FF(Arhi): Lavender [Thread 2 link - p. 159] - Page 3

Wow!! Gr8...dis is so much in line wid d actual characters...lavanya is so sweet to khushi...and khushi as olways is full of antics...

Four play, voyir...lot of words to watch out for...rofl...

Superb work..keep updating...pls buddy me

lol practically y khushi is so dumb???

add me to ur buddy list and pm me wen u write again

Originally posted by: mollycoddle

waiting😉

Four Play!🤣

fantastic OS, liked it very much. the conversation between kushi and lavanya was really nice. 🤣
really liked it very much. Please do PM me.

Chapter-4: Audition

The phone rang for the fourth time before she could finally pick it up.

"Yello..." she sat on the edge of the desk and sang into the phone knowing who it was and grabbing at the reprieve it offered.

"Badass!" she heard Lavanya's voice and smiled.

The name from that day eight long years ago had stuck... If Lavanya ever called Khushi anymore, she meant business or it wasn't good news. What she usually did more often than not was to shorten the Badass to just "Bee." And Khushi in turn had dropped the Ms. Kashyap and had started calling Lavayna "Lee" just to be different from the "La" that everyone else called her.

Lavanya had left the Raizada Enterprises five years ago when a techie novice who had approached the company's venture capital sector had fallen head over heels for her and through dogged pursuit and relentless perseverance had finally managed to secure her next to him in the eyes of God and Man as his lawfully wedded wife and now the mother of his two adorable and unruly boys. When Lavanya had been leaving the company, Khushi had been a year shy of completing her bachelor's in business administration. Lavanya had convinced Arnav Singh Raizada at that time that Khushi would be the best person to step into her role as the office manager. By then she had learned the workings of the office inside and out and it hadn't been exactly a hard sell to convince the man that she was indeed the best one for the job. She had joked to Lavanya that he wasn't the one who needed convincing, that it was herself. Working for an antisocial, irreverent, workaholic jackass like Arnav Singh Raizada was not exactly appealing without a heavy incentive. The salary jump had been a good perk. And now it was five years later and she had been done with her MBA for two. She was starting to think that she needed to move on from Raizada Enterprises if only to try out other things. She couldn't imagine Arnav Raizada giving her movement within the company to try something else for a change rather than to be a glorified secretary to him despite the fact that she had three tiers of workers now reporting to her from bottom up. It didn't matter though, he was still the same old Raizada... still barked out orders when he was in a bad mood, although nowadays he did it less frequently and usually felt badly enough afterwards that he would let her get off work early or take an extra day off. She did enjoy those bits... she would have never believed that he would be the sort to feel guilty about anything, but go figure... the man did surprise her at times... there were times when she felt just a tad bit pity for him. The only real person that he cared about in the world was his sister, Anjali. Everyone else was dispensable. He dated quite often and occasionally the same woman for up to six or seven months at a time. She should know... she was the one who selected their jewelry and sent them flowers just like she saw in those stupid television shows. The first time he had asked her to do that, she had wanted to tell him that that wasn't in her job description, but then Lavanya had told her later that she had been doing it for years and that he had just assumed that Khushi would take over the same when Lavanya left. She had been a bit irate when she had gone shopping that first time armed with his company credit card, but then had seen all the glittering stuff Raizada could afford to lavish on women who didn't get much of his time and had found a heretofore unknown joy in spending ridiculous amounts of his money on shiny things... she had discovered that the joy of shopping was only in selecting and buying, not really in owning... she could name every single piece of jewelry big and small that Arnav Raizada had gifted to his girlfriends over the past five years... The jewelry was mere expense... but the flowers she took care in selecting... not like the regular ol' roses that every man seemed to buy... oh no no... if she was going to be spending his money on such ephemeral things, then she was determined to make it unique and special... two conch flowers for a woman who she thought had a most musical voice, a cluster of hydrangeas for a sweet petite woman who had an angelic smile, the Himalayan Bell flower for the woman who towered over Arnav Raizada by a most important quarter of an inch, a bunch of night-blooming jasmine for a woman who she was convinced he was dating only for carnal purposes, and lastly a blue lotus for the woman who she had thought would be the one for him... but alas, in classic Raizada fashion, his expiration date on relationships never extended past eight months... Blue Lotus had been an exception, but not by much – the woman had made it close to a year before he had broken up with her...

Such were his ways... Khushi had learned that aside from work and Anjali, nothing in his life had a permanent status... and she was starting to think that now that she was marking the eight year anniversary working for him, her expiration date may just be around the corner.

"Lee!" she said into the phone, cracking her neck. It was 8:30 at night and she was still at the office...

"You still there? Bee! You need to set some limits with him, otherwise, you are going to be slaving to an early grave for him! You know how he is. If you do more work for him, he just assumes that you can do even more." Lavanya admonished as she always did. Ever since she became a mother, Khushi had noticed that Lavanya was really into this maternal scolding with her. Not that she minded. She totally lived for such things... Especially since her entire family had moved back to Lucknow five years ago. Her sister Payal, now happily married, her mother, and even Buaji called at regular intervals to give her well-measured out doses of scolding. She adored them all equally for it. It was what got her through her 13 hour days like today with her sanity intact.

"I know... I know... I am almost done." She said as she turned on her laptop and tried to close out her emails. She tried to think of what would be a good take-out option nearby. Ever since her family had moved back, she had gotten an apartment relatively close to work right in the city and usually lived on take-outs. Thai sounded good right about now...

"Who else is there?" Lavanya asked and Khushi walked out of her office and looked down. All of the downstairs lights were dim. In fact, the only light in the entire place was coming from the farthest end of the hallway from hers. The corner office was Arnav Raizada's.

"I think it's just the devil who is left. And he is going to be cloistered in there for a while. So, I am pretty much by myself. " She said into the phone before walking back into her office.

She took off her suit jacket and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse before moving the things off her desk and sitting on its edge again, putting her heeled feet up on the leather chair. They ached from her long day and she couldn't wait to get home to kick her heels off. Lavanya had rued the day that Khushi had given up her pom-pom salwar-kameez, but they had had fun shopping for more appropriate clothing for a most awesome promotion. Wearing the heels had been her own preference; they were prettiest torture devices she had ever seen and they sort of gave this intense feeling of power that she had learned that she needed to feel to stand her ground against Mr. Arnav Raizada.

"How much more work do you have?"

Khushi rubbed the bridge of her nose and lay back down on the table as she thought of that question.

"If I stayed here for 30 days and nights straight, I am sure I could still find work to do at the end of it."

"Why don't you take a vacation?"

She scooted back on the table until her hair fell over the edge without bunching up beneath her neck and back.

"Vacation... hailaa... don't tempt me..." she closed her eyes as she imagined what a vacation would be like... She wanted to go off to some island and be alone and never think of work or office for a long while. That would be perfect.

She hadn't realized that she had said it out loud until she heard Lavayna answer, "By yourself? You are becoming too comfortable just being by yourself. Take someone with you."

"Lee, I don't want to talk to anyone for like a month. All I do is talk with people. And stare at this damn laptop. You know, sometimes I think I should have just gone back to Lucknow and started up that jalebi shop like I wanted to. Massmarket my jalebis."

"Speaking of, Jay and Nikhil are waiting for their maasi's jalebis. I tried to tell them that you are too busy to even be stressed enough to make jalebis, but four year olds don't understand 'busy' or 'stressed', so I took the liberty of telling them on your behalf that you will be coming over on Saturday."

She smiled as she thought of the twins' adorable puppy-dog expressions when they begged for "just one more jalebi, Bee Maasi... one more, na? Don't tell mama."

The devil had ordered her to come in Saturday as well to finish up some work that had to be ready for Monday, but she decided that it could wait until Sunday.

"Tell Jay and Nikhil that I wouldn't miss it for the world. Saturday is now reserved for jalebis." She said as she smiled into the phone and opened her eyes.

For a moment, she thought she was seeing things as she saw the dark form standing against the doorway upside down; the light coming from behind it was preventing her from seeing clearly. And then everything clicked suddenly as her mind quickly filled in the rest and she saw Mr. Arnav Raizada leaning against the doorjamb, his arms crossed, watching her with that "what the hell do you think you are doing?" eyebrow lift.

For a moment she couldn't move as she thought of what a picture she must present, lying prone on the desk, her hair and head hanging off of one side. She must look like a nutjob.

"Are you auditioning for a po*n video?" she heard him ask.

Well, or that...

"Did he just ask you if you are auditioning for a po*n video??" She heard Lavanya's incredulous voice over the phone.

"Yes. You know he doesn't mince words. I will call you later, alright. Give the twins my kisses." She said calmly as she raised herself off the table and slid off, keeping her back to him until she buttoned her shirt back up.

When she thought she was presentable enough, she turned around to face him.

"Do you need anything?" she asked, pretending she hadn't heard what he asked before.

He didn't answer and merely stared at her.

She tilted her head after a few moments and then gave into her exasperation and asked, "You really think I am going to dignify that with an answer. Really?"

"When I find one of my top female employees lounging on her desk with half her blouse open, whispering into the phone, I have to wonder what the hell is happening in my office."

She closed her eyes and prayed for patience. "It was two buttons, not half my blouse." She finally bit out.

"If I can see your bra, then it's half your blouse."

He said the most outrageous things without batting a single eyelash sometimes. One would think that she had heard it all and had gotten used to it by now, but no... he still occasionally managed to shock the hell out of her.

"Careful, Mr. Raizada. You are bordering on sexual harassment there." she said, half in anger, half from shame.

He scoffed and came into the room as he said, "I think you need to brush up on what sexual harassment is. And what is proper attire inside an office building."

She wanted to laugh at that. She always wore pantsuits. Always... and she didn't think even the strictest of measures would find fault with her attire being anything less than the pinnacle of professional.

But she was tired. He may have the energy and aggression of a bull-dog spoiling for a fight at all times, but she was merely human... a very exhausted human at the moment.

"Alright. Fine. I will take a refresher course in both sexual harassment and proper office attire. What do you need right now?" she asked, hoping that the white flag from her would send him on his merry way.

Instead, he walked in further until he was standing just by her table.

He surprised her then when he picked up the frame that held the photos of both Jay and Nikhil at their fourth birthday party.

"How are they?" he asked.

He also switched tables fast enough to give her whiplash at times.

"They are well." She replied, now suspicious of where he was going with that.

"They want you to come over on Saturday?" he asked now, looking up.

She tilted her head in confusion. How was that relevant to him?

He raised his eyebrows, repeating the question when she delayed.

She nodded.

"Take the weekend off then. I will ask Neha and Sushant to complete that work for Monday."

She shook her head. The last thing she wanted was for some other poor employee to be stuck with last minute weekend work and the famous Raizada annoyance if it wasn't done to his satisfaction.

"It's alright. I will do it on Sunday."

"I am telling you..." he started, but she cut him off.

"And I am telling you, Sir. I am quite able to handle my work and complete it without delegating it at the last minute to people who may have made other plans for the weekend."

That took him back.

"Fine then. Do it Sunday." He answered now, irritated.

"I will."

"And it better not have any errors, Ms. Gupta. It better be perfect!" he told her as he put the frame back down and stalked out of the room.

She sighed as she sat back on her chair.

The man really did drive her up the wall.

-----

If people want PMs, send a buddy request. I am not very regular in updating and this makes it easier.

ur os are superb...waiting for more... :)