ARSHI FF- Raizada Series- 1, CH 61 posted on pg. 125 - Page 2

CH 3

FRIday, 4pm

My training has made me a specialist in hiding my feelings and expressions. So it did not take me long to turn off every other sentiment and become poker faced. I was almost certain that my thoughts of the last few minutes were not known to Mr. Raizada. But he continued to look surprised at finding me in the room, and still had his eyes on me. I still had not responded to him and finally better sense prevailed.

I forwarded my hand to him, "Mr. Raizada, pleasure."

He moved ahead and held my hand in a firm hand shake, "Encantanda, senora."

If I was surprised by his Spanish greeting, I did not show him. But aware that he did not know who I was, I took upon myself to introduce myself.

"Mr. Raizada, my name is Khushi Gupta from Safer, Inc. I am your new chief of security."

By then I had noticed the sling he was wearing over his left shoulder. He was shot and a good shot might have punctured his heart. He had missed it very closely and was a very lucky man to have survived the attack.

He moved towards the conference table and seated himself on the first available chair. He looked tired and worn out. I was still closely observing him, when he turned and gave a small smile. I went around the table and seated myself right opposite to him.

"Miss Gupta, I have not been briefed about your arrival since I was out of action for a while. I am sure you must be aware of it."

"Please call me K, Mr. Raizada. And yes, I am aware. I am sorry about the attack. I hope you are feeling better."

He still had that charming smile on his lips, and oh his lips were lovely. Wonder what they could...

"Thank you Khushi. You have a beautiful name and I would not reduce it to a mere letter. I am better now, and was just given leave from the hospital. I am sure they kept me there longer than necessary. And please call me ASR. Mr. Raizada is my father."

My trance was broken, "Right ASR. I think you should rest. We have a long day on Monday. I will brief you then about your new security protocols."

"Khushi, how about we get done with the briefing now instead of Monday? I need a distraction anyway."

I was taken back by his casualness about this whole thing. It did not look like he was just attacked a few days back, and that our companies were involved in litigation.

"ASR, this is more complicated than what you are understanding. We, I mean our companies, are still negotiating. Things might change on Monday and you may not even stay my client."

"I do not think that would be a problem Khushi. I approve my security details and nobody can over ride it. And since I cannot let go of a beautiful chief as yourself, be rest assured, you are already in charge."

I flushed at that compliment. It was going to be a very hard job to work alongside this man.

Interesting story, n u write it nicely

Both chapters are nicely written so its clear tht only khusi is in security business n arnav is her client so lets see how they proceed

CH 4

FRIday, 4:15pm

I was still not sure if it was a good idea to talk about such things right now. But I already was aware that ASR would not leave from here. The man had a very strong stubborn nerve.

"Mr. Raizada, ASR, we cannot do this right now. I need a signed approval before we dwell any further into this. There are some formalities we need to fulfill first. I was here to simply finalize the presentation for Monday."

I was not sure if I had his attention, since he looked a little dizzy to me. Must be his pain meds, I assumed.

"I really think you must rest ASR. You look a little dazed to me."

He looked towards me with a smirk making way to his gorgeous face.

"Senora, I am honored to be observed so closely by a beauty like you,"

Oh man, could he just stop already!

"And you have got the second part right. I am dazed, wonder why though!"

He continued to eye me in a way that was making me very uncomfortable.

I decided to make things clear once and for all. If we were going to work together, he really needed to stop being this flirty with me.

"ASR, as flattered as I am with your compliments, you really need to stop. If at all things work out on Monday, we will be working together. This will just make things harder for us."

"I agree with you Miss Gupta. So how about we leave this for outside the office then?"

With a raised eyebrow and a never ending smirk, he just kept going on and on.

"Of course, I should have expected that", I murmured hoping he did not hear it.

"I heard you Miss Gupta, and I will hold on to your promise about that. Maybe a drink after we are done here. It is Friday night after all."

Oh God, this man was incorrigible.

"I am afraid ASR but I already have plans."

I bluffed and at this point I did not care even if he caught that one.

He made a sad face to that,

"My bad I guess. Someone is luckier than I am. Maybe next time. Anyway, let us begin with the briefing then."

I was so frustrated with this stubborn man. Partially jet-legged and cranky with all the moving, I really was in no mood to deal with him right now,

"I am sorry Mr. Raizada but that will not be possible. I am not going to do anything that will jeopardize my company's stance. I am afraid but this will have to be done on Monday morning only."

I was not going to bulge, no matter how persuasive he tried to be.

Slowly getting up from his chair,

"Fine then, Monday it is."

He sounded pissed but that was not my business to take care. Giving me a curt nod, he walked towards the door and I noticed his right hand pressing his left shoulder. His body language clearly screamed that he was still in pain. I got up from my chair and followed him to help him with the door. But he was faster and did not accept my help. Fine, suit yourself! My eyes followed him till the end of the corridor, and I stared at his back till I could see him. Even though in pain, he was a very graceful man. The way he walked with swiftness and rigidity in his body, it clearly showed his superiority around here. Throwing frequent nods at people who were greeting him, he simply walked out without stopping even once.

I walked back inside to finish reading his file. I spent a good hour looking into his background. God had been extra generous with him. He was a very good looking man, with an amazing business accume. AR Enterprises was a company started by his forefathers. But he had made a significant difference to it since he joined it. A man of extreme discipline and punctuality, he touched his office at sharp half past 8 in the morning and never left before half past 6, after which, he worked out in the gym for an hour and reached home by half past 8. Even though Saturdays were off, he worked from 11 to 5, and religiously took the Sundays off.

Friday and Saturday nights he hung out with his friends around the bay area. Sunday mornings until noons, he spent at a local NGO. The file did not say what he did there, since his security was strictly off limits there. Wonder why! And for the rest of the day, he was pretty much at home with his family, before starting a crazy week again. WOW!

What was a pleasant surprise was that he took three short breaks, precisely from Wednesday evening, till Sunday night, or Monday morning, to go on vacations, and one ten-days long international holiday, in the entire year. But then he pulled off the weekends before and after his break to manage the work load. Since his vacation dates were marked right from the beginning of the year, there was hardly ever any interruption there. Of course, the thick skulled man that he was, he allowed minimal security during his breaks.

His friend circle was not very big, about 20 people. Most of them from his school days, since he went to college on the East coast. There was a brief background check on all of them. That looked fairly clear for now. He went out on occasional dates but nothing serious. Well, where the hell did this man have any time either way?! However, he was always accompanied with different women during the charity galas and other corporate events, since most of these functions had a plus-one rule, which I have never understood till date. And since these dates were usually a one time thing, there was not much detail on that one aspect.

There was a lot of corporate jargon in the file, which was important in knowing his rivals and partners of the corporate world that he was in constant touch with. This man certainly had made a lot of enemies for his young age, but he seemed to least bothered about it. His attitude towards this whole contract with Safer, Inc. was very casual, and had made things very difficult for my company in the past. In short, he was a hard man to protect since he was not one bit scared. I was hoping for this to have changed since the attack on him. Else, it was going to be a hard job for me to do.

Either way, I could not wait for Monday to come. I would never accept it in front of anyone, but this job suddenly was turning out to be very interesting, and I was starting to feel that moving here, was after all, not that bad a decision. I was indeed, very curious to know more about this corporate mogul, Mr. Arnav Singh Raizada.

nice update...both in their characters...

something tells me ASR himself has asked someone to attack him... why ? that i dont know.

Khusi is one tough n confident woman so arnav has to work hard

Loved the story...

Nice story

CH 5

MONday, 9am

Finally Monday came. I had woken up before time, but I did not want to accept the reason as to what made me so restless. I took time getting ready, which was a first, but could not find a single work suit to satisfy me. I decided I needed to go shopping sometime soon. I always wore work pants and shirts since I never knew when I would be required on field. So my wardrobe was very limited, and plus I was never that concerned about my looks, until now. Now suddenly, I wanted to look pretty and lady-like. Oh, what my mum would not give to hear me say that. Again, I ignored the reasoning part, and managed to dress in a stripped grey formal skirt, that reached just above my knees, with a matching blazer, and baby pink shirt inside. I wore the better one out of two pairs of stilettos, that I owned. With minimal make-up, and a matt pick lipstick, I was satisfied with my look for the day. Sassy but not s**tty, perfect!

I swiped my card at the entrance and waited for the elevator, instead of taking the stairs today. I wanted to look presentable at least till the beginning of the meeting. On reaching the 10th floor lobby, Maria told me that the meeting was scheduled to take place on the 31st floor of the building, that high huh!

So, the 31st floor was the main floor of the company. All the important and crucial people who actually ran the company were located there. So it made sense that the meeting was to be conducted there. It already gave them an edge over us. Let the power game begin.

My team and I decided to reach there at 10, where as the meeting was for 11am. I wanted to run over the presentation. Gurpreet and Andrew were going to first talk about the previous security breach. I was sure ASR's team would have a lot of concerns there. We decided to not let our lawyers talk, since we wanted to cover the technical aspects rather than legal. I was hoping we could convince them that we did not lack in the any measures. They just had to withdraw the case against us. We did not have an option there. Sam and Natalie were going to conduct the presentation, that mainly was a visual of the differences in the protocol, as well as some infrastructural changes that we suggested, but this was all if they agreed to withdraw the case and renew our contract. As confident as Mark and Steven, my bosses, were with me, I felt a little jittery with this being my first solo assignment, especially since it was so important for my company. There was absolutely no room for any error.

Soon the room started to fill up with the members of AR. Finally, it was close to 11 and it seemed we were ready to begin. And just on that cue, ASR walked in, in all his mighty glory, and straight went and seated himself on the head of the conference table. He did not spare a glance my way, which I appreciated at that moment since I did not want any distractions. Today was a big day.

Finally, the meeting began. A lady in her mid 50s, stood up and began to speak. I knew who she was since I had read about her in ASR's file. In fact, I knew most of the people present in the room.

"Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I appreciate your presence here today, since we have some very important agenda for this meeting. My name is Ashwini Raizada, advocate of AR Enterprises. I welcome the members of Safer, Inc., but I am afraid, under very critical circumstances. Before we begin, let me assure you, since our last interaction, we have decided to keep a broader mind frame in dealing with this whole controversy."

That was a minor relief.

She continued further,

"There is a standard security protocol laid out for the entire company, but as you are aware of the consistent threats that are being faced by the COO of the company, the Board under went major alterations for additional security measures solely for him. Since this is a singular incident related only to him, the Board can only make suggestions, where as the final say is still with the COO."

Right, so this was what ASR had said on Friday. It was indeed true then. Hence, if he did not want to litigate against us, and wanted to renew the contract, there was nothing that his entire legal department could do. Wonderful!

"I would request Mr. COO, ASR to take over from here onwards. However, members of Safer, since you continue to take care of the over all security of the entire company, we have our own concerns, that we will discuss once ASR is done. Thank you."

Okay, so we have two separate issues to deal with, one was ASR's personal security, and the other was the whole company's contract.

"Morning all,"

Forget about all his flirty behavior from Friday, this man, right now, sounded like arrogance personified.

"To get straight to the point, such a security breach is unacceptable under any circumstances,"

Just then, he looked right in my eyes while my heart sank. This certainly did not sound like good news for my company.

"And while I survived this one, I doubt, if under your control, I will survive the next or not."

I guess my first assignment was royally screwed at this point.

Awesome story and beautiful writing..