Hi everyone! I'm very happy with the feedback I've gotten so far for this ff, so I decided to post the first chapter a day earlier than expected. I'm sure none of you will mind. I also updated the character sketch on page 1. My next update will be on Wednesday night (EST- U.S. Eastern Standard Time). I hope to read more comments of what you think of the story. Hope you enjoy reading it!
Chapter 1
Monday, August 8th
Having just come out of a meeting with the Fashions designers for 'Monte Vercelli', Prem Juneja headed straight to his office. His personal assistant, Simone walked in with Preet following her. As soon as he saw her he started giving her orders "I want the list of profits we made in the past week within hour, then make sure you set up my meeting with the people who called up regarding the promotion of our clothes in their magazine and then inform me when it is. As of right now, I want my coffee and aspirin on my desk in 5 minutes. Is that clear?"
"Yes sir" Simone said as she turned to Preet and asked "would you like anything sir?"
"umm…nothing yet" said Preet as he checked out the PA. After she left he turned to his older brother saying "You know your Personal Assistant is d*mn hot, right? I have no idea how you haven't made any moves on her"
Prem looked up from his laptop with his usual stern expression, causing Preet to sigh saying "How could I forget? My older brother, the business tycoon Mr. Prem Juneja has no room for love or fun in his life, right!?"
"Right" said Prem as he got up and headed out of the cabin and into the office with Preet following closely behind.
"She's hot, how about you ask her out" Preet said as he pointed to one of the employees. Prem shook his head and said "No"
"Fine…she had a pointy nose anyways. Um, how about the one in the black skirt. She has a cute face" he said as he winked at her from across the room. The girl rolled her eyes, while grinning at him. All the girls in the office knew Preet Juneja way too well. He was the Casanova, so they never took him seriously because they knew he was the path that led straight to a heartache.
"Never" he said simply as one of the designers started showing him designs. Preet sighed and looked around for another option.
"How about the one with the curly hair? What was her name?" Preet asked as he put his arm around the designers shoulder.
"Tina" said Jake, the designer, as he eyed Preet.
"Preet…I don't want to go out with any Alicia, Tina, or Sierra. I just don't want to go out with any girl, period" Prem said.
"God PB. I'm starting to have doubts about if you're…" Preet started to say, but decided not to finish.
Without looking up, Prem asked "If I'm what?"
"If you go that way, Premu" said Jake as Prem's head shot up, glaring at both men.
"I am NOT gay. I'm not interested in anything or anyone but my work" he said.
"Preetu, you got me excited for no reason, but…" Jake started to say as he looked Preet's arm which was around his shoulder with affection. Suddenly, Preet flung his arm off of Jake and said "No dude, I am definitely NOT gay. Don't even think about that! Ugh. I'm out of here PB. You have fun with your designers" as he hurried out. Jake turned back to Prem looking irritated and said "Men these days…gosh! Oh and by the way, that color suits you really well. You look hot in it"
"Jake…" Prem said with a serious expression.
"I was just informing you. No need to get all worked up about it" said Jake as he grabbed the designs and trotted off.
***
Tuesday, August 9th
Ashlesha made her way through the rotating doors into the lobby of the building where Heer lived. Smiling at the receptionist, she headed straight towards the elevators. The elevator man smiled at her as he said "28th floor to Heer Madam, right?"
She smiled at him and said "Yes, thank you Jason" as the elevator door closed, "So any spicy news for me?"
"I realized that working in such a building where all high-class people live, there is always spicy news. Similarly to how in your modeling profession there is always drama associated with the models" said Jason as he smiled at her.
"Oh really, mind sharing some of the spicy news of Heer's neighbors real quickly?" she asked happily.
"Sure…well, that model living next door to Heer got cheated on, so she's in depression. The lady that lives in front of Heer, the one that owns the beauty salon found out her husband is gay, so she kicked him out. He spent the night that Heer's engagement broke, banging on the door, threatening to kill his wife if she didn't let him in. Well, that didn't go to well with Heer because she couldn't sleep due to the noise. So she called up the wife & both ladies came out with hockey sticks ready to beat him. Akki and security from downstairs showed up and saved the man before the girls could hurt him. Turns out it was a plan by both girls to scare him until security showed up" said Jason as Ashlesha listened intently, until the elevator door opened.
"Well Jason, I guess I'll hear the rest from you later" she said before she head off down the hallway to Heer's flat.
She reached the door, took out the key Heer had given her and opened the door. She walked in to find Akki, Heer, and the maid running around flat frantically. Calling the flat a flat was an understatement. It was more of a large house inside a building. The flat had two floors and was quite spacious. She never understood why Heer needed to live in such a large flat and apparently neither did Heer. Her father wanted the best for his daughter, so Heer had always been spoiled to the core, but along with being spoiled she had been rooted quite firmly into their culture, religion, principles, and morals.
"Why are you all running around?" she asked. Heer looked up and said "You're here already!?! I'll be there in a minute" before she hurried off to find something. A few minutes later, Heer came back with her Coach Purse and coffee in her hand. She had changed into a summer knee length dress, with her hair tied half up.
"Shall we…I don't want to be late for work" said Heer as she led Akki and Ashlesha out the door.
"I don't understand why you need to be on time for work. I mean, our best-friend is our boss, so obviously he'll cut us some slack.
"I don't want to abuse the privileges he's given us and I hate being late" she replied as she stepped into the elevator as she greeted Jason.
"Good Morning Jason. You look quite handsome today!" she said cheerfully.
"This is my uniform. How can I look good in that?" he asked as he smiled at the 3.
"It doesn't matter what you wear, you always look handsome!" Heer replied with her million dollar smile.
***
They walked out of the building as Heer greeted the receptionist and doorman, just as her limo pulled up. After both ladies were seated, Akki moved up front to sit with the driver.
"Did you talk to your family yet about the broken engagement?" asked Ash.
"Oh…um…yeah. It was torture. I was on the phone for over 3 hours retelling the story to each person. When I got to Teji Thaiji and Mom, both started crying as if it were my bidai. It took me forever to convince them that I never liked Sameer and was okay with whatever happened. Then I talked to Dadaji and he said he was proud of me. He said that I proved myself to be a true Punjabi jatti" she said as she flipped through the channels on the mini TV in the limo.
"Did you talk to…" Ashlesha started to say, but stopped.
"Talk to who?" Heer asked.
"She wants to know if you talked to Meet" Akki shouted from the front.
Heer smiled and said "thank you Akki!" sweetly.
"Yeah, thank you Akki!" Ashlesha said with sarcasm in her voice, as Heer turned to her smirking.
"Oh so you want to know if I talked to my sweet older brother, huh!?" she asked.
"No. Why would I care about him?" Ash replied.
"Akki, do you sense someone lying here?!" Heer asked.
"I don't need to sense her lying. I know she is. In fact, everyone knows that there's something brewing between Ash and Meet. These two aren't as secretive as they seem" Akki said.
Ash rolled her eyes and sighed saying "Change the topic…NOW!"
***
The limo pulled up in front of the tall Manhattan building that housed Sheer Magazine Incorporates. Ashlesha got out followed by Heer. As she started walking towards the rotating doors, she went to take a sip out of her coffee when she felt someone bump into her causing the coffee to spill on her. Knowing that it was a busy city and it was probably an accident, she didn't get mad. The man, realizing what he had done, walked back to apologize, while the girl slowly turned around as she wiped her dress.
He went to take out a handkerchief from his pocket as he said "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to" without looking at her face.
Heer continued to wipe her dress as she went to face the voice, while saying "its okay" and then looked up at the same moment Prem looked up.
"YOU!!!" both said together.
Prem stood there not knowing what to say as he watched the expressions change on Heer's face as fast as the seconds passed. She could make an amazing actress seeing all the expressions on her face, he thought to himself.
"Um…aren't you going to hand me the handkerchief" she asked nicely.
This shocked Prem. Was this the same girl he had met and fought with 3 nights ago? Not wanting to start a fight, because he was in a hurry to get to a meeting, he handed it over as she smilingly took it.
"I'm sorry about that. I was sort of in a hurry" he said stilled confused by her reaction.
"It's totally fine. I understand. I mean I've never had anything spilled on me my whole life until that night at Starbucks. Though I'm really sorry by the way I behaved…" she started to say.
Akki instantly recognized the guy, but wondered why Heer was behaving so nicely with a guy she had fought with previously.
"…And now this incident. I know it was an accident. I mean come on. Out of all the thousands of people in New York City, you were the only one to make this rare event happen twice. It could have happened to anyone. Don't worry about it. At least I'm lucky enough to have half of my coffee left." she said sweetly.
Prem said nothing as he got more confused by the minute. She smiled as she took the cap off the coffee lid. Ashlesha and Akki stood there wondering what she was going to do. Heer was truly unpredictable.
She looked up at him straight in the eye, smiled as she winked at him causing him to be taken aback by this act of hers. Just as his confusion increased she flung the remaining coffee onto the front of his business attire. Everyone around them stopped instantly as Akki and Ashlesha watched with wide eyes and opened mouths. He looked down at his coat and shirt which were now stained by coffee. He then looked up at her smirking at him as she slowly started to advance towards him. He stood rooted firmly in his place. They were barely 2 inches from each other as everyone looked on. They were close enough to hear each other's heartbeats. She continued to smirk at him as she said "We're not even yet" and kicked him on his leg.
The pain immediately shot up his left leg as he let out an "Ahhhhhoooowwwww!"
"Now we're even" she said simply as she turned back to Ash and Akki.
"Where do you think you're going!" Prem shouted.
"After the amazing gift you've given me, I'd obviously be going home to change, you horse!" she shouted back.
"Not until I'm through with you!" he shouted as he stepped closer to her
"Oh really!? Is there anything else left to spill on me? I mean come on, out of the thousands of people in this city, YOU are the one to end up spilling coffee on me, not once, but twice in less than 3 days!" she shouted back as she stepped closer to him.
"Can you stop crying over it…seriously grow up" he shouted back, while inching towards her.
"I. AM. NOT. CRYING ABOUT IT! I gave you what you deserved and was leaving peacefully, before you stopped me" she shouted back as she moved a step closer making the gap only 2 inches.
"You are a brat!" he said.
"Well I HATE YOU!" she said.
"And as if love is flowing from my heart for you. I HATE YOU MORE!" said Prem.
"You're a donkey!" she shouted as Akki started pulling her into her limo. Before Prem could say anything, Ashlesha walked up to him and said "You said you were in a hurry, so you better leave. If you stand here, the situation is just going to get worse…so don't say a single word" in an irritated voice before she headed off into the building to tell Sahej what had happened.
Prem turned around fuming as he walked back to his Mercedes-Benz car, thinking "Great, now I have to go home and change…Could this day get any worse?"
Edited by Deepika28 - 16 years ago
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