The Mistletoe Motive(26)

“That’s why he never visits work,” I explain. “Well, that’s not true, I’ve brought in my parents after closing to show off the place, but not when we’re open, because people can be so intense and they swarm you and ask for autographs and they just—”

“Ruin it,” Jonathan says quietly. “Your ability to have an ordinary life with him.”

I peer up at him. “Yeah.”

He nods. “I’m sure he’s very protective of that. And you. I would be.”

“He is,” I whisper.

“Well…” Jonathan clears his throat, eyes fixed on the road. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

I fiddle with the M&Ms bag, unsettled by how relieved I am that he knows the truth, how sure I am that I can trust his word. “Thanks, Jonathan. I appreciate that.”

Quiet stretches between us until it’s taut and dense. It’s almost unbearable.

Until Jonathan tells Siri to play “Holiday Radio” with a note of command in his voice that’s downright pornographic.

Now that’s unbearable.

I gape at him. He glances my way, then does a double take. “What?”

“I’ve never heard your voice sound like that.”

He arches an eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Very stern and bossy.” I crisscross my legs against the ache that’s nearly painful now. “Like…bedroom bossy.”

He gives me a disbelieving side-glance. “I told Siri to play a music station, Gabriella, not get on her knees.”

I choke on a fresh mouthful of M&Ms.

Jonathan stares at the road, battling a smile and barely holding his ground. “You have a filthy mind.”

“Me? You’re the one who just said—”

“Hush, you,” he says, throwing my words back at me. “And enjoy this assault on the ears that I’m putting up with for your sake.”

I snort a laugh. But my laugh fades as the song fills the car, the words hot and thick with meaning: I’ll wait up for you, dear. Santa baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight.

Jonathan clears his throat and rolls his shoulders, like his clothes feel too tight. I squirm in my seat, then crack the window. My cheeks burn.

“Hot?” he asks.

God, am I ever.

“A bit,” I tell him.

Brow knit, Jonathan turns the dial down on the heat, then cracks his window, too. This horny song helps nothing. We’re both flushed, eyes pinned on the road. I can hear each deep breath he takes, feel every thundering beat of his heart.

Maybe that’s how I sound, too.

Panicking, I set my hands on my lap and discreetly play the song’s chord progression, like my thighs are piano keys. It’s a soothing movement that always calms me.

And while I settle myself, I walk through, step-by-step, what’s happened since I got in this car. I am increasingly turned on and disoriented. The world feels like that Shel Silverstein poem, “Backward Bill”—upside down and unrecognizable.

Jonathan voluntarily drove me home. He bought mint chocolate M&Ms for me because he’s sorry for how he acted this morning. He’s playing holiday music for my enjoyment, even though he hates it. Either he has another personality he’s been hiding for twelve months, or he’s up to something.

I turn in my seat, facing him again. “Why are you being nice to me?”

His gaze remains fastened on the road, which is covered in snow. After a long, tense pause, he says, “I’m going to answer your question with a question.”

“I don’t like that.”

“Too bad,” he says, before a deep inhale. Then he exhales, thin and slow. “Why do you think I’m being nice to you?”

“Because you have a strategy. Some new angle for taking me down at work.”

“And if I told you anything other than that, would you believe me?”

After a year of relentless mutual antagonism, the answer is out of my mouth before I consciously think it. “No, I wouldn’t.”

But for the first time since the day we met and chilly Jonathan Frost tipped my snow-globe world on its head, I wonder if maybe—just maybe—I’m wrong.





Chapter 8


Playlist: “Mille Cherubini in Coro,” Andrew Bird


Over holiday music and my stealthy lap piano playing, Jonathan and I bicker the remainder of our way back to the city, disagreeing on which is the most direct route to my apartment that also avoids the worst traffic, right up until Jonathan smoothly parallel parks in front of my building. Because that’s how life rolls for Jonathan Frost, even though I can count on my hand in the two years I’ve lived here how many times I’ve gotten a spot within even a block of my apartment.

I glare at him. “Seriously? Right in front of my place?”

He gives me a self-satisfied arch of one eyebrow, a wry almost-grin. “I have the world’s best luck with parking.”

“Of course you do,” I mutter darkly.

Wrenching the car into park, Jonathan turns off the ignition, then stares at me, his throat working in a rough swallow. “I read that romance novel I bought at Bailey’s.”

I peer up at him, surprised, and…intrigued. “Oh?”

He nods. “It was good. It’s not Austen, but—”