Mistletoe Cinderella

“I didn’t want to fall down,” she blurted before he could tell her that the barefoot look suited her.

Okay.

This wasn’t going quite the way he’d envisioned. Maybe a smarter man would apologize for intruding, take his drink upstairs and get ready for the reunion, where there could be dozens of women interested in conversation. But it was suddenly, irrationally important to win over this one. Heidi’s face flashed through his mind, followed by Grady’s snickering. Dylan sought assurance that, in at least some way, he was still the guy he’d been before surgery, that he hadn’t lost all his talents.

Besides, while he might tell himself that another man would walk away, he wasn’t sure he had the willpower to do so. Not before he tried to cajole that husky tone from her again and bring a little heat to those skittish amber eyes.

THIS WAS LIKE a sick joke.

Which makes me the punch line, Chloe thought, drinking in Dylan’s profile as he tipped the waiter. At first this had seemed exactly like one of Natalie’s far-flung scenarios, a modern update of the fairy tales Chloe herself had loved to read as a girl: former geek, all dolled up, former athletic god walks into the room, their eyes meet…

And geek proceeds to trip over her tongue as if she’s a fifteen-year-old on her first date.

She groaned at the unfortunately accurate analogy. All she needed to do now was crash into a refreshments table and this could be her first date all over again. What was wrong with her? Chances to live out long-held fantasies didn’t come along every day. They barely came along once in a decade! But as much as she might admire Aunt Jane’s brazen fearlessness or Natalie’s extroverted ease, Chloe couldn’t wipe away a personality years in the making and replace it as simply as if she were applying a new flavor of lip gloss.

“Everything okay?” Dylan asked. While she’d been lost in thought, he’d turned back to her, looking even more attractive than he’d been in high school. He was still lean and muscled, but his boyish charm had matured into an appeal that was adult and sensual. His black hair was as dark and thick as ever, and while she regretted his career circumstances, the disappointment seemed to have given him an alluring edginess, something he hadn’t had as a seventeen-year-old golden boy.

And, wonder of wonders, he’d been attracted to her! She’d seen it in his smile when he first approached, before Natalie the Traitor had fled, abandoning Chloe to the butterflies in her stomach. It felt like she had enough in there for her own million-monarch migration.

“Ev-everything’s fine,” she said. Wow, repartee just didn’t get any wittier than this.

There was no way Dylan had trouble getting women, so why was he still here, seeming…well, grimly determined to flirt with her? The situation had gone from being her wildest dream to her worst nightmare. Except that in her nightmare, she’d also be naked right now and late for a college final.

As awkward as things already were, why not just go ahead and lay her cards on the table? She took a deep breath—and a fortifying sip of wine. “Honestly? I’m a little nervous.”

He grinned. “That’s a relief. I was afraid maybe you didn’t like me. Is it the pro-ball thing?”

“People here do consider you a celebrity,” she said, noting how the brightness of his smile had dimmed when he mentioned baseball. “But no, that’s not it. It’s more the, ah, massive crush I had on you in high school.”

Cards didn’t get much more on the table than that. Aunt Jane would be proud.

“Really?” Dylan sat back. “If I’d known, I would have asked you out for a drink back then. The nonalcoholic type, of course. Maybe a milk shake,” he added with a wink.

Gaping was probably not an attractive look for her, but she couldn’t help herself. Did he seriously expect her to believe he would have dated her? “I didn’t think I was…your type.”

He looked sheepish. “It’s true I dated a lot of redheads, but I noticed you, too. Every guy in the student body with working eyesight noticed you.”

The warm glow she’d developed from thinking that Dylan might have returned her adolescent affections was cooling rapidly. Was he patronizing her?

“This may be coming ten years too late,” he said, “but would you like to have dinner with me, Candy?”

She froze, confused. Candy? Oh God. Had he honestly mistaken her for Candy Beemis?

Under other circumstances, Chloe might have been flattered. Or at least amused. Right now she felt cruelly deflated. How had she let herself think, even temporarily, that he might really have remembered her? Now their stilted encounter was going to become more awkward than it already was. She would correct him, tell him she was Chloe Malcolm; he would frown and ask, “Who?” and she’d be crushed. It was one thing to know the boy of your dreams hadn’t known you existed, it was another to have him verify it.

Stalling, she downed more of the dry wine.

Too bad it wasn’t the ex-cheerleader sitting with him now. Candy probably knew how to handle a man’s attention without dissolving into a flustered fool; she certainly would have had the chutzpah to wear the closetful of bold garments Aunt Jane had sent over the years.

“Is that a no on dinner?” Dylan asked, looking genuinely disappointed by her hesitation.

Dylan Echols wants to have dinner with me! Sort of.

Why, oh why, couldn’t she have been someone else? Even if it was just for tonight. Someone comfortable enough in her own skin to wear red dresses and high heels and flirt with a sexy man. The someone Chloe had always longed to become but never quite managed. “No. I mean, it wasn’t a no.”

“Good.” The grin he shot her was devastating; he should be required to carry a permit for using that on unsuspecting women. “I know we’re both here for the reunion, but…I’m not in a crowd sort of mood. Were you looking forward to catching up with Natalie and the other girls from the squad?”

“Not as much as you might think.”

“Would I be a jerk if I asked you to ditch the reunion and join me somewhere quiet where we can talk over a meal?”

“Sounds perfect!” For many reasons, including that it would only take him about two seconds downstairs to spot the actual Candy Beemis. Then he’d learn that Chloe had been the nerdy girl in the back row who’d just admitted to being infatuated with him. Pathetic.

“So, do you still go by Candy or is it Candace now that we’re all grown-up?” he asked.

She bit down on her lower lip so hard she half expected to taste blood instead of her chocolate-flavored gloss. “Actually…call me C.J.”

Chapter Four

On the outside, Chloe was still smiling—she could feel it on her face, frozen like a mask. On the inside, she was screaming, What did I just do?

“What’s the J stand for?” Dylan asked.

“Um…Jane?” Very smooth. With quick thinking like that, she’d missed her calling in some kind of undercover career. Luckily he was finishing his drink, which spared her the follow-up question about why she was unsure of her own middle name. Hopefully he would attribute her uncertainty to the already confessed nervousness. Get a grip. C.J. is not the nervous type.

Whoever the hell C.J. was.

Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a married couple she knew walking through the lobby—the man was another Mistletoe grad, and his wife had been toying with the idea of hiring Chloe to do a site advertising her homemade-cake business. Chloe ducked her head, letting her hair fall in a curtain across her face as she tried to monitor their progress surreptitiously. The longer she sat here with Dylan, the more she chanced one of their fellow alumni coming over to say hi. Of course, anywhere she went in Mistletoe…

“Dylan, do you have a room here at the hotel?”

He blinked at the breathless question, but his look of surprise faded into a slow grin. Oh Lord, had she just unintentionally propositioned the most eligible bachelor of her graduating class?

“Because I was thinking,” she added in a rush, “about how you said you’d like to have dinner someplace quiet. Where we could talk. With you being a local celebrity, I thought our best chance at that might be room service. Unless I’m being too forward.”

“No, I like a lady who speaks her mind,” he assured her. “Room service is a great idea. That saves us the whole ‘what are you in the mood for, what’s good around here, no, you decide, I don’t care’ rigmarole.”

Good point. If she was stumbling over questions like what her name was, she probably wasn’t up for discussing where they should eat. She pushed her chair back, trying to seem cheerfully eager rather than desperate to flee. “I’m ready when you are.”

He stood, but bent abruptly. “Don’t forget your shoes.” When he straightened, all the air around Chloe seemed to disappear. Natalie’s red high heels had never looked as sexy as they did at this moment, dangling from their straps on one of Dylan’s large hands.

Chloe tried to inhale, but her lungs must not have got the memo. When she reached out to take the designer shoes, Dylan’s fingers brushed hers. A perfectly innocent touch. If Nat had called after a date, gushing about her hand meeting some man’s, it would have sounded clichéd or exaggerated, but the lightning Chloe had experienced earlier just from looking at him now magnified and sizzled through every cell of her hyperalert body. A body that’s going to pass out soon if you don’t breathe, you dummy.

The unreality of the situation hit her, and she couldn’t help smiling. “Thank you,” she told him, her voice lower than she was used to hearing.

He grinned back. “You’re very welcome. Here. Let me help.”

There was no graceful and feminine way to get back into the shoes, and she gladly accepted his assistance, leaning on him as she stepped into the first, lifting her foot to wiggle the strap into place, then the other. Dylan Echols had his arm around her waist. I can die happy. The thought reminded her joltingly of Aunt Jane, but Chloe could easily imagine her aunt laughing at this entire turn of events. A wistful sense of envy edged through Chloe—her aunt had seized life even as a teenager, while Chloe had mostly survived hers by making safe, predictable choices. Well, not tonight.

She glanced from the elevators, which seemed like a portal to the deliciously unknown, to Dylan, who was just plain delicious. Smiling up at him with a flirtatious instinct she hadn’t even realized she possessed, she asked, “Shall we?”

DYLAN HAD WITNESSED plenty of great comebacks in baseball—a team that was seemingly down for the count, turning it around in the eighth or ninth inning—but even he was amazed by the way his luck had turned tonight. Once C.J. worked past her initial timidity, everything had changed. She’d gone from looking terrified at the prospect of a meal with him to suggesting dinner alone in his room. Plus, she’d once again fallen into that sexy rasp he’d first noticed. Some guys were primarily visual creatures. Dylan himself had always been very tactile. He liked hands-on activities—his libido tried to suggest several—but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d reacted so viscerally to just a woman’s voice. It would be an actual pleasure to spend the rest of the evening listening to C.J. talk.

They headed for the elevators, falling into step, and she shook her head at him when he pressed the button for the fifth floor.

“You’ve probably stayed in some glamorous high-rises,” she said. “Must be hard for the Mistletoe Inn to compete. Not a lot of penthouse suites here.”

He chuckled wryly, thinking of some of the ratty places he’d slept when he’d played in the minors. “Trust me, I wasn’t spending all my nights in five-star hotels. That kind of luxury is for guys who last more than a few seasons.” And signed lucrative endorsement deals.

“Oh. Right.” She bit her bottom lip, and he found himself staring. “Still, at least you’ve been places.” She said it with admiration.

“Does that mean you stayed in Mistletoe?” he asked. Maybe that’s what she’d meant about not needing to catch up with Natalie. Both women could still be local.

Before she could answer, the doors chimed and parted.

“This way.” He gestured to the left and waited gallantly for her to precede him. Less gallantly, he noticed that she had a fantastic butt beneath the filmy red skirt.

That observation, combined with the act of unlocking his hotel room door, temporarily cast a different light on the moment. Normally if he was returning to a room with a lady…No, they were having dinner. He hadn’t seen C.J. in ten years and unlike his newscasting colleague, there was a limit to Dylan’s presumptuous ego.

Trying to think of something innocuous, he cleared his throat. “What do you do for a living?” His preference was always to discuss other people’s careers, rather than his aborted one.

“I design—” From the way she broke off as they entered the room, he first assumed there was more to the statement. But after a beat, she simply reiterated, “I’m a designer.”

“Fashion? Interiors?”

She laughed out loud, the musical sound making him smile even though he wasn’t in on the joke. “Fashion, me?”

He lowered his gaze meaningfully over her dress. “Is it that hard to believe?” Then again, despite the stylish red garment she wore, it was indubitably the woman beneath the clothes who provided the va-va-voom.

His eyes met hers, which were bright with appreciation. Heat leaped between them, enough to prompt him to cross the room to the air-conditioning unit and lower the temperature. When he turned around, he noticed that she was studying her surroundings. He found himself relieved that he’d stopped by for only a few moments earlier, just enough to check in and drop off his suitcase. Not that he was a slob, but boxer briefs over the back of a chair or dirty socks in the corner did not a romantic evening make.

“So.” He rocked back on his heels. “Room service. The menu should be here somewhere.”

The leather-bound menu turned out to be on a walnut-stained round table between two armchairs. He leaned against one seat, and C.J. took the other. He couldn’t help glancing at her legs as she settled against the upholstery. Whatever exercise had replaced cheerleading in her adult life, her calves were smooth and well toned.

Thumbing through the menu, he asked, “Anything particular you’re in the mood for tonight?”

He wouldn’t have thought twice about the question except that she flushed a deep, rosy pink. His grip tightened on the room service folio as arousal filled him. She was so damned expressive, responsive.

She averted her gaze for a second, then grinned at him, appearing somehow both shy and mischievous. “Is this where I’m supposed to say, ‘Oh, you decide’?”

“It’s probably best if you don’t,” he said. “But I do have a few ideas.”

Chloe was shocked by the blatantly suggestive teasing—mostly because she was actually participating. It appeared that “C.J.” had a naughty streak. Does that make me my own wicked stepsister? Natalie was never going to believe any of this. Nobody in Mistletoe would.

“Should I order up a bottle of wine?” Dylan asked, scanning the list. “Or maybe a carafe?”

She gave a quick shake of her head. “No more for me, thanks.” As it was, she felt drunk on Dylan’s proximity and ten years’ worth of finely aged fantasies—not to mention two glasses of hastily quaffed chardonnay. What she needed now was to get some food in her system. She’d barely eaten today, distracted by primping and wanting to make sure the dress didn’t bulge in the wrong places.

“Can I see that menu?” she asked, extending her hand.

“Absolutely.” He passed it to her. “I think I know what I want.”

Her heart thudded faster. Since when did everything sound like a double entendre? Since someone as sexy as Dylan Echols is the one saying it. The man could read aloud from programming manuals and make them sound hot.

After she’d decided on the steak salad and he chose the prime-rib dip, he called down to the kitchen.

He hung up the phone and smiled that same grin she remembered from civics class. “They said about twenty minutes. Can I get you something to drink in the meantime? I’ve got bottled water and colas.”

“I could use a water, thanks.” She closed her eyes for a moment. While the room wasn’t quite spinning, it wasn’t as stationary as she was used to, either.

Leaning into the minifridge, Dylan reverted to his earlier questions. “Just to clarify, did we establish that you’re in interior design or—”

“Uh-huh.” Interior design sounded like a far more sophisticated profession than computer nerd, even if it was absurdly out of character. “Interior designer. That’s me,” she said wistfully.

“You like what you do?”

She took a chilled bottle from him, nodding. “It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but yeah. I started out helping friends like Natalie, and word of mouth spread. I size up new clients, try to understand how they see themselves and how they want others to see them. Then I figure out the best way to capture them visually, to help them present that image.” She put a lot of thought into which fonts, graphics, color schemes and page layouts conveyed the most effective mood and brand.

“You must really be a people person to have that kind of insight into strangers and help them express themselves.”

A people person? “I never thought of it that way. Of course, this is Mistletoe. There aren’t that many true ‘strangers.’”

“So you did stay local, then.”

“Yes.” Thinking of Jane’s memorial service—all the things her vivacious aunt had done with her life and all the things Chloe had not—she added emphatically, “But I have plans to travel. Big plans!”

He chuckled. “You don’t have to convince me. I believe you.”

You shouldn’t. Half of what had come out of her mouth tonight was big fat lies. “Dylan…”

“Yes?” His voice slid down her spine, full of promise.

She shivered, whatever she’d been about to say evaporating.

Fresh air, that’s what she needed. Fresh air and an enormous do-over where this evening was concerned.

Chloe nodded toward the sliding-glass door. “Mind if we step out on the balcony while we wait?”

“Great idea.” He opened the door for them, and a pleasant breeze rippled into the room.

It was a beautiful spring evening, the night soft against Chloe’s bare arms, but the balcony itself was incredibly small. She hadn’t realized when she suggested coming out here that it would force her and Dylan even closer—not that she was complaining exactly. The heretofore undiscovered brazen part of her wanted to lean into him.

“Pretty night,” Dylan murmured, his profile to her. He glanced at the stars, then out at a landscape she imagined was worlds homier than Atlanta. “Nice view, too…even if we are only five stories up instead of looking down from one of the many penthouses to which I am accustomed.”

Chloe smirked. “You’re mocking me.”

He turned. “Maybe just a little.”

Smoothing a hand over her hair, he tucked a few strands behind her ear, out of reach of the light wind. His hand rested against her cheek. They stood motionless, so still that Chloe doubted she was even breathing. If asthma attacks felt like this, she wouldn’t mind them so much. What was oxygen compared to a moment like this, staring into those amazing deep green eyes and seeing herself—a more exotic, more sensual version of herself—reflected?

A mere week ago, she’d been chiding herself at Jane’s memorial service to start seizing the day, to take risks and reap the rewards. Now here she was, practically in the arms of the most alluring man she’d ever known. All it would take was a step forward…She stretched up to press her lips to his, although she might have lost her nerve if he hadn’t leaned down to meet her.

After one stunned second of paralysis, she closed her eyes and gave herself up to the moment, the once-in-a-lifetime chance to live out cherished fantasies. Wrapping her hand around his neck, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him back, dizzy with sensation.

Carpe Dylan.

Chapter Five

In the past, Dylan had prided himself on having finesse and being in control, but now he found himself reacting with pure instinct and enthusiastic need. C.J. tasted like woman and chocolate and wine, addictive, her mouth smothering his soft groan. It was the kind of kiss a man wanted to crawl inside, losing himself. Everything that had been eating at him lately, all his doubts and frustration, melted away.

Dropping one hand to her waist, he threaded the other through her hair, tilting her head back and deepening the kiss. But he was restless, craving more of the tantalizing contact, not content to keep his hands still when there was so much of her waiting to be explored. He skimmed over the smooth warmth of her shoulders, curving up to the straps of her red dress, letting his fingers slide slightly beneath the fabric. He heard her breath hitch and pulled away slightly.

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