Chapter 3 Gabriella
GAbrIELLA
Ishould not be having this much fun.
That was my first thought while eating Thai food with Eli Shepard in his private conference room. My second thought was that I was in so much trouble.
He’d pushed the takeout containers to the center of the table, creating a makeshift buffet between us.
Spring rolls, pad see ew, and green curry that smelled like heaven.
I’d taken my first bite expecting awkward silence, maybe some stilted conversation about content calendars and engagement metrics. Instead, he’d asked me about Ohio.
“What’s it like?” He twirled noodles around his fork with surprising grace for someone who looked like he could bench-press a small car. “Growing up there, I mean.”
“Flat. Corn. More corn.” I shrugged, reaching for a spring roll. “It’s nice, though. My parents still live in the same house I grew up in. White picket fence, the whole thing.”
“Sounds cozy.”
“It was.” I paused, considering. “Also kind of suffocating, if I’m honest.”
His eyebrows rose. “How so?”
I hadn’t meant to go there. Hadn’t meant to veer anywhere near personal territory with my boss’s boss’s boss while sitting in his private conference room after hours.
But something about the way he looked at me—actually looked, like he was genuinely interested in the answer—made the words tumble out.
“My parents are…a lot.” I set down my fork, buying time. “Helicopter types, except helicopters have more chill. Every friend had to be vetted. Every activity required a background check and a notarized letter of intent. I love them, but Jesus, it was exhausting.”
“Strict household.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” I laughed, but it came out a little bitter. “I couldn’t go to sleepovers unless the host had met the parents at least three times. School dances required a chaperone—my mom, obviously. And dating?” I shook my head. “Forget it.”
Something shifted in his expression. “They didn’t let you date?”
“Oh, they would’ve let me. If I wanted to put some poor guy through the gauntlet.
” I took a long drink of water, remembering.
“My dad had this whole system. First, he’d want to meet the guy—formal sit-down in our living room.
Then there’d be questions. Where are you from?
What are your intentions? What’s your five-year plan? And that was just round one.”
Eli had stopped eating, his attention fully on me now. “Sounds intense.”
“It was medieval.” I stabbed at my noodles. “So I just…didn’t. I’d do group things with friends—movies, bowling, whatever. But I’d never tell my parents if there was a guy I liked in the group because the thought of subjecting anyone to that screening process made me want to crawl into a hole.”
“So you never dated.”
“Nope.” The word came out more defensive than I intended. “I mean, I had a life. Friends, activities, school. I wasn’t some tragic shut-in. I just didn’t date.”
He was quiet for a moment, studying me with those impossibly blue eyes. “Not even in college?”
“I was too busy trying to figure out who I was without their rules.” I met his gaze, daring him to judge.
“Senior year, I finally let myself try. I went on a few dates. Nothing serious. Mostly just proving to myself I could.” I paused.
“Speaking of things that are hard to navigate—why did you call everyone back to the office now? Right before Christmas?”
His expression shifted, something defensive flickering across his face. “I’d been running the numbers. Looking at engagement metrics and campaign performance. The team was becoming too disconnected working remotely.”
“Disconnected how?”
“Response times were slower. Collaboration felt forced. The creative energy wasn’t there anymore.” He set down his fork. “I needed everyone in the same room again. To rebuild that cohesion.”
“Right before the holidays, though?” I couldn’t keep the edge out of my voice. “You couldn’t wait until January?”
“The Q4 campaigns were underperforming. I couldn’t afford to wait.”
I studied him, seeing past the business justification. “Or maybe you just didn’t want to be alone in that office during the most family-oriented time of year?”
He went very still. “That’s not—”
“I’m a writer, Eli. I read people.” I softened my tone. “You said earlier your grandmother used to make Christmas special. How long has she been gone?”
“Three years.” The words came out rough. “And I’m not discussing this.”
“Okay.” I let it drop, but I’d seen the truth. He’d ordered everyone back not because the metrics demanded it, but because he couldn’t face another Christmas alone. “For what it’s worth, I get it. Being alone during the holidays sucks.”
Something in his shoulders relaxed. “The timing could’ve been better.”
“You think?”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “Point taken. What about kissing?”
I swallowed a mouthful of food and stared for a long moment before finally managing to ask, “Sorry?”
“You said you dated senior year. I’m assuming that involved some kissing.”
Oh crap. We were really doing this. Talking about my pathetic kiss history with the hottest man I’d ever seen while surrounded by Thai food containers.
“One kiss,” I admitted. “During a youth event at church. He got me away from the crowd, and I thought, okay, this is it. This is the moment. I’m a normal high school senior doing normal high school senior things.”
“But?”
“But it was…” I searched for the right word. “Wet. And aggressive. Like he was trying to consume my face. I spent the whole time trying not to gag and wondering if I was doing it wrong or if he was doing it wrong or if kissing was just universally terrible and everyone was lying about it.”
Eli made a sound that might’ve been a laugh or a cough. “One bad kiss doesn’t mean all kisses are bad.”
“Spoken like someone who’s clearly had good kisses.”
“I have.”
“Well, good for you.” I picked up my fork again, suddenly needing something to do with my hands. “Some of us peaked at one terrible kiss and called it a day.”
“That’s a shame.”
Something in his tone made me look up. He was watching me with an intensity that made the air between us feel thick and charged.
“Why is it a shame?” My voice came out breathier than I intended.
“Because a good kiss is…” He paused, considering. “It’s everything. When it’s right, when it’s with the right person, it can make you forget your own name.”
My mouth went dry. “That seems dramatic.”
“It’s not.” He leaned back in his chair, but his gaze never left mine. “A good kiss has buildup. Anticipation. You know it’s coming, and the waiting is almost as good as the kiss itself.”
Oh.
“What else?” The question escaped before I could stop it.
The corner of his mouth quirked up—the closest thing to a smile I’d seen from him all day. “It’s about reading the other person. Paying attention to what they respond to. A good kiss isn’t one-sided. It’s a conversation.”
“A conversation without words.”
“Exactly.” He tilted his head, studying me. “And it starts soft. Testing. Learning. You don’t just dive in face-first like you’re bobbing for apples.”
I snorted despite myself. “That’s a horrifying visual.”
“But accurate?”
“Painfully.”
“Then he was an idiot who didn’t deserve to kiss you.”
The words hung between us, heavy with implication. My heart was doing something complicated in my chest—hammering and fluttering and generally making it hard to breathe.
“So what else makes a good kiss?” I heard myself ask. “We’ve got anticipation, reading the other person, starting soft. What’s next?”
His eyes darkened. “Touch.”
“Touch.”
“Not just lips. Hands in hair, on the face, the back of the neck. Pulling someone closer. Touch that says ‘I want this, I want you, I can’t get close enough.’”
I swallowed hard. “That’s four. What’s five?”
“The moment when it shifts from soft to something more. When the testing becomes claiming. When you both stop holding back.”
“And six?”
“The sound.” His voice had gone lower, rougher. “The catch in breathing, the soft noises people make when they’re lost in it. When they’re feeling everything.”
“Seven.” My voice was barely above a whisper now. “What’s seven?”
He was quiet for a long moment, his gaze dropping to my mouth before meeting my eyes again. “The way it ends. Not abrupt, not awkward. Slow. Reluctant. Like neither of you wants it to be over.”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. The conference room had shrunk to just the two of us, the table between us suddenly feeling like both a barrier and the only thing keeping me grounded.
“That’s a pretty comprehensive list,” I managed.
“We could keep going. Make it a top ten.”
“Except I’ve never experienced any of that, so I’m probably not the best person to help write this particular how-to guide.”
The words came out light, joking, but something shifted in his expression. Something heated and intent and a little bit dangerous.
“I could show you.”
My heart stopped. “What?”
“If you wanted. I could show you what a good kiss feels like.” Eli leaned forward, elbows on the table. “So you’d know. For future reference.”
I watched the war happening behind his eyes—professionalism versus desire, should versus want. He was my boss’s boss’s boss. We were alone in his conference room after hours. This was inappropriate on approximately seventeen different levels.
And that was probably why I wanted it so badly.
I pushed back from the table and stood, my legs somehow steady despite the fact that my entire body was trembling. I walked around to his side as he tracked my movements, his body still. But I could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands gripped the arms of his chair.
I stopped in front of him, close enough that I could smell his cologne—that same woodsy, expensive scent that had scrambled my brain this morning. Close enough to see the flecks of darker blue in his eyes, the barely perceptible stubble along his jaw.
“Gabriella.” My name was a warning.
“You said you could show me.” I was amazed my voice was working at all. “So show me.”
“This is a bad idea.”
“Probably.”
“You work for me.”
“Technically, I work for Shelby.”
“That’s not better.”
“I don’t care.” And I didn’t. For the first time in my carefully controlled, parent-approved, anxiety-managed life, I didn’t care about the rules or the consequences or what I should do.
I only cared about what I wanted. And I wanted Eli Shepard to kiss me.
“Kiss me,” I said, my voice steady and sure. “Please.”
His jaw tightened. His hands flexed on the armrests. I watched him wage one final battle with himself—professionalism, propriety, all the reasons this was wrong.
Then something in him snapped.
He stood in one fluid motion, the chair rolling backward. Suddenly he was right there, inches away, towering over me. Close enough that I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. Close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his body.
“You’re sure?” His voice was rough, strained.
“Yes.”
His hand came up slowly—so slowly I could’ve stopped him if I wanted to. But I didn’t want to. I’d never wanted anything less than I wanted to stop this.
His palm cupped my jaw, thumb brushing across my cheekbone. The touch was gentle, reverent, nothing like the aggressive grab from my one and only kiss.
“Gabriella,” he breathed.
And then he lowered his head toward mine.