Mistletoe Cinderella

in her chest. On top of her other crimes this weekend, she’d inadvertently belittled him just because she was trying to cover her own butt. After all the times she’d felt inadequate in her life, she couldn’t stand to do the same to someone else, even accidentally.

“I’ll come to your apartment,” she blurted.

Both his eyebrows shot up. “You’re kidding.”

Well, he couldn’t be any more surprised by the spontaneous offer than she was.

“You caught me unawares today-I don’t usually give presentations to former crushes while standing in my kitchen in bright purple T-shirts of dubious taste-but I’ll get my materials together and do a formal consultation for you later in the week.” After she’d had time to learn something about feng shui but before she lost her nerve. Unless…“I’m afraid it will have to be soon. Starting next month, my schedule just takes off. But if you don’t have the time right now, I under-”

“Not a problem.”

“Oh. Great,” she lied. This is getting to be a bad habit.

She wanted to smack her forehead and just admit all; it seemed simpler than continuing this far-fetched charade. But she looked into those green eyes and forgot what she was going to say. As Natalie had grumbled during their teen years, Chloe avoided conflict whenever possible, even if it meant letting someone like Candy occasionally run over her. While Chloe hoped she’d matured past some of that, the thought of the conflict, the contempt, she’d cause if she told Dylan the sordid truth made her stomach clench.

Grateful to break eye contact, she put the pizza in the oven and set the timer.

As soon as she sat at the table with him, he asked, “So, you have a home office?”

“Down the hall. But it’s way too messy for anyone to see,” she prevaricated. Chloe was compulsively neat, a holdover from her mother believing that if they could just keep the home dust-free Chloe wouldn’t have asthma attacks. Rose had kept the house meticulous and raised Chloe to do the same.

“Fair enough. But do you have a portfolio of your work here that you show perspective clients?”

“Actually, no. That’s a good idea, though.”

“Surely you have a Web site.”

“It’s, um, down temporarily. Being transitioned to a new server.” She bounced out of her chair like a demented jack-in-the-box. “I’m being a terrible hostess. Can I get you a drink?”

“Whatever you’re having.”

Her hands trembled as she pulled a jug from the fridge. Dylan sat looking so relaxed in comparison that she wanted to scream just to relieve some of her tension.

He smiled. “For the record, I like the bright purple shirt. Have you actually been lei’d?”

Lemonade sloshed over the top of the pitcher. “Excuse me?”

He flashed that same wolfish smile from this morning. “What I mean is, have you been to Hawaii? You mentioned wanting to travel. I wondered if the shirt was a personal souvenir or a gift from someone else or…”

“Ah.” Barely paying attention to what she was doing, she tore too many paper towels off the roll to clean up her spill. “Gift. From my late aunt Jane. She was really something…visited at least four continents. She sent me all kinds of crazy things. She died on her most recent trip. In her sleep, in the Caribbean. There are definitely worse ways to go, so I should be glad.”

Dylan studied her, the playfulness gone from his tone. “You miss her.”

“A lot. Even though she wasn’t in Mistletoe much, she was still a major presence in my life.” She blinked hard against the tears she hadn’t expected. “We just buried her last week. To tell you the truth, I haven’t been myself ever since. I…”

“Yes?” There was empathy in his voice. Because of how much he missed his father?

Chloe leaned against the counter, staring into the eyes of a man she hadn’t seen in ten years, a man who hadn’t even known she existed ten years ago. Yet she felt she could tell him anything. Would he understand how she’d so desperately wanted to become the person Aunt Jane saw in her? Chloe knew that her aunt had loved her, had been proud of her, but she was also aware that Jane had hoped for more for her niece. Recently Chloe found herself yearning for an undefined more…but not enough to change a carefully organized and mostly satisfactory existence to reach for it. At least, not until last night.

That had been a big enough shake to register on the Richter scale. She probably should have hurried for the nearest doorway as soon as she’d seen Dylan in the lobby.

“C.J.?” His tone was heartbreakingly gentle. “Was there something you wanted to say?”

But she didn’t think she’d be able to get the words past the lump of emotion. It was all tangled together, and the minute she tried to explain any of it, she’d start sobbing. Her eyes were already stinging. She had plenty to regret about her behavior this weekend, and she wasn’t going to add to the list by bursting into tears in front of Dylan.

So she swallowed, reaching for the timer before it had a chance to buzz. “I think the pizza’s ready.”

“Right.” He looked away, and the startling connection between them was broken.

Chloe didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

CHICKEN-FRIED STEAK wasn’t nearly as good when it was cold, Chloe discovered. The gravy had congealed unappetizingly while she filled Natalie in on the details of the past twenty-four hours. Natalie, sitting on the living room floor on the opposite side of the rectangular coffee table, had finished her dinner, almost choking on laughter and mashed potatoes when Chloe repeated her supposed specialty.

“Feng shui?” Natalie had sputtered. “What on earth possessed you to say that?”

“It’s not like I have an extensive mental encyclopedia of decorating terms to choose from! Heck, I’m lucky I was able to come up with that on the spot. It was just…everyone in this town sees me as a computer geek, which I am, but it was nice for Dylan to see me as-” A total fake? Yeah, much better.

Chloe pushed away her take-out container of untouched food and considered her rash promise. “I can’t believe I agreed to go to his apartment.” He’d just looked so irresistibly vulnerable. She would have agreed to virtually anything in the moment.

“What I cannot believe is that you’ve scored more alone time with Dylan Echols.” Natalie wagged her brows. “Lucky girl.”

“Alone time is how I got into this mess in the first place.” Chloe sighed, resting her head against the couch behind her. “Maybe it’s not too late to…Think I could convince him that every graduating class has a senior prank and this was it, ten years later?”

“We did have a senior prank. Back in ’99. A few guys from the swim team and a few from the chess club took apart the lavatory stalls and reassembled them on the front lawn.”

Only partly listening, Chloe tried to regroup. It was devastating to imagine telling Dylan she was a big fat fake. How could she admit that after the way she’d once idolized him, after the immensely flattering way he looked at her? The way he-her skin flushed with warmth-kissed her. She’d officially gotten herself in too deep to undo all the fibs, including the comparatively innocuous one that she had dinner plans with her parents tomorrow. Before he’d left today, Dylan had invited her to be his last-minute date to the dinner honoring the coach.

Stupid irony. The guy of her dreams was seeking her out at seemingly every opportunity, and she had to turn him down because of her own self-sabotage.

Her intellect argued that he was seeking her out for local weekend events because he happened to be here in Mistletoe and she was convenient. Even then, he probably would have rapidly lost interest if she’d said, “Don’t you remember? I’m Chloe, the mousy tongue-tied girl you ignored throughout high school. I stayed in Mistletoe, live in my parents’ house and work with computers.” Where was the glamour and sex appeal in that? Most people were not turned on by HTML code.

“I think I want to be someone else,” Chloe said.

“Okay, but Candy?” Natalie pulled a face.

“No, not her. Someone with her confidence maybe, but not her cruel streak. Someone who knows how to talk to men. Someone who, when she notices a guy staring, assumes it’s for a good reason and not because she tucked her dress into her panty hose. Maybe I shouldn’t have stayed in Mistletoe.” Chloe was an arguably successful adult; would she have fared better if she’d started fresh someplace, where no one knew her as the wheezy kid or uncoordinated teen?

“Hey!” Natalie looked genuinely alarmed. “I, for one, am thrilled that you stayed in Mistletoe. Don’t move!”