Page 104 of So This Is Christmas

She grinned. “I would.” She began moving toward him, and the music started up again. It was another waltz—he couldn’t have arranged it better himself. To his absolute astonishment, the crowd begancheering. It started small, with some clapping, but soon the applause was punctuated with cheers and whistles.

By the time she reached him, she was laughing, and, he thought, crying a little, too. She looked exactly like he felt. As she put her hand in his, she said, “I don’t know how to waltz.”

“Would you perhaps then consider standing in place, right here, and kissing me?”

“I would.”

And so they did.

“Tonya always used to tell me that fairy tale endings were for cartoon women,” Cara said breathlessly as Matteo hustled her across the snow to his apartment, “but I don’t know, attending a ball at a freakingpalacethen being rushed home for what I assume is going to be some very hot makeup sex? That seems pretty fairy-tale-esque to me.”

“Oh, no, we’re not going inside,” Matteo said with a grin—he had been wearing a downright goofy grin nonstop since they kissed in the ballroom. “We’re just here to get my car.” He held the passenger side door open for her. “We have work to do.”

“We do?” She was confused for a moment, but then she caught on. “Oh, yes, we do! I’m onto you, you know. I even had my suspicions before I found your basket. Should I change, though, before this mysterious work?”

“Probably, but you look too good. I want to keep looking at you in that dress. Until we get home, at which point I plan to remove it posthaste.”

As dirty talk went, it was mild, but coming from Matteo, such a threat made her face heat and her stomach go fluttery.

“Where did you get that dress?” He started the car, but he kept staring at her. “It’s gorgeous.”

It was. It made her look like Cinderella’s vampiric sister, and she loved it. “I got it from a shop in the village.”

“Lorelei’s? I thought she was out of town and had closed up for the holidays.”

“Somehow Imogen got in touch with her and arranged for her neighbor to let us in. I tried on a few dresses, found this, and left her payment. I also found these.” She kicked a leg out from beneath her voluminous skirts to show Matteo a shoe. She was wearing glittery black flats. “My own shoes would have worked fine. In fact, they would probably have been more appropriate to the occasion. But I decided maybe it was time to retire the high heels.”

He glanced over at her. “No longer need a weapon at hand?”

Yes. He understood perfectly. He always did. She nodded, suddenly a little choked up.

He started the car, reached over and grabbed her hand, and drove down the hill holding it. How many times had she perved on his hands in this very car? And now it was hers.Hewas hers. As they approached the bottom of the hill, she said, “I suppose we should talk. In the fairy tales, you never get to hear about how it all works out logistically, after the happily ever after. Like, sure, Cinderella could probably move into the palace right away, but what if she’d had a job she really loved on the other side of the world? Or what if she was just afraid of moving too fast? What if she hadn’t ever loved a man before, and she didn’t know if—”

“Hush. I have it all worked out—no, I have some of it worked out, and we will work out the rest together. But let’s get this other thing done first.” He glanced over at her, concern in his eyes. “I promise we will talk soon. Trust me?”

“Yes. Unreservedly.” How remarkable.

“I feel the same,” he said. “And I can’t lie: it’s a little bit scary.”

“It sure is.”

Eventually, they turned off a dark, forested road onto a long drive that opened onto a clearing containing two log cabins. Matteo parked, and they made their way to the larger of the two structures.

Inside was Kai, who appeared to be moving boxes from one end of the space to the other. A table contained several hundred of the same kind of basket she’d found outside her door.

“You really must trust me if you’re letting me see your workshop, Santa.”

“I’m not Santa. If anyone’s Santa, it’s Kai. This is his workshop.”

“Andthisis what you meant about moving a lot of boxes!” Matteo’s physique was due to his job as Santa. It boggled the mind.

“That was a bit of a slipup. But yes. Christmas Eve in Eldovia is rather a lot of work. By tomorrow morning you’ll be sore in places you didn’t know existed.” There was a pause while he absorbed what he’d just said. “I assure you I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

She was about to say that she liked the way that sounded, when Kai realized they’d arrived and made his way over to them. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t been the most reliable this year,” Matteo said, “and for that I’m sorry.”

“That’s probably my fault,” Cara said.

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