5
Shivay had already taken an Advil but it wasn't helping. The headache was getting from bad to worse. It was inevitable that just when he needed to come up with a devious plan, his head would let him down. In that way, luck had always worked against him when it came to Anika. Whoever hears of a rotten scooter reaching a destination before a chopper? Or dirty water landing accidentally on someone, especially when that someone happened to be Mr. Shivay Singh Oberoi? But these things are routine where Anika was involved. Hence an idea that would take down that manipulative witch had to pack quite a punch. Such were his thoughts as Shivay paced around his room that night.
Evidently that infuriating woman had set her sights on his brother and Om being the naive sensitive fool he was capable of being at times, seemed to be falling for her tricks. He gifted her one of his handmade bags?! And she took it, the drama queen!
Shivay poured himself a glass of water to calm himself down. He could not have her thrown out of her job. Flirting with his brother was not something he could actually charge her with. And Daadi would bring her back within the hour, even if he indeed managed to fire her. And he definitely couldn't buy her off. That girl had her eyes set on the whole of Oberoi fortune. A few measly lakhs or crores would hardly satisfy her soul. And he had tried throwing money at her before and that had not worked out well at all. Shivay shuddered on thinking of the grilling he had received at the hands of his beloved Daadi and brothers about the cheque he had given Anika. Getting out of that interrogation session had been difficult enough. He didn't want to land himself in a similar situation once again. He gulped down some of the water. This wasn't helping. Anger never helped in such circumstances. He needed to think clearly. He needed to think.
After a night of restless sleep, inspiration struck Shivay over breakfast. It was so simple, that he couldn't help but chide himself for not thinking of it much earlier. He had just poured some maple syrup over his stack of pancakes and was flipping through some of the magazines that had come in with the post.
One of them had run a lighthearted piece which included Shivay's name in it. It was on eligible bachelors of India. Shivay happened to be third in their list. That Rana had made it to the second position bolstered by his upcoming marriage. Nothing made someone more of an eligible bachelor than the fact that he would soon cease to be one. Anyway,Shivay considered himself far above such things and would have moved on to his copy of the Economic Times had not a sudden thought struck him.
This magazine considered him to be one of the most eligible bachelors in the country. He was a bachelor!! And evidently eligible! Before his relationship with Tia had been known to the world, did he not have girls throwing themselves at him at every society event that he had attended?! In fact, they still were quite attentive to him.
He could do this! And however much of an ordeal it might be for him to go down this path, hadn't he always done everything in his power to protect his family, to look after his brothers? He would take this bullet for Om. Bolstered by his new plan, Shivay turned his attention to the pancakes with gusto. Miss Anika would not know what had hit her by the time he was through.
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Anika sighed as she looked at the plan for the seating arrangement for the sangeet ceremony. This was not going to be easy. Pinky aunty had handed her a list of names and had told her to have a seating plan ready by the end of the day. Anika had set about the task immediately and had prepared a blueprint by the end of an hour. This was promptly rejected.
Half the people she had placed together seemed to hate each other and had to be sat at different tables. Also, the single ladies and gentlemen in the crowd had to be placed together so that their presence did not unsettle the married couples. Then there were certain cliques that Pinky aunty wanted to seat separately because of them being prone to bitching about the ceremony if placed together. It was insane.
Anika wondered why they were even bothering with seating arrangements. Wouldn't it be better to allow people to just roam around and find seats on their own? This suggestion however was met with such a loud 'Oh my maataa!", that Anika had all but run from there to avoid receiving one of Pinky aunty's 'talks'.
So now Anika sat surrounded by chart papers, coloured stickers and sketch pens. She was colour coding the list of guests and marking their places out on the paper with great care when the sound of the door opening made her look up. Her look of concentration however, turned immediately to a scowl as she watched Shivay Singh Oberoi stride into the room. Could her day get any worse?! The man had just come into this room --a room that she liked to think of as her office-- like he owned the place. Which he did, Anika reminded herself with a groan. If only she could work somewhere that was not within the reach of this awful SSO!
"Aaj main bohut busy hoon! Agar koi ilzaam lekar aye hai toh woh kal suna dijiye!", she told him coldly and turned back to her chart armed with coloured post-its.
Shivay was most certainly not prepared to be so summarily dismissed by a mere chit of an employee! How dare she talk to him like that! He immediately flared up and would have launched into an attack but the thought of his carefully conceived plan stopped him short.
"Actually, about the other day...", he cleared his throat and began.
Anika looked up with annoyance mixed with surprise to hear him speak to her without raising his voice or threatening to bring down the sky on her head.
"Woh...that day... I had a really long day...in fact, the whole week...first that contract with the Mehtas and then the meeting with the Trade Union leaders in Pune..."
Shivay paused in his ramblings on seeing impatience replace all other emotions on Anika's face. This was proving to be far more difficult than he had anticipated.
"I meant to say..." Shivay reached out a hand and started fidgeting with the items placed on the table. Without really paying any attention to it, Shivay picked at a coloured post-it stuck on the paper spread out on the table.
In trying to make sense of Shivay's mumblings, Anika had been distracted for a minute. She suddenly looked down to see her carefully placed post-its being peeled off one by one by this horrible man!
"No no no no no nooo!" she let out a scream!
Shivay looked up with a start.
"Get your hands off my post-its!"! Anika shouted at him.
"What the wuck!?!" Shivay's stared at her, indignant.
"Look! Aap jo bhi barbarane ki koshish kar rahe hai, please do it tomorrow. I don't have time for this nonsense right now. So just let me do my job!"
"How da-" Shivay began, ready to forget all about his crafty masterplan but the look on Anika's face stopped him. He decided it was wiser to retreat for the moment and the door banged shut as soon as he laid foot in the corridor outside.
One had to lose a battle now and then to win the war.
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Edited by twerping - 8 years ago
Pyaar Kii Ye Ek Kahaani
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
