Page 99 of Wrapped with a Beau

“Very believable,” says Riley, straight-faced. “I can see why they picked you to be an extra.”

“Watch it or I’ll stage a coup at the next trivia night,” says Elisha. “I’d be an awesome captain.”

“Do you need a second-in-command?” Mia asks with a wink. “I’ve wanted to oust him forever.”

“Fuck you guys,” he grumbles.

Sam blinks. “Adhira never said trivia was so cutthroat. I’ve really been missing out.”

Mia gestures for Elisha to get up and follow her. “So,” she says, keeping her voice low as they exit the diner, “little problem.”

“Okay, that’s something you never want to hear on day one of a new project.”

“There’s some problem in the Enchanted Forest, and Damian needs you to get up there and deal with it. You walked here, right? Here, take my car.” Mia presses the keys into Elisha’s hand.

“Wait, but what’s the problem, exactly? Hey! You don’t need to push me!” Elisha protests.

“He wants you there now.”

“I didn’t think the forest scene was on today’s call sheet! What’s going on with the diner?”

Mia doesn’t let them break stride. “Damian knows what he’s doing.”

“Of course, but—”

“Elisha, he said now!”

Which is how, ten minutes later, Elisha finds herself about a mile into the forest, bypassing the general park for the pull-out where white traffic cones are marked with signs for Sleighbells use.

After spending the drive over panicking about everything that could have possibly gone wrong despite all their best planning, she was expecting chaos. Actors losing their shit all over the place, Damian threatening someone over the phone in a booming voice, the wail of an ambulance, maybe even a lurky photographer stuck up a tree in hopes of a salacious photo or two.

Instead, what she finds makes zero sense in the slightest—nobody else is here.

“Great,” Elisha mutters, scanning the scraggly canopy of birches and pine overhead. “I’m a woman alone in the forest. That’s not creepy at all.”

She’s about to call Damian for some idea of what has actually gone wrong and what he needs from her, when she hears the faint tinkling of... sleigh bells?

The sound drifts from far away, too distant to pinpoint exactly, and then it’s everywhere, all at once, surrounding her.

Her grandpa’s gleaming red sleigh is gliding determinedly toward her, pulled by Noelle. Sunlight dapples through the trees, basking the driver in a spectacular gold. Gilting the tips of his platinum hair, peeking over the broadness of his shoulders. Elisha doesn’t dare blink in case he slips away.

“Ves?” Her heart stutters as he comes to a stop in front of her.

“Whoa,” he says to the horse, relaxing his grip on the reins.

“What are you doing here?”

“I got here just a little while ago. I told Damian I needed to talk to you, and I tried to get on to the set, but he said he’d do me one better.” He holds out his hand. “You deserve the magic, Elisha.”

She lets him help her into the sleigh. “So there’s no disaster I need to mitigate? No impending crisis?”

His mouth twitches into a slightly remorseful smile. “Sorry about the pretext. Didn’t need much convincing for Dave to help me hitch Noelle to the sleigh, or for Mia to get you here.”

She gapes. “Everything I said about you being predictable? Scratch that. But also, why? And how?”

“Well, I met a girl,” he drawls. “Someone who got me to move out of my comfort zones.”

She bats at his hand when he spreads a red plaid blanket over her lap, far more interested in getting answers than getting warm. “No, seriously, Ves. How are you here?”

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