but even she could hear the edge to it.

  ‘That’s what you’re worrying about?’ Richard sighed again. He was a big guy, in his late fifties, with a bushy beard that was more salt than pepper. When he sighed, his whole body moved, like a sad-faced dog. Even though she couldn’t see him, just imagining it made Celeste feel a little better.

  ‘If Tim and Fiona from the production company watch this...what if they decide I’m not enough? That I don’t have...whatever
it takes to be good at this.’ That elusive X factor, she supposed.

  ‘Have you ever not been good at something before?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Not really.’ Apart from making friends and not boring people. Her best friend, Rachel, was the solitary exception to the rule. Even her brother, Damon, who she was pretty sure at least loved her, found her dull, she was sure. And her parents...well. They were pleased by her academic successes anyway. She hoped.

  They certainly weren’t pleased by any of her media successes. Apparently, she was ‘dumbing down important research until all you have to say is derivative and reductive’.

  ‘Then have faith that you’ll be good at this, too. Theo Montgomery’s hosting, yeah? Follow his lead if you feel lost. He’s good at charming a room, whatever the papers are saying about him at the moment.’

  Celeste pulled a face. She didn’t know what the papers were saying particularly, but she knew of Theo Montgomery. The sort of guy who got where he was because of his name, his face, and surface charm—but nothing underneath it. No substance.

  Whereas she was nothing but substance.

  Yeah, she really couldn’t see Theo Montgomery being her new role model, whatever Richard thought.

  Sighing, Celeste looked down at the Christmas jumper the wardrobe department had forced her into—worlds away from her usual, safe black outfits. Maybe that was the trick—to pretend this wasn’t her here at all. She could be TV Celeste, instead of University Celeste.

  Except she’d never really been very good at pretending to be something she wasn’t.

  Perhaps it was time to learn. If she wanted that show...

  And she did. She couldn’t explain why—especially not to her academic parents, who would be horrified she was contemplating something so...pedestrian. But she loved teaching history at the university, loved sharing her knowledge about her specialist area—women in classical literature and ancient history. And the idea of spreading that knowledge further, of getting people who might never have even thought about the subject before excited about those historical and mythical figures she loved, that excited her.

  She just wasn’t sure that she was the right person to do it.

  ‘You’re right. I’ll go work on the book.’ Working—whether it was researching or writing or teaching—always calmed her down. She knew what she was doing there.

  It was only outside that safe world where she had all the answers that she struggled.

  ‘Good. And, Celeste?’ Richard said. ‘Try to smile, yeah?’

  Celeste scowled again, an automatic response to being asked to smile, honed after years of men telling her how much prettier she’d be if she did. And then she hung up, since her agent was clearly out of useful information.

  She was just going to have to do this her own way. Starting with mentally preparing herself by focussing on something she knew she was good at. Writing her book.

  And woe betide anyone who interrupted her.

  * * *

  Theo Montgomery was on a mission. Or a dare. A bet, perhaps. No, mission sounded better. More exciting, yes. But also more...official. As if it gave him a reason for being there, sneaking around the green room instead of hanging out in his private dressing room as he normally would for a show like this.

  And there had been a lot of shows like this. Well, not exactly the same—the Christmas Cracker Cranium Quiz was definitely a one-off. But he’d presented a lot of special occasion quiz shows, or entertainment specials. Apparently his was the face the network liked to trot out for this kind of thing.

  He wasn’t going to complain about that—especially right now. He knew that, after everything that had been published about him in the papers lately, he was lucky to still have the show. Even if it might be nice, every now and again, to be wanted for something other than his face, or his family name, Theo was under no illusions that the combination of both were what had got him where he was—TV darling, never short of work, or a date, or someone asking for his autograph.

  Or where he’d been, before this mess of a break-up with Tania that was all anyone seemed to be talking about lately.

  But overall, he had what he’d always wanted. What his family wanted for him, after a fashion. And he wasn’t so bloody ungrateful as to complain about it now. Not when he had a lot of viewers to bring back on side, too. Viewers who’d listened to Tania’s side of the story and jumped to the wrong conclusions.

  The break-up had been amicable enough, Theo had thought. They hadn’t even been together all that long. But the British press had loved the whole alliterative relationship, Tania and Theo, the reality TV star and the presenter, so they’d earned a lot of column inches.

  And Tania had been a lot happier to tell her side of the break-up—with embellishments—than he had.

  His agent, Cerys, had made it clear they were on a mission to salvage his career now. It was hard to be the nation’s sweetheart when the same nation was tutting at him and saying ‘that poor girl’ behind his back.

  Or, as Cerys put it, ‘They want to be wooed, Theo. Charm them back onto your side again. Remind them why they love you.’

  So Theo would smile, and be charming, and ask the questions and laugh at the poor jokes attempted by the semi-famous contestants, and hint at the answers when they got stuck because it was Christmas, and nobody really took this sort of quiz seriously, right?

  And talking of the contestants, that brought him right back to his current mission.

  Because this was supposed to be a ‘cranium quiz,’ something a little harder than the usual Who was Christmas number one in 1989?—‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ of course—the producers had also trotted out a higher intellectual calibre of celebrity guests.

  There was the astrophysicist who did all the shows about the solar system, the kids’ presenter who made Shakespeare accessible for primary school children, the morning TV doctor who treated the nation’s bunions and STDs, the mathematician from that other quiz show, the guitarist from that band who also had a PhD in psychology and, last of all, the rising-star historian, an academic who was starting to make a name for herself, bringing the ancient world to life in guest slots on radio show interview and history podcasts.

  Everyone except the historian he’d met on things like this before, or at some party or another after an awards ceremony. He’d actually been clubbing with the kids’ TV presenter, David, while the guy was still in Shakespearean dress. And he and the mathematician, Lucy, had even had a bit of a thing, for a few nights, a couple of years ago.

  No, his mission didn’t involve any of them. It was centred firmly on the historian.

  Celeste Hunter.

  Before the show started, he was going to find her, introduce himself, maybe even charm her a little. Because he was pretty sure that Celeste Hunter was someone he was going to want to get to know.

  He might not have met her, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t aware of her. He’d heard her speaking on plenty of podcasts and radio shows over the last few months, in that way that often happened in the media. Rumour had it she was lined up for her own series, soon. Once a person got a little bit of attention from one show, suddenly they were everywhere.

  Like him.

  And in this case, Theo thought it was a good thing. Celeste Hunter was interesting. Engaging, even, when talking about subjects that mattered to her—like ancient history.

  But she wasn’t just a specialist, he knew. He’d heard her talk about periods of history throughout the ages. She was a brilliant addition to today’s quiz, and he was a genius for suggesting her to the producers. They’d joke about history, riff off some of the questions, and she’d make him look really good again for the cameras. Because, although no one would guess from his public profile, Theo liked history. He even knew a bit about it—although nowhere near as much as Celeste. He was interested though and engaged—and, knowing there was a fa
ir smattering of historical questions in the stack for Celeste, he was most excited about that part of the show.

  Theo eased his way into the green room, past an assistant carrying a tray of coffees, and smiled at the various inhabitants. There was so much festive filming going on in the building today that all the contestants had been shoved together in one of the green rooms, after hair and make-up. Luckily they all seemed in good enough spirits about it.

  He greeted all the celebrities he knew, exchanging quick pleasantries and jokes, and even a hug with Lucy the mathematician.

  ‘It’s so great that you could all be here for this today,’ he said, filling the words with his trademark enthusiasm. ‘I really think this is going to be a “cracker” of a show.’

  There were good-humoured groans at that, and he flashed them all a smile before turning to find the one person in the room he didn’t know already.

  She was sitting at the other end of the green room, as far away from everyone else as it was possible to get. He’d only ever heard her on the radio, but Theo had to admit his first look at Celeste Hunter didn’t quite match up to his imagination.

  She’d sounded so self-assured, so confident on the radio, he’d assumed she’d be older—older than him, at least. But the slender, serious woman tapping away on her laptop in the corner looked younger than him, if anything. Her dark hair was artfully waved around her face, something he assumed Sandra in Hair and Make-up was responsible for, given the way Celeste kept pushing it out of her eyes in irritation. She was wearing black jeans and heeled boots, her ankles crossed in front of her as she stretched out her long legs, the laptop resting on her knees. The jeans were paired with a sparkly festive jumper that he thought might actually light up, given the dimmed bulbs dotted around the Christmas tree design. It was so at odds with her serious, concentrated face, it made him smile as he approached, moving into her space and waiting for her to notice him there.

  It took about a minute longer than it usually would.