Chapter 6
Randi
Randi had walked into the glass-walled conference room with her notebook hugged a little too tightly to her chest and a strange mix of excitement and nerves fluttering in her stomach, the kind that made everything feel sharper and louder than it actually was, because this was it.
This was her first official team planning meeting as an employee of TimeOff and her first chance to prove that she hadn’t just been a last-minute hire thrown into chaos, but someone who actually deserved to be there.
The room was already half full and voices overlapped in easy, practiced conversation.
Laptops were open and coffee cups steamed as she slipped into a chair near the middle of the table.
She tried to look like she belonged even as she smoothed down the front of her blouse and reminded herself to breathe.
She had contributed and she had worked ridiculous hours to help get that water park open.
Randi sighed. She had problem-solved on the fly and had cared more than anyone had asked her to. As far as she was concerned, that had to count for something.
Marissa caught her eye from across the table and gave her a quick, reassuring smile.
That steadied her just enough that when the chatter began to settle and the meeting officially started, Randi managed to sit a little straighter with her pen poised and ready to take notes.
Hopefully, she would be ready to speak when it mattered.
“Before we dive in,” Marissa said with her voice carrying easily across the room, “I want to take a moment to recognize Randi.”
Randi blinked and almost dropped her pen that hovered midair as several heads turned toward her. She felt heat rise to her cheeks as she was caught completely unprepared for the sudden attention.
“She came in right before the final push,” Marissa continued, “and her contributions were a huge part of why the water park opened on schedule. Honestly, I don’t think we’d be celebrating that success without her.”
There were nods around the table, a few murmured agreements, and Randi managed a small, awkward smile. Her heart pounded in a way that was equal parts pride and disbelief, because she hadn’t expected recognition this quickly and certainly hadn’t expected to feel seen.
“Thank you,” she said softly and hoped her voice didn’t give away how much that meant.
And then the door opened.
It wasn’t dramatic. There was no sudden hush or cinematic pause, but something shifted. A subtle change in the energy of the room as people straightened just a little more, as conversations cut off mid-thought, as attention redirected toward the man stepping inside.
Randi glanced up and froze.
For a second, her brain refused to make the connection.
It refused to reconcile the image in front of her with the one in her memory, because the man walking in now wore a tailored suit that fit him like it had been made for him.
His hair was neatly slicked back and his expression was composed and unreadable in a way that felt miles away from the easygoing, casual smile she had seen just the day before.
Chance.
Her stomach dropped so suddenly it felt like she had missed a step on a staircase.
She stared as her mind scrambled. Somehow she hadn’t put it together.
She had been so stupid that she hadn’t recognized him at the water park.
The man she had teased about his name. The man who had joked with her in the lazy river.
The man she had ridiculed for being afraid of a water slide was the same man now taking a seat at the head of the table.
She felt like an absolute idiot. How had she missed it?
She studied him as closely as she could without being obvious. Maybe it was the clothes. The suit sharpened everything about him. His posture was straighter and more deliberate, and his expression now held none of that easy warmth or relaxed charm she had assumed was just part of who he was.
Now, he looked every bit the CEO, controlled and focused. He didn’t even glance at her once.
“Let’s get started,” Chance said, his voice professional.
The way he avoided even so much as a glance in her direction made it seem as if the previous day had never happened, as if he hadn’t floated beside her in the lazy river with the sunlight in his hair as he smiled.
Randi swallowed and forced herself to look down at her notes. She had to gather herself because clearly, whatever that moment had been yesterday, it didn’t matter here.
Yesterday she had made a total fool of herself. Today, this was work. This was real.
The meeting moved quickly with discussions flowing from one topic to another, updates on performance metrics, operational adjustments, and future timelines.
Randi tried to focus and keep up while she jotted down key points.
She was still acutely aware of Chance at the head of the table, of the way he spoke with quiet authority, and how everyone listened when he did.
Eventually, the conversation shifted.
“There’s another property,” Chance said and clicked to a new slide on the screen, “a water park that’s been underperforming for the last three years in Clearwater. We’ve been approached about a potential acquisition.”
The slide showed numbers, graphs trending downward, attendance figures that told a clear story of decline.
“It’s not in great shape,” he continued, “but the location has potential, and with the right strategy, it could be turned around.”
Randi leaned forward slightly, interest sparking despite herself, because this was the kind of challenge she understood, it was the kind of problem she had been thrown into and somehow helped solve.
Ideas began forming almost immediately, connections clicking into place, and before she could second-guess herself, she spoke.
“If the issue is declining attendance,” she said, her voice steady but carrying a hint of urgency, “then it’s not just about operations.
It’s about experience, right? People don’t come back if nothing feels new, so what if instead of just fixing what’s broken, you rebrand part of it entirely.
You could have seasonal attractions, rotating themes.
Just something that gives people a reason to return more than once a year. ”
She stopped, just long enough to glance toward Chance for input. He stared at her and she expected…what?
Engagement? Interest? Maybe even that flicker of amusement she remembered from the day before?
But his expression didn’t change.
“If rebranding alone solved failing parks,” he said, cutting in smoothly, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
The words weren’t harsh, but they were cold and dismissive, like her idea hadn’t even been worth finishing.
Randi felt the air press in around her as several people at the table looked down at their laptops, suddenly very interested in their screens.
“I wasn’t saying alone,” she tried, a little more carefully this time, “just that it could be part of a larger strategy. If you combine it with targeted marketing and—”
“We’re looking at scalable solutions,” Chance interrupted again, his tone still even, still controlled, but final in a way that left no room for argument, “not experimental ones.”
And that was that. The conversation moved on without her.
Randi sat back slowly and her fingers tightening around her pen as frustration flared sharp and sudden. She knew her ideas had merit and that she wasn’t just throwing out random suggestions. And yet he had brushed them aside like they were nothing, like she was nothing.
It didn’t make sense.
Not when she could still so clearly picture him the day before leaning back against the side of the lazy river, water drifting around them and sunlight reflecting off the surface as they laughed and joked about rapids and waterfalls that every good water park needed.
For a second back then, he had looked at her like she was interesting. And just now for the briefest moment, she thought she saw it again.
A flicker. Something softer behind his eyes as she spoke. But it vanished so quickly she wasn’t even sure it had been real. The man sitting at the head of the table now had none of that warmth, none of that easy humor, none of the openness she had seen before.
By the time the meeting ended, Randi’s frustration had settled into something heavier that sat low in her chest and refused to budge.
As the meeting broke up and people began to gather their things and file out, she didn’t wait or even linger before she fled without so much as a glance toward Marissa.
She just stood, closed her notebook, and walked out. No goodbye, no explanation. Just the steady click of her heels against the floor as she made her way down the hallway. Her thoughts were a tangled mess of irritation and disbelief.
The worst part that she just couldn’t shake wasn’t just that he had dismissed her. It was that she knew he wasn’t always like that.
She had seen the other version of him.
And now that she knew it existed, she couldn’t help wanting it back.