Private Finished Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth

Every morning, for the past week or so, Zoraida had arrived at work to find a favorite coffee, macaroons, a cherry Viennese - or Danish, chocolate brioche, or butter croissants waiting for her at her desk. It was always generally something for breakfast or a mid-morning snack.

At first, she had been really touched by the unexpected gifts. She figured it had to be Stefan and that he had just been lucky at guessing her favorite pastry items.

However, when she had gone to thank him, he had assured her that he had not been her anonymous breakfast gifter. Disappointed at this, she then guessed that maybe it was one of her staffers like Sterling, or maybe even Kalvin, her grandfather’s PA.

Deciding to approach both Kalvin and Sterling, she quickly was told that it was neither one of them, and when, on Friday, her most favorite coffee blend, along with her childhood comfort food, Miguelitos - a puff pastry dusted with powdered sugar and filled with a light lemon custard, appeared on her table, she began to feel for the first time very unsettled.

So much so that she was slightly distracted when she met up with Stefan after work at the diner they had first met at.

@Stefan

Sitting at the table, Zora was cradling a cup of hot tea and staring at her hands when Stefan arrived. The tea was not so much a way to comfort her, it was more to keep her hands busy and to calm her nerves somewhat until Stefan arrived.

"Hey," Zora looked up when her boyfriend finally arrived and smiled at him when he called her big boss lady - which was somewhat ironic since she was not very tall or big, and even though she was the head of a large conglomerate there were still times that she didn't feel like the "boss". The boss was her grandfather, not her.

Watching Stefan take a seat across from her, she waited until he was comfortable before answering.

"I am fine," Zora reassured him as she gazed across the table, meeting, what she intuited, was his gaze through the mirrored lenses. "Just something weird has been going on at work, and I'm not sure it's not just me overreacting to an act of unexpected kindness," she admitted as she lessened her grip on the cup.

Closing her hands gently around Stefan's, Zora just looked at him gratefully and nodded in answer. Yes, she did want to talk about it, however, she wasn't sure where to start or why the little gifts bothered her... well, she did know why, but at the same time, maybe it was just all coincidental?

"I know you thought it might have been someone at work," Zora started as her gaze moved downwards to stare thoughtfully at their hands, smiling softly as she did so when Stefan's thumb moved over hers. The gesture was both comforting and reassuring, and made her feel safe too.

"Yet when I asked around, nobody seemed to know who the coffee and pastries were from," she told him.

"And this morning, when I came back after an early morning meeting, there was ... a Miguelito on my desk," she told him, a tiny frown appearing on her face. "It's a pastry my mother loved, and she would get it every Sunday... it was sort of a comfort food for me growing up..." she said, her voice trailing off, disconcerted.

"No... No, I don't..." she said, slightly distressed now and with a shake of her head.

"The only ones that might know this would be ... maybe Celeste or my grandfather, or my father or brother and they are both, well, ... gone now," she told Stefan, her grip tightening a little on his when she mentioned her father and brother, but especially her brother.

"And Celeste sends stuff all the time to the office, so I can't see her doing any of this," Zora explained as she looked up at Stefan, an unsettled look on her face as she tried to quell the ever-growing anxiety. None of this really made any sense, so maybe she was just overreacting? Making it more than it actually was?

"A secret admirer, huh?" Zora remarked thoughtfully, bemused by the idea. She had initially toyed with the idea when Stefan said he wasn't the giver of the gifts but as the gifts became more personal she became less convinced of this notion.

Thinking about it now, almost all of them had some significance... the cherry Danish, while fairly common, had been something she had craved during her pregnancy with Jeremiah.
The brioche was a pastry she insisted on having whenever they had returned to Paris. Even the croissant had significance. It was the first real chef's pastry Celeste had mastered, and Zora always insisted she make them for her birthday.

"No, there was never any note or card," she replied after a second. "The pastries and coffee were always just there at my desk, waiting for me," she told Stefan.

"It's all a mystery, and maybe you are right. Maybe I am just reading more into this than I should be," she conceded sheepishly. Zora was starting to feel silly for feeling weird about what was obviously an attempt to make her day a little brighter.