Page 93 of The Naughty List Agreement

She needed to fully step into the woman she had become. Right, here’s goes…

“You’ve helped me to see Christmas in a different way,” she said. Once those words were out, the rest flowed freely. “I always dreaded this time of year because it made me sad, angry, and resentful. Part of why I’m so good at running the festival is that I don’t have any memories I’m recreating. Instead, I try to come up with items that are available to everyone. You made me see that I was putting too much emphasis on objects. I never have an event that requires you to have come to the festival with anybody.”

She glanced down at the carpet beneath her feet, wishing she’d slipped off her boots to feel the thick woven rug against her toes. The room smelled of cedar, pine and the fire that burned in the hearth—all scents she associated with Nick.

“I noticed,” he said.

The light from the low, wrought-iron chandelier refracted off Nick’s face. How dear he had become to her. This sexy lumberjack had somehow become the center of her world. It scared her. Not since her parents’ divorce had she allowed herself to need anyone. She’d fought hard for her independence only now to understand that she had been as much isolated from the world as independent in it.

“You’re a noticing kind of man,” she admitted.

“I care about the people around me.”

“That bothered me at first … but now you’ve made me realize the power of connections and friendships. That one is hard for me. I want to trust that they’ll last but… Anyway, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. We’ve danced around it. I’ve been afraid to admit that we are in a relationship. That I want you to be my boyfriend. Damn. I’m rambling.”

“Yes, you are,” Nick said, his blue eyes twinkling as he watched her. But he wasn’t hitting any volleys back her way. She was throwing everything at him, waiting for something, waiting for him to take over so she could nod and say, Me too.

“I want us to be a real couple.” There she’d got it out—part of it anyway. Her mouth felt dry as a bone. “I don’t know how you feel. I mean, I think you’re in the same place but that’s the thing with affection, it’s easy to convince myself that you might feel the same because of my own emotions, but I can’t let myself do that.”

“I care a great deal about you, Cora. As I’m sure you’ve guessed.”

“I’m guessing a lot here,” she said. She wanted him to say it first so she could match whatever he felt for her. But the truth was on the tip of her tongue.

Be bold.

Be brave.

Be the Cora Quill you’ve always wanted to be.

“I love you.”

His eyes went wide and he knocked his fork off the table as he leaned toward her.

“I tried to tell myself that love wasn’t for me. That saying the words wouldn’t mean anything but that was a lie. I have feelings for you that I can’t keep hidden any more, Nick.”

Nick tried a half-dozen times to tell her who he was but the words got tangled in his chest and refused to come out. She’d confessed she loved him and he knew what courage that had taken, so now he had to step up and tell her he loved her too. He had waited too long. The longer he kept silent, the more closed off she became. He saw it in her eyes.

He wanted her to know who he was before he told her how he felt.

He’d tried to tell her when they arrived at the front doors of the castle. Telling her the story of the first Nicholas Bari had been his idea of how to pave the way to his own confession.

Or was that more stalling?

“Listen, I have to tell you something. Come with me.”

Her face had closed off completely. He was messing this up. Big time. But she got to her feet and followed him back out into the long hallway that led to his office. “This is the Yearweave tapestry. I know you looked at it the last time you were here.”

“I did.” Cora held a glass of wine as she stood in front of the Yearweave. “It seems different to me this time.”

“It grows and changes as the world does,” he said.

“The … hell are you talking about?”

“It’s made up of Gold Lumen. It’s what controls the weave of the tapestry.” Coming up next to her he gestured to her knot which was now scarlet red. The knot wasn’t tangled anymore, the thread now pulled through the design so that it formed part of a landscape. Cora’s own journey now shown laid out instead of in a jumble.

“What’s Gold Lumen?”

“Magic that builds in the world and powers everything. It comes from hope and giving.”