Chapter 2 Eli
ELI
She had tinsel in her hair.
Not the accidental, “I walked through a dollar-store garland display” kind. These were intentional strands woven in like she was celebrating something. After she walked out of my office, I actually looked it up. Turns out women did that on purpose for “festive vibes.” Or Christmas. Same difference.
I shut my laptop with a little more force than necessary and leaned back, letting my chair spin toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The view was next-level. Pleasure Valley after dark—twinkling lights, quiet streets, the whole postcard-cute aesthetic.
I spent more time looking at it here than from my penthouse, which probably said way too much about my priorities.
At least the office didn’t echo when I walked through it.
But work wasn’t happening tonight. Not when my brain kept replaying her.
The woman with tinsel in her hair, a smile that didn’t quit, and curves that made my palms itch like they were already holding her.
She walked in looking for someone and walked out with my focus, my sanity, and—if I wasn’t careful—my damn self-control.
And I did not lose control. At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
I’d pulled her employee file after lunch. Not because I was interested—just due diligence. The CEO should know his employees, especially when they knocked over five grand worth of awards and apologized like their life depended on it.
Gabriella Travers. Twenty-three. Graduated summa cum laude with a degree in English and a minor in marketing.
Hired remotely in June, right after graduation.
Six months of stellar work—every piece of copy she’d written had performed above benchmarks.
The Gingerbread and Gossip campaign had gone viral, driving a three hundred and forty percent increase in engagement for the client.
Address? Reboot Condominiums, Unit 16D.
I’d stared at that line longer than I should have.
She lived in my building. Nine floors below me, but still.
I’d been passing her in the lobby, probably, or the elevator.
Maybe that’s why she seemed familiar this morning, why something about her had lodged itself under my skin like a splinter I couldn’t quite reach.
Her emergency contact was listed as “Mom” with a phone number in Ohio. No significant other, no spouse—not that it mattered. Not that I was looking.
I grabbed my jacket from the back of my chair and shrugged it on.
The office was quiet now, everyone having gone home to their lives, their families, their Christmas shopping, or whatever normal people did at 6:15 on a Tuesday night.
I should go home too. Order something. Pretend to watch TV.
Fall asleep on the couch because my bed was too big and too empty and reminded me too much of all the things I’d lost.
My grandmother had always said I worked too much. “Eli, sweetheart, you’re going to wake up one day and realize you’ve built an empire but forgotten to build a life.”
She’d been right, of course. She usually was.
I locked my office door and headed down the hallway, my footsteps echoing on the polished concrete. Past the content studio—dark now, ring lights powered down. Past the glass-walled conference rooms we used for client pitches. Past—
I stopped.
The small conference room at the end of the hall—the one I used for private calls and strategy sessions, the one with the whiteboard I’d covered in Q1 projections just yesterday—had its door closed. Light glowed from underneath.
Nobody used that room. It wasn’t exactly off-limits, but everyone knew it was mine. My assistant would’ve mentioned it if she’d booked it for something.
I walked over and pushed the door open. Gabriella sat at the far end of the table, laptop open, shoes kicked off underneath her chair, legs tucked up underneath her.
Her hair—still sparkly—was piled on top of her head in some kind of messy bun situation that shouldn’t have been attractive but absolutely was.
She had earbuds in and was muttering to herself while typing, then deleting, then typing again.
A half-eaten granola bar sat next to her laptop. A travel mug that read Powered by Caffeine and Christmas Cheer perched precariously on the edge of the table. She’d commandeered my space and made it hers—cozy, chaotic, and completely at odds with the stark minimalism I’d carefully created.
I should’ve been annoyed. I wasn’t.
“Gabriella.”
She didn’t hear me. She just kept muttering and typing, her face scrunched up in concentration.
I tried again, louder. “Gabriella.”
She jumped, one earbud flying out as her gaze shifted to me. Her hand knocked into the travel mug, which tipped. Luckily, she lunged forward and caught it before it could slam into her laptop.
“Crap on a cracker.” She pressed a hand to her chest, breathing hard. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“You’re in my conference room.”
Her eyes went wide. “Your—” She looked around like she was just now seeing where she was.
“Oh. Is this yours? Nobody said—I just needed somewhere quiet, and this door was open, and—” She was already shoving her feet back into her heels, grabbing for her laptop. “I’m so sorry. I’ll go. I didn’t know.”
“Stop.” I took a tentative step forward. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. I’ve been here for—” She glanced at her laptop screen and her face went pale. “Oh no. It’s after six?”
“It’s almost 6:30.”
“Shit.” She grabbed her charger, started wrapping the cord around her hand with jerky, frantic movements.
“I completely lost track of time. There were so many people, and the noise, and I couldn’t focus, and then I found this room, and it was so quiet, and I just—” She stopped, took a breath. “I’m rambling again.”
“You do that a lot.”
“Only when I’m nervous.” She dropped the charger into her bag and stood, smoothing down her sweater. The tinsel in her hair caught the light. “Which, apparently, is constantly around you. Great pattern I’m establishing.”
I should let her leave. Should say goodnight, go home, and forget about the way she looked sitting in my space with her shoes off and her guard down.
Instead, I heard myself say, “I’m headed out too. I can give you a ride home.”
She blinked. “That’s…that’s okay. I can take the bus.”
“It’s dark. It’s December. And we live in the same building.”
Her mouth fell open slightly. “We do?”
“Reboot. You’re on sixteen. I’m on twenty-five.”
“You looked me up.”
“I look up all my employees.”
“After they destroy your award collection?”
The corner of my mouth twitched. “Especially then.”
She studied me for a moment, and I could see her weighing her options. Pride versus practicality. Nervousness versus exhaustion.
“I really should finish this article,” she finally said. “I’ve been working on it all afternoon, but I’m stuck, and if I don’t get it done tonight, I’ll fall behind on the content calendar, and—”
“What’s it about?”
“What?”
“The article. What’s it about?”
Gabriella bit her lip, and I tried not to notice how full it was.
Not to mention how the tiny gesture made something low in my gut tighten.
“It’s for the Cozy and Festive influencer network.
‘Ten Ways to Make Your Holiday Gathering Unforgettable.’ Except I only have eight ways, and numbers six and seven are basically the same thing, so really I have seven, and—”
“What do you have so far?”
She looked at me like I’d spoken in a different language. “You want to help?”
“I run a content creation company. I know a thing or two about listicles.” I shrugged off my jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. “Show me what you’ve got.”
“I don’t—you don’t have to—”
“Gabriella.” I pulled out the chair across from her and sat down. “Show me.”
She hesitated for another beat, then slowly sank back into her seat and turned her laptop around.
I scanned the document. Her writing was good—warm and engaging.
The kind of voice that made you feel like you were getting advice from a friend.
But she was right about six and seven. Both were variations on “create a signature cocktail.”
“Cut seven entirely,” I said. “Six stays. For number eight, flip it—instead of ‘set the mood with music,’ make it ‘create a moment of silence.’ Everyone does music. Nobody does intentional quiet.”
She leaned forward, interested now instead of nervous. “A moment of silence?”
“Have everyone put their phones in a basket. Light candles. Spend five minutes just being present. No performing for social media, no documenting. Just existing together.” The words came out rougher than I intended. “People forget how to do that.”
Something shifted in her expression. “That’s…actually really beautiful. And totally on-brand for the cozy aesthetic.” She started typing, her fingers flying over the keys. “”Okay, so now I have seven solid ones. What about eight, nine, and ten?”
I watched her work for a moment—the way her nose scrunched when she was concentrating, how she mouthed words as she typed them. She’d pushed her sleeves up to her elbows, revealing delicate wrists and hands that moved with surprising grace.
Focus, Shepard.
“Eight—create a memory jar. Have guests write down their favorite moment from the night. Read them at the end.” I paused, thinking.
“Nine—send everyone home with something handmade. Doesn’t have to be complicated—cookies, a small ornament, a handwritten note.
Something that extends the gathering beyond the night itself. ”
I could see her mentally testing each suggestion, weighing how it would fit with our brand voice. “And ten?”
“Ten—create a signature moment. Something that makes your gathering uniquely yours. Could be a toast with a special story, a game everyone plays, a tradition you start. The thing people will remember and ask about next year.”
She stopped typing and looked up at me, those dark eyes wide and a little awed. “How did you just solve my writer’s block in under two minutes?”
“I’ve been doing this a long time.”
“No, it’s more than that.” She tilted her head, studying me. “Those last three aren’t just good content ideas. They’re…personal. Like you’ve actually thought about what makes a gathering meaningful.”
I had. Every Christmas with my grandmother. The way she’d made everything special—the food, the decorations, the way she’d insist we go around the table and say what we were grateful for. The memory jar we’d kept for years, reading past entries and adding new ones.
But I wasn’t about to tell her that.
“Do the work long enough, you learn what resonates,” I said instead.
She didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t push. She just went back to typing, filling in the gaps I’d given her.
I should leave. Let her finish. Go home to my empty penthouse and my empty life.
“You hungry?” The question came out before I could stop it.
She glanced up. “What?”
“It’s after six. You’ve been working all day. Are you hungry?”
“I…yeah, actually.” She gestured to the granola bar wrapper. “But I’m almost done here, so—”
“I’ll order something. Chinese? Thai? There’s a good Italian place that delivers.”
“You want to order dinner. Here. While I finish this article.”
“Unless you have other plans.”
She stared at me like I’d grown a second head. “I knocked over your awards this morning, invaded your private conference room, and now you want to buy me dinner?”
“We’re working late on a project. I always buy dinner for the team when we work late like this.”
“Eli—”
“Thai or Chinese, Gabriella. Choose.”
A smile tugged at her lips—the first real one I’d seen since this morning. “Thai. Pad see ew, extra vegetables, medium spice.”
“Specific order. I like it.” I pulled out my phone. “Spring rolls?”
“Always.”
“Good answer.”
I placed the order while she finished typing, and when she finally hit save and looked up at me, there was something different in her expression. Less nervous. More curious.
“Why are you being nice to me?” she asked.
“I’m not being nice. I’m ensuring my copywriter doesn’t burn out on day one of the return-to-office mandate.”
“Right. Purely professional.”
“Purely.”
But we both knew it was a lie.