Chapter 18

The very next day, Helen was busy at her restaurant preparing for the grand opening tomorrow. Her nerves were currently through the roof as it was finally time for all her hard work to be paid off from tomorrow. She was confident with the decisions she made in regards to the design of the building, the interior of the restaurant, the staff, and food choices. All that was left to do was for people to show up and enjoy what she put together.

She mentally gave Eli props for the attraction he brought on the business social media page. His photo was trending for a moment because it was considered new info about the mysterious Eli King. Some were even expecting him to be in attendance but Helen wasn't too sure about that. She thought about inviting him because of the mere fact she used his photo to get more exposure but given their situation, it felt weird to invite him. Would she invite him as her date? Would that count towards their three dates?

She would think about it throughout the day but as for right now, she had to scrutinize every tiny detail about the restaurant. Helen didn't want the opening to come and suddenly there was a light that needed fixing or a leak in the bathroom. There was enough time for everything to be set up perfectly long before the opening. She would not be made a mockery of for the grand opening. All her staff needed to have their shit together by tomorrow morning.

Lucky for Helen, her best friend Isabelle is a party planner and she informed Helen she would be passing by to take some of the stress off of Helen's shoulders. She also had Marc here and the other staff were doing their best to keep her stressed-free and pumped up for tomorrow.

She honestly loved the family she created here at essence. Helen couldn't imagine not having them by her side for this moment.

"Delivery for Helen Reed," Someone spoke entering the building.

Helen was confused by this as she was sure she had gotten all of their deliveries. This was what she meant. When the day was finally almost here small things like this would start to pop up. What the hell had she missed?

Rubbing her tensed-up temple she asked, "Where did the delivery come from?"

Reading the name on the paper she had to sign, the delivery man responded, "It came from an Eli King."

Helen was caught off guard receiving a delivery from Eli. He hadn't spoken about sending her anything last night. Was this for the date or for the opening of her business?

"Please sign here ma'am."

She took the pen and paper from the delivery man and signed her name. The next thing she knew a large bouquet was brought in by another man but it wasn't a bouquet of roses like you would expect. It was a bouquet of an assortment of meat.

"What the. What is going on?" She questioned seeing the meat and then wondered if it was really Eli who sent her this delivery. Why would he send her a bouquet of meat?

"Have a nice day," The man said, placing it on an empty table then left to do their next delivery. He didn't care what strange things wanted to be delivered.

Hesitantly, Helen began to look through the bouquet of meat for a note to see why she received this. Was Eli's mind missing a screw? Didn't he know you were supposed to send a bouquet of flowers?

"Finally," She mouthed once she found the nicely wrapped up note protected from the scent of the meat. She read the note as follows,

"Dear Helen Reed. Because you are so different from everyone else, I got you a different type of bouquet. It goes pretty well with your business - Eli King."

"What on earth," Helen laughed at the complete randomness of this man.

"Sorry, we forgot something from the order. Two separate orders were made, my apologies," She heard the same deliveryman from earlier say coming back through the door with another bouquet but this time it was one with roses.

"Thank you," She said, taking the roses and immediately went to read the new note. "A bouquet of roses so the meat one isn't completely awkward."

"Did Eli King just send you a small bouquet of roses and a large one filled with premium cut meat?" Questioned Cody inspecting the scene. He thought they missed a weird delivery of meat but upon closer inspection, he saw that it was from Eli. Who the heck sends someone meat? It was good quality meat but who the heck does that? Surely Helen wouldn't consider meeting the man again.

But the sound of Helen's laughter proved that thought to be completely wrong. She was highly amused by the fact he sent her meat because she owned a restaurant. If she owned a winery she probably would've gotten a bouquet of wine not that she minded. The meat Eli sent was good quality and a bit on the pricier side of what she liked to indulge herself with.

Of course, she would keep this. She'll put it in one of the freezers here for now but she also needed to send a gift in return and Helen had a perfect idea.

A couple of hours later on the other side of Harlow city, Eli sat in his home office with Noah looking over some of his investments to see how good they were paying off. Outside of investing, Eli owned a business named renovate which designed and built up large-scale buildings like hotels, resorts, malls, etc from the ground up.

Eli hired the right amount of people to take some of the workloads off of him. He didn't need to be chained to an office 24/7 because his employees did their job or they would be fired. He had no time to entertain slackers.

"Did Helen receive my gift?" Eli asked Noah about the bouquets he sent out.

"She got them early this morning," Noah replied. He wasted no time doing what Eli instructed him to do and sent out the order as soon as Eli told him. Noah just didn't understand why he sent Helen meat. Wouldn't more flowers or even jewelry be better?

It was better to not even think about it because for the thousands of years they had known each other, Noah could never get Eli understood. He just waited on the sidelines to see how Eli's plans would unfold. If Helen never spoke to Eli again, Noah wouldn't blame her. Who gives someone meat?

There was a knock at the office door interrupting Noah's thoughts. He went to check who it was without interrupting Eli. Opening the large mahogany door he saw it was a maid with a package in her hands.

"Delivery for Eli came in," She said using Eli's first name because he instructed them to not call him Mr. King in his home.

"Thank you," Noah replied, taking the small box and inspecting it. There was a small envelope taped to the top of the box with the name Helen Reed written in black. He closed the door and took the box to Eli. "You have a delivery Eli from your little girlfriend Helen."

Eli stopped reading the document he currently had in his hand and looked at the package Noah presented him. He first opened the note and read, "Because your gift touched my heart I thought I'd give you what you asked for, a piece of my land."

He opened the box and scoffed when he saw what was on the inside. It wasn't a statement giving him a part of her land but it was dirt. She had literally given him a piece of her land. "This woman," He muttered, highly entertained.