Simon/Ava Montjoy

Simon/Ava, a character from the A Very Scandalous Proposal book, is the heir/heiress to all of Barrington and future Duke/Duchess of Wessex. He/she is your character's love interest. He/she is first seen in Chapter 1.

Appearance
Simon/Ava's gender and look is determined by the player. Simon wears a violet shirt and gray pants. While Ava wears a white shirt with maroon skirt, and a gold necklace.

Personality
During your first encounter, Simon/Ava is shown to be friendly, a bit mischievous, and flirtatious. Later, when you discover the truth about his/her identity, he/she is shown to be rude and sarcastic. To his/her closer friends, Simon/Ava is a sensitive soul, warm and devoted, with a sharp tongue but good-natured. Simon/Ava feels it is a bit tricky figuring out who actually cares about him/her and who just wants to be friends with the future Duke/Duchess.

Simon/Ava has the reputation of being a brooding playboy/playgirl (London's most notorious rake) or an elusive but eligible bachelor/ette. Although he/she doesn't appear to care about his/her own reputation, Simon/Ava is a good friend. When his/her friend, Lulu, totaled a vintage Jaguar roadster, Simon/Ava took the blame to prevent Lulu's parents from cutting off her finances.

Simon/Ava likes being hands-on in charity work and enjoys spending time with less fortunate children. He/she feels that most of the events and galas held by the elite are just opportunities for the rich to flaunt, boast, and feel benevolent, but only half of the money or less goes to actual people it helps. While Simon/Ava feels Gerald and Mitzi would disagree, he/she favors more active philanthropy, giving not just money but also time and energy. S/he says that his/her gradparents think that 'secrecy is almost a moral virtue,' but Simon/Ava fundamentally disagrees that members of the nobility should remove themselves from their communities.

Background
In 1998, David and Jane Montjoy - Simon/Ava's parents - were killed in a drunk driving accident as they returned home from the annual Astonborough ball. Before their deaths, the heir enjoyed an uncommonly warm, relaxed upbringing, by parents who openly flouted upper-crust conventions, even holding a formal funeral for Simon/Ava's great dane, Pegasus. Jane had a warmth about her, and whenever Simon/Ava was with her, it felt like nothing could hurt him/her. She was also quite artistic, and had a very involved, hands-on approach whenever she saw need. They would take a path to the brook at the bottom of the fields and have a picnic just the two of them; and they would build fortresses together in the woods. Simon/Ava would also help her bake dozen of lemon tarts to hand out to the staff. Once when Simon/Ava was sick, Jane dressed up in all the old clothes from the attic and performed an entire musical revue just to make her child laugh. Gerald nearly had a stroke from the indignity of it.

Upon their deaths, Simon/Ava was left in the care of his/her grandparents, Gerald and Mitzi Montjoy. He/she began attending Fulton Academy at age eight. Then, Simon/Ava became the only Montjoy in their history to put off university for a gap year of backpacking. Afterwards, he/she attended Kingsbridge College, where he/she was a member of the Blue Boat crew and a notorious prankster. One of Simon/Ava's pranks involved herding cattle into the headmaster's office. According to Allegra, the headmaster didn't know it was Simon/Ava and later received an anonymous donation to repair the damage, but a closer source to the story states that the Duke and Duchess had to intervene to prevent Simon/Ava from being expelled.

Like his/her friends, Simon/Ava is in wealth management. They are pushed towards jobs like that since their youth, told that those jobs are their future. Simon/Ava finds it more of an obligation, as his/her grandparents wanted him/her to have respectable work and Simon/Ava did not want to disappoint them. As Simon/Ava puts it, he/she is in "wealth management" and most his/her client roster is made up of Gerald and Mitzi's dearest and wealthiest friends.

A Very Scandalous Proposal

 * Chapter 1: The Mysterious Heir
 * Chapter 2: The Proposal
 * Chapter 3: Mind your Manners
 * Chapter 4: Everyone Who's Anyone
 * Chapter 5: Secrets of the Estate
 * Chapter 6: Out on the Town
 * Chapter 7: Apartment Hunting
 * Chapter 8: The Royal Ascot
 * Chapter 9: The Charity Gala
 * Chapter 10: Treachery Afoot
 * Chapter 11: The Plot Thickens
 * Chapter 12: United Front
 * Chapter 13: Facing the Music
 * Chapter 14: Revelations
 * Chapter 15: Weathering the Storm
 * Chapter 16: The Next Generation

Margaret Montjoy
If you decide to eavesdrop on their conversation, you find out that she is reproached by his/her misbehavior lately. You also discover that because Simon/Ava's image has been affected negatively, Margaret wants him/her to stop being the "playboy/playgirl" and settle down with someone to improve it. Otherwise, Margaret may speak to her husband, Simon/Ava's grandfather, about changing their will to name Hugo their heir instead.

They have a rule never to keep each other in the dark when it comes to matter of health. It was a rule they've had since Simon/Ava's parents passed.

Hugo Lawson
Hugo Lawson is Simon/Ava's third cousin and next in line to be given Barrington Estate when the duke and duchess retire. They are not close, but Simon/Ava knows that Hugo doesn't care about the place. Hugo told Simon/Ava that he would sell the estate to developers.

Tommy Harrington
Tommy Harrington is Simon/Ava's best friend. Before they became friends, Simon/Ava says that he/she would keep mostly to himself/herself. Tommy is one of the few friends Simon/Ava keeps in touch with from their youth as his/her circle of friends mostly consists of ones he/she made during their university days. Tommy says that Simon/Ava has always been the big brother/sister-type, and Simon/Ava says he/she can't think of a single other friend who means quite as much to him/her as Tommy does.

Arabella Fitzwilliams
Arabella is Simon/Ava's ex-fiance. They attended Kingsbridge together, but shortly after graduation, when Simon/Ava discovered Arabella's infidelity, they ended their engagement.

Your Character
While you are touring the Barrington House, he approaches you and tells you interesting tidbits of the family's history. You have the chance to sneak off with him/her and improve your relationship in a premium scene. However, when Juliet Clarke announces his/her name to the tour group, you become angry, thinking that he/she was playing with you. He/she tells you that he/she had heard Nigel Brookes was bringing his friend, a journalist, over; this takes you by surprise as he had known your identity all along. In another premium scene, you can watch his/her conversation with his/her grandmother, Margaret Monjoy, the current Duchess of Wessex. Afterwards, you return to your hotel. Simon/Ava finds you there and gives you an offer of marriage.

As Simon/Ava explains, he/she believes that by "settling down" and becoming engaged, he/she will prove to Margaret that he/she is serious about running the estate. By tradition, the estate passes to the next heir upon his/her thirtieth birthday, which is a few months away. In exchange for your part in the farce, Simon/Ava is willing to give you the dirty details for your book. He/she doesn't believe that hiding or secrecy is beneficial for the family or family name. Unlike Margaret and Gerald, he/she thinks that they don't need to hide the past. Simon/Ava also chose you because you two can walk away from the other when you two realize you had 'different goals'; if he/she chose someone in their aristocratic circle, he/she would be expected to actually marry that person.

"You make it so wonderfully easy for me to be the sort of person I've been struggling to become for years."

- Simon/Ava to you

When you agree to Simon/Ava's proposal, he/she begins to train you on what to say and how to act, to make the engagement believable and to win over his/her grandparents, especially Mitzi. Despite the pretense, you and Simon/Ava begin to fall for each other as you learn more about him/her.

Other Looks

 * -|Simon Face 1=

Miscellaneous

 * -|Promo=

Trivia

 * The male version shares his name with Simon Waverley from The Haunting of Braidwood Manor, Simon Zilberg from The Senior, and Simon Hendricks from Save the Date. The female version shares her name with Ava Cunningham from It Lives in the Woods and the default name of Best Friend from My Two First Loves.
 * Simon/Ava is the seventeenth
 * He/she is also the ninth
 * There is an inconsistency about the spelling of the college as it varies depending on the chapter as either "Kingsbridge" or "Kingbridge".
 * He/she only has a few things that belonged to his/her parents:
 * His/her father's vintage Rolls Royce
 * His/her mother's ring
 * There is an inconsistency about Simon/Ava's parents' names. In Chapter 4, Genevieve Lawson calls the mother "Jane", as does the article in Chapter 10 (premium scene). In Chapter 7, when you go through Simon/Ava's parents' albums, their names are listed as "Edward and Araminta".
 * At age twelve, Simon/Ava hopped up on a table to serenade Nigella McCabe, the love of his/her life in front of the entire year seven class.
 * At age thirteen, Simon/Ava's first kiss was with Celeste Hartley near the ponds on the Barrington estate.
 * Simon/Ava has a flat in London, specifically in Marylebone.
 * In Chapter 10's premium scene, it's mentioned that Simon/Ava had an affair with the Princess of Monaco. It is possible that it could be referring to Marguerite but she is not mentioned by name.
 * Simon Face 3 bears a resemblance to the actor Richard Madden.
 * Simon Face 3 bears a resemblance to the actor Richard Madden.