Page 50 of The Naughty List Agreement

But those words fell on deaf ears as she tipped her head back and their eyes met. A shaft of desire pierced him. She licked her lips and he groaned.

She was totally aware that she was toying with him.

As was her right.

They had crazy chemistry but it could go nowhere. He needed to get married and she didn’t want to—and that was the end of that.

“Too bad you’re so set on getting married, Nick. We could have had some fun together,” she said as she dropped his pendant and pivoted on her heel. As her ponytail swung out, the ends of it brushed his shoulder.

He had to arrange himself to get comfortable before following her to her car. This next month was going to be torture because Cora wasn’t going to back down easily and he was enjoying that way too much.

But he couldn’t sleep with her while searching for another woman to be his wife. And he couldn’t break the contract or he would plunge the world into chaos.

CHAPTER 13

Cora was chronically early. Like, the kind that made it awkward when she was meeting people for the first time. She gave off the creepy, stalker vibes as she hung back waiting for the person she was meeting to show up. At least at Winter Wonderland, it was her own event so no one thought it odd that she was here a good forty minutes before anyone else. She’d tried to break her perfectionist habits, but she couldn’t shake them.

She walked up the path from the parking lot to the center of the festival where the large pine had been transformed into a gorgeous Christmas tree. She adjusted garlands that were twisted around the streetlights where she could and straightened bows so it all looked exactly right.

Last year she’d invested in an extending arm grabber and it made this part of her job so much easier. She took photos of anything too big or too high for her to deal with herself and drafted an email to send to the head groundskeeper.

The stage sat beside the towering tree like an altar to the season, framed in thick swags of pine and magnolia, threaded with velvet ribbons. Lanterns flickered at either end, their glass panes catching the pale afternoon light, while thousands of tiny bulbs lay dormant in the greenery, waiting for dusk. Tiered risers dressed in evergreen stood ready for the choir, and at center stage a brass music stand gleamed beneath a gilded star mounted high above. Even unlit, the entire space hummed with anticipation, as if holding its breath for the moment the tree would blaze to life.

Cora climbed the stairs and checked the setup of the chairs they had for local dignitaries like the mayor and city council members. Everything looked to be in order on the dais and all that was left was the tree. She’d never had a proper tree in her home growing up. There had been one at her dad’s after he got married but this tree here, at Winter Wonderland, was the closest she came to one of her own. That’s why it had to be just right.

Standing at the base, she walked slowly around, checking the placement of each ornament and light. Of course, she wouldn’t be certain that the lights were perfect until the switch-on.

She noticed that someone had put three round red ornaments right next to each other. Shaking her head as she snapped a quick photo, she tried to use her extending arm to move them but couldn’t quite reach.

Glancing around, she noticed one of the large boxes that had been painted to resemble a present. That should give her the added inches she needed. Carefully climbing up on the box, she stretched and was able to remove the first ornament with no problems. She swapped it for a blue one that had been lower on the same side, then she took the other red one off and leaned to the right to grab a gold one when she felt her foot slipping.

Putting her hand out to try to balance herself, she touched nothing but empty air. With a yelp, she felt herself falling off the box … and straight into Nick’s arms.

“Gotcha.”

It felt so good to be back in his arms. Better than it should, given he was dating other women and wanting to get married. Get your emotions in check! His cologne was subtle, stirring memories of the last time she’d been this close to him. Her lips tingled. If she turned her head, they’d brush against his jaw line, they were that close.

That snow globe in her tummy was tumbling and turning again. She’d missed him. It had only been twenty-four hours since she’d seen him, and she already missed him. What was up with that?

“Thanks. What are you doing here?” she asked. He didn’t strike her as an early bird. Most of the time he showed up right on time.

“You invited me,” he told her, blue eyes twinkling.

“I meant, why are you here so early?”

Putting her back on her feet, she found she missed his warmth. “Figured you’d need me. Where are you trying to place that?”

“Over there,” she said, pointing to the spot. “Someone clustered three red ornaments together!”

“Horrifying. When’s the trial and will you ask for the death penalty?” he joked, easily placing the ornament where she’d indicated. “Krampus would be all over that.”

“Make fun all you want, but visual aesthetics are important,” she warned him, stepping back to observe the tree. “What exactly is Krampus? I mean, I know he’s the holiday baddy but is that it?”

Nick took a deep breath. There was an opportunity here and he couldn’t squander it. “Krampus is the traditional counterbalance to Saint Nicholas. One rewards generosity, the other enforces consequences. Most of it is folklore now but the idea stuck around because people understand something simple: behavior changes faster when bad choices cost them something. The trick,” he said quietly, “is not letting the shadow overrun the season.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad. There should be consequences. Is that all he does? Enforce consequences?” she asked.

“Not quite. He forces anyone on the Naughty List to relive the moments when they messed up over and over again. The method causes most people to stay on the straight and narrow, and the majority don’t offend again.”