Chapter 1
The morning sun over the West End was doing its best to be inspiring, but Evangeline Vaughan—known to everyone as Eva—wasn’t buying it. To Eva, Wednesday mornings weren’t for inspiration; they were for tactical survival.
She stood inside “The Daily Grind,” a coffee shop so packed with frantic techies that it smelled more like high-voltage electricity and desperation than roasted beans. Eva was twenty-five, possessed the kind of effortless beauty that usually required three hours of effort (though she pulled it off in twenty minutes), and currently had a relationship with her wristwatch that could only be described as “codependent.”
“Come on, come on,” she muttered, tapping her heel. She was a Team Lead at IMN Group, a position that required her to be the most organized person in any given room. This was difficult to achieve when her morning caffeine was being held hostage by a barista who seemed to be steaming milk in slow motion.
“Two extra-hot oat milk lattes for ‘Vangie’!” the barista yelled.
Eva winced at the nickname but lunged for the cups. As she turned, balancing the steaming drinks with the grace of a circus performer, a shadow fell over her.
“I believe one of those life-saving devices belongs to me,” a cheerful voice said.
Standing there was Isaac Bennett, looking suspiciously well-rested for 8:30 AM. Isaac was Eva’s closest friend and fellow survivor of the IMN Group tech trenches. He was handsome in a ‘guy-next-door-who-actually-exercises’ kind of way, and he was currently grinning like he’d just won the lottery.
“You’re late,” Eva said, thrusting a cup toward his chest. “You said thirty minutes ago. I’ve checked my watch so many times the gears are getting dizzy.”
“I know, I know,” Isaac said, falling into step beside her as they pushed through the heavy glass doors into the crisp morning air. “But I had to drop Mia at the airport. You know she’s heading off for her research fellowship? The traffic near the terminal was like a scene from an apocalypse movie, but with more Priuses.”
Eva’s irritation softened. “Oh, right! I totally forgot that was today. Poor Mia. How long is she gone for?”
“A year,” Isaac said, taking a brave, scorching sip of his coffee. “We’ve got the whole ‘Long Distance Strategy’ mapped out. Synchronized movie nights, bi-monthly flights, and enough video calls to melt our routers. It’s a whole logistical operation.”
Eva shook her head in genuine admiration. “I swear, Isaac, if I ever find myself in a long-distance relationship, I’m hiring you as my consultant. You’re the LDR Guru.”
Isaac let out a boisterous laugh that made a passing pigeon startle. “First, my dear Eva, you have to actually land in a relationship. You can’t go the distance if you haven’t even left the starting blocks.”
Eva gave him her best ‘I-could-fire-you-if-I-wanted-to’ fake stare, which failed miserably because she was currently struggling with a stray lock of hair stuck to her lip gloss. “For your information, I am a very busy woman. My code is my boyfriend.”
“That’s sad, Eva. Even for a techie, that’s sad,” Isaac teased. “Anyway, Grace told me she set you up on that blind date last week. The guy with the fancy startup? What happened there?”
Eva sighed, the sound echoing her disappointment. “He was... fine. Very polite. Very stable. But he spent forty minutes explaining the ‘philosophy of brunch’ and then tried to split the bill for a muffin. Not exactly my type.”
“So?”
“So, I ended it after two days. I think the universe is telling me that blind dates are just a socially acceptable form of torture. I’m retiring from the field.”
Isaac’s expression shifted, his playful tone dropping an octave into something more cautious. “Do you think... and don’t throw your latte at me... do you think you’re having trouble because you’re still holding a spot for the guy who ditched you all those years ago?”
The air around them suddenly felt five degrees colder. The name didn’t need to be spoken, but it hung between them like a glitch in a perfect program. Gabriel. The college lover who had promised her forever and then delivered a disappearing act that would have made a magician jealous.
Eva’s grip on her coffee cup tightened. “I don’t think about Gabriel anymore, Isaac. That’s ancient history. It’s archived. It’s in the ‘Trash’ folder and I’ve hit ‘Empty Bin’.” She straightened her blazer, her eyes flashing. “I think you should stop worrying about my love life and start worrying about the sprint deadline. Move it, Guru.”
Isaac held up his hands in a gesture of peace. He knew that tone. It was the ‘Eva-is-definitely-lying-to-herself’ tone. He didn’t push it. Instead, they navigated the final block to the sleek, glass-and-steel monolith that was the IMN Group headquarters.
The morning progressed in a blur of blue light and Teams notifications until a high-priority calendar invite popped up: Urgent Migration Update – Conference Room B.
Eva, Isaac, and their third musketeer, Grace Holloway, gathered in the plush room. Grace was already there, vibrating with her usual high-octane energy, her blonde hair pulled into a messy bun that defied the laws of physics.
At the head of the table stood Naomi Barrett, the Project Manager whose efficiency was so legendary it was rumoured she didn’t sleep, she just ‘buffered’.
“Alright, team, listen up,” Naomi started, her voice cutting through the chatter like a laser. “You’ve all seen the emails about the internal system migration. Our Southern Land location is handling the heavy lifting, but they’ve hit a bottleneck. They need three senior leads who know our West End protocols inside and out to oversee the transition.”
Eva felt a small prickle of unease. Southern Land was hours away—a completely different vibe, a different pace.
“I’ve put forward three names,” Naomi continued, looking directly at them. “Eva, Isaac, Grace. You’ll be heading down there next week. Expect to stay for six months, potentially a full year depending on how the Southern team handles the integration.”
“A year?” Grace squeaked, though she looked more excited than upset. “Is the coffee better down there?”
Naomi ignored the question. “Logistics are already handled. There are two corporate apartments available. Isaac, you’ll have one to yourself. Eva and Grace, you’ll be sharing the two-bedroom suite. If anyone wants a private unit, the company will cover the cost, but you’ll have to find it yourself. Any objections?”
Isaac looked at Eva. Eva looked at Grace. Grace was already looking up “Best bars in Southern Land” on her phone.
“We’re in,” Eva said, her professional mask firmly in place. “A change of scenery might be good for the soul. Or at least for my productivity.”
“Excellent. Pack your bags. You report there Monday,” Naomi concluded, snapping her laptop shut.
That evening, Eva sat on the edge of her bed, surrounded by half-packed suitcases and a mountain of sensible cardigans. Her mind was supposed to be on project timelines and migration scripts, but Isaac’s words from the morning kept looping like a corrupted file.
Do you think about the person who ditched you?
She reached into her nightstand and pulled out a small, battered polaroid from her college days. In it, a younger, laughing Eva was being kissed on the cheek by a man with deep, soulful eyes and a crooked, mischievous smile.
“Gabriel,” she whispered to the empty room.
She quickly shoved the photo back into the drawer and slammed it shut. She is Team lead now. She dealt in facts, data, and deliverables. She didn’t deal in ghosts.
She didn’t know that three hundred miles away, in a sleek office labeled ‘IMN Southern Land’, a man named Gabriel St. James was looking at a memo on his desk. A memo stating that three leads from the West End office were arriving on Monday to save his project.
He didn’t know her name was on that list. And she didn’t know his name was on the office door.
Fate, it seemed, was about to hit ‘Refresh’.
