Meet Me at Midnight (Romance, Completed)

Chapter 2

Click. Click. Click. Ten hours after Mr. Midnight left me speechless in the summerhouse, Angie snapped her fingers in front of my face.

"What's up? I know you daydream a lot, but you've been staring at the same spot on the wall for half an hour. That's weird, even for you."

She wasn't wrong, but I'd never been taken from behind by a stranger in the early hours of the morning before. That sweet spot between my legs still ached as a reminder. "Just pondering a new plot line."

Or even an old one—the way my impetuousness had combined with alcohol and a sexy stranger to bring one of my scenes to life. At least, he'd felt sexy. For all I knew, he could have looked like Frankenstein's monster crossed with an Orc. It wasn't as if I saw his face. What on earth had I been thinking? Oh, that's right, I hadn't.

"Well, ponder faster. I need you to take a look at cover designs for The Dark Night, help me with some interview questions, and take a few photos of me for Sapphire's blog. And don't forget mother's expecting you for lunch at one."

"She is?"

"I put it in your diary last week and reminded you yesterday and the day before."

She motioned to my MacBook, sitting on the desk opposite hers. My calendar stared back at me, filled with all the appointments I tried to ignore in favour of my precious writing time.

"What's she got planned? Tell me she hasn't brought that colour lady back again."

Three weeks ago, mother asked me to join her for afternoon tea, only for an overly enthusiastic lady, who looked like a packet of Skittles had thrown up over her, to try and force her dubious fashion choices upon me over scones and crustless sandwiches. Apparently, mother thought the jeans and jumpers I tended to live in weren't appropriate for a lady.

"She was a bit cagey about the reason, but she said you need to dress up."

"Are you coming too?"

"No, I told her I had to go out."

"Couldn't you have said I needed to go with you?"

"I tried, but she gave me that look. You know, the one where she summons Satan and channels him through her eyes."

"Yes, I know it."

Somehow, Angelica got away with more than I did. Her exuberant personality combined with the way mother favoured her firstborn meant she'd always been granted more leeway. As the second twin, the one who'd popped out by surprise after a trainee midwife missed me on the ultrasound, I'd been playing catch-up to my mother's expectations my whole life.

Father, on the other hand, adopted a more hands-off approach to parenting. As long as we didn't bother him, he mostly left us alone. I say mostly, because it was he who'd decreed that any children of his would work for a living no matter how much money we happened to have.

The day after his colleague's daughter maxed out her credit card and threw a tantrum at the office when it got declined in Harvey Nichols, he'd sat Angie and me down for a little chat.

"No child of mine is going to sit on her backside while the rest of the world slaves away. You both need to get jobs."

It was a fair point, seeing as we'd graduated from university six months ago, but Angie acted like Father had ordered her to become a cat food tester or a shark wrangler.

"But, Daddy, I'm so busy. I've got tennis lessons, and lunches to attend, and I promised Mariella Huffington I'd help organise her wedding."

"And all those things cost money. Who pays for them?"