Page 81 of The Mistletoe Makeover

Jace tilts my chin up. “You’re doing it again.”

“Okay, I’ll stop. No more overthinking. I figure if I can kiss you, I can kiss anyone. Except Cal. I will definitelynotkiss Cal, even if he wins that auction.”

“Cal?” he asks.

“A creep from high school who tried to kiss me under the mistletoe a long time ago. When I refused, he told me he didn’t like girls who wear glasses, anyway.”

“What a jerk,” he says. “For what it’s worth, I think your glasses are hot.”

“You do?” I say, touching them. “In the movies, the nerdy girl in glasses is never the hot one, unless she gets a makeover. But I’m not doing that.”

“Good. Don’t stop wearing them,” Jace says. “They’re your superpower.”

“I’ve never thought of them as an asset.”

His hand sweeps down my neck lightly, sending chills down my arm. “You have so many superpowers you don’t even know about.”

“Like?” I say, barely able to form the word.

“Do you want to talk about superpowers or...”

“Yes,” I interrupt, because I already know what the other option is, and that’s the one I want.

His hand sweeps around my back, lightly grazing my spine, before landing on my lower back. The scent of pine and musk envelops me as the warmth of his body hovers against mine, sending the room spiraling. He looks down at me and brushes his fingers lightly across my cheek, like he’s memorizing me.

When I wrap my hands around his neck, his palm moves to the curve of my waist, pulling me against him. As my fingers slip across his shoulders, I tip my chin up. Just as I lean forward, a faint click sounds behind me, and a sharp intake of breath.

“Who’s here?” someone asks as a light blinds me.

I spin around. “Mom?” I jump away from Jace.

I can’t make up a good excuse about why we were plastered against each other, and based on her astonished look, she knows exactly what we were doing.

“I was... um, looking for something...” She glances around helplessly.

“It’s not what it looks like,” I blurt, even though that’s not technically true. It’s exactly what it looks like. My face is so hot right now, I could probably microwave a frozen dinner.

“I misplaced my wallet,” she says, pointing to her missing wallet left on a table. She smiles awkwardly.

I take a step forward. “Mom, I can explain...” Even though I’d rather not. Mom doesn’t know that I’ve never been kissed. And that’s not a conversation I want to have right now.

“You don’t need to,” she insists, waving her hand. “You’re a thirty-one-year-old woman. I respect your privacy. And there are some things I’d rather not know.” Then she leaves out the door as quickly as she came in.

I rub my forehead. “Now what’ll we do?”

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”

“She’s going to assume we’re dating. The whole committee will find out.”

Jace shrugs. “Why does that matter?”

“Aren’t you worried this news will spread to everyone in town?”

He glances at me before I realize this is a dumb question. He’s not worried about it. That was the whole point of us pretending to date. I’m supposed to fix his PR problems.

“Why don’t you just explain to your mom?”

I stare at him for a second. “What do I tell her? That I’ve never been kissed, and Jace Knight offered to be my first?”

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