Page 96 of The Naughty List Agreement

“The Naughty List is real?” Not sure why she’d deserved to be on it. “That book on your desk, I thought I saw my name in it.”

“Yes. The Yearweave provides the names and then I add the names to the Naughty List and Pete gets the names for the Nice List. It’s a checks and balances system.”

“When you saw my name, did you hesitate?”

“I always do. It’s hard to add someone to it.”

“But you did it,” she reminded him. “Is that why I’ve met Pete and why I see him around so often?”

“It is.” Nick came clean and told her that he’d bargained with Pete to keep him from punishing her, thinking that if he could convert her, he’d get the boost in Gold Lumen he needed.

“So I was a pawn.”

“Never a pawn. To begin with you were a name on the list. When you came to me with your offer, I felt like the Yearweave was showing me how I could get you off the list.”

“When did it become about me and not the list?” she asked him.

“That first kiss under the mistletoe at your house.”

That night had changed everything for her as well. “Is there anything else you aren’t telling me?”

“Nope. I promise. If you agree to become my wife—and Mrs. Claus—you’d have to maintain the lists and liaise with the Thornreach. That’s Pete’s realm.”

“Great, so it’s a job too. As if I’m not busy enough already! I have a job I love. This year has shown me how much I need the Winter Wonderland and how much it needs me. I can’t walk away from that,” she told him.

“I wouldn’t ask you too. I’ve been moving between worlds this year. It will take some adjustment but I want your life to stay as close to how it is now—except with me in it.”

Cora was overwhelmed. She needed time to think and process all of this, but she also needed some clarity. “Start with me on the Naughty List and my knot.”

“I think the Yearweave put you there for me to meet. I’ve been struggling to find a woman to share my life with. When your name came to me, it never occurred to me that that’s why. I knew you were a brusque email writer and pushed a version of the holiday that was steeped in commercialism.”

“Rude. My emails are to the point and my holiday isn’t just about consumerism.”

“I saw that as soon as we started working together. Things weren’t adding up and I’m only now figuring out that fate put us in each other’s paths for a reason. You were tangled up in your past Christmases, not able to see the beauty you were creating in the present. I was also struggling, mired in a hit to my ego and trying desperately to prove I could do it all on my own. I think the Weaver of Seasons … I think she saw that we were made for each other.”

Made for each other.

Those words resonated deep within her soul.

“Let’s say I buy that. How would this work exactly?” she asked. He wasn’t lying to her. This was the man who had never let her down. She wanted to say yes to all of this. Her heart was on board, it was her mind and that wounded girl that still lived inside of Cora that held her back.

“You’d live here in Hearthvale with me, in the castle. I want to marry you, Cora. I can’t imagine a future without you in it.”

“But I’m not immortal.”

“If you agree to marry me, you’d sign a magical contract, the same as I did when I took over being Santa from my dad. It would grant you immortality in return for carrying out your responsibilities both here in Hearthvale and in the mortal world.”

Okay… “Would I be able to keep my job in Pine Falls?”

“Of course. The Gold Lumen you have created in that event is powerful. The success of your event has sparked other events in towns all over the country. Lumen like that will spread across North America and around the world.”

“I’d need time to decide.”

“I have until Christmas Eve,” he told her.

“What happens then?”

“Like I said, the mantle passes to Pete. He would take control of the season.”