Welcome to
Thread #2 of Arshi FF
The Other Half
Thank you, everyone, for reading, liking and commenting. This would not have reached chapter 15 and thread 2 without you guys. I'm so glad to be part of this journey. Keep enjoying😃
*****************************************************
I N D E X
Chapter 15 (below)
Chapter 23 TEASER on page 65 (02 Dec)
******************************************************
Oh yeah, uh huh
Chapter 15
He walked in the direction she had disappeared to and saw her standing a distance away."Khushi?"He called out, hoping it was indeed her, otherwise it would be awkward. Surprised, she spun around to see boss standing there."Arnavji.."She trailed off.
"What are you doing here?"
Khushi looked at him in surprise. She wasn't expecting him to be here. He hadn't made a note on the calendar. "Arnavji you, you're here?" She squeaked. Arnav simply stared at her. "You look nice" She smiled at him sweetly, seeing him in his signature suit. "Have you eaten?" She inquired.
"Khushi," Arnav wasn't interested in making small talk. He was already feeling agitated with his failed meeting with Nath, and seeing Khushi here was raising questions. He didn't miss how she'd been avoiding his question. "What are you doing here?" He repeated
more forcefully.
Khushi gulped seeing his anger rising. "I was just.." She looked around "I'm the caterer for this event" She informed him. Arnav wondered why Nath would have hired Khushi, his PA, for an event without telling him. He'd assumed Nath would have roped in some big time catering company.
"Have you eaten?" Khushi asked again. Arnav simply shook his head and turned to leave. Khushi stood there, her heart pounding away as she watched him leave. He seemed to be in a bad mood. She was sure her plan would put him in a worse mood. Hey Devi Maiyya.
Monday morning saw Arnav in a foul mood, his anger from last night's party still fresh, and at the moment, increasing. "What the hell does that mean? I need those papers yesterday. So you better get on with it. Understand?" Without waiting for a reply, he cut the call and threw the Bluetooth on his bed, watching it bounce off and land on the floor with a thump.
"Incompetent fools" He muttered under his breath, roughly pulling his tie around the sides to make it form a knot. Grabbing his bag, file and wallet, he turned to leave when he remembered his Bluetooth. He looked around and saw that it had rolled to the other side and was lying below the side table where he kept a flower vase. Picking it up, he stood but halted when he caught sight of
something shining.
He leaned forward to inspect it and frowned. Reaching out, he pushed in between the rose stalks that he grew in his very own garden and was tempted to pluck out the object but stopped in time. He turned away and took a deep breath. His heart pounded as anger seeped into his veins.
He stormed down to the hall. "Hari Prakash! Get here now!" He yelled out. Poor HP dropped the utensil he was washing and ran to his master. "Has anyone outside the immediate family been in my room lately? Anyone you seen sneaking into my room?" Arnav clenched his fists. HP trembled slightly at the furious look of his master and shook his head. "Are you absolutely sure? Has anyone visited our house recently?" HP shook his head again. Arnav grit his teeth. "You may go" He dismissed HP who wobbled back to the kitchen, wondering what had gotten his master so fired up.
"Chotte, what's gotten you so angry so early in the morning?" Anjali put her arm on his hand to calm him down. Arnav reigned in his anger and looked at his Di. "It's nothing. I'll deal with it." He was about to leave when he faced her again. "Have you seen anyone outside of our immediate family going to my room recently?" He made it sound casual, but internally he was dying to get a name.
Anjali looked puzzled as she tried to make sense of his question. "No, Chotte, I haven't seen anyone. Is something wrong?" She sounded apprehensive and Arnav immediately took her hand and squeezed it gently. "Don't worry about it" He took two steps at a time to get to his room where he paused by the door and refrained from going to the vase and grabbing it.
It being the small recording camera that someone had planted there. If there was one in the vase, there could be more planted around his room. He made a show of appearing calm and composed as he strode into his room, grabbed his bag, files, wallet, phone and Bluetooth, and stormed out of there.
On the way to his office, he drove rashly, trying to understand what was happening. It was slowly starting to make sense. Someone had been spying on him. It had to be a business rival. He made a mental note to find out whether only his room had been bugged, or his whole house. He needed to hire someone to find out. He stopped at the traffic light and looked down at his phone. Did someone get to his phone as well? Were they tapping it, bugging it? He shook of the paranoia and tightened his hold on the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white.
Arnav Singh Raizada loved being in control, and right now, after discovering that camera, control was very much out of his reach. He had too many questions and too few answers. He was suspecting that it was a business rival, because that would make sense of why his deal with Nath had suddenly gone south. Nath must have overheard Arnav discussing the profit margin on their deal and decided to stall their proposal by asking Arnav to lower his rates.
Which meant that whoever planted that camera did so over the weekend, most likely on Firday, since it was that day onwards that he had discussed the Nath deal in his room, where the bas***d who spied on him got his chance to overhear him. Did that mean that Nath was behind this? But he didn't have any proof.
Plus, there was the fact that neither Di nor his house help Hari Prakash, who was 24/7 present in the house, had seen any outsider going into his room. Arnav thought that that was very strange. Surely whoever was behind this had to have gone to his room to plant the camera, so how did they escape the watchful eye of his Di and HP?
He arrived at the office, the constant thinking he'd done on the way to his office putting him in a deeper foul mood. He marched up the stairs, ignoring the way his staff meekly greeted him. The door to his cabin flew open with the force with which he pushed and he all but threw his bag on the desk and flung his files on the table. Grabbing at his tie, he loosened it slightly. He glanced around, the feeling of being watched never leaving him. Was his cabin bugged as well?
"Arnavji?" Khushi called out, seeing Baba Arnavji in a foul mood. Well, what was new? Arnav spun to face her. He softened slightly at her hesitant look. "Yes, Khushi?" He asked in a strained voice. Khushi tentatively took a step forward. "Are you okay, Arnavji?" Her soothing voice was easing the tension lines on his forehand, where a headache was starting to build up. "Get me a coffee, please" Arnav eased into his chair and ran a hand through his gelled hair, for once not caring that his perfect hair could get messed up so early in the morning.
"Yes, Arnavji, right away" Khushi grabbed his mug and hurried out of the cabin to make the perfect cup of steaming coffee for her boss. She bit her lip, wondering what had set him in such a bad mood. Was it related to last night? Or was it something else? Had he discovered something But if he had, he would have said something by now, wouldn't he?
She grabbed the mug and slowly but surely made her way up to his cabin, making sure not to spill the coffee. She placed the mug gently on his desk and took a step back to look at him closely. He didn't realize she was back, what with his face thrown back against the head rest with his eyes closed. The day hadn't even started, and he was looking miserable already.
A string pulled at her heart but she ignored it. What she was doing was nothing devastating. He would get through it. She was sure he would.
She wanted to call out his name, to have him drink the coffee that was definitely set him in a better mood. But instead.. she looked around quietly and took small, quiet steps towards him. When she reached around standing behind him, she bit her lip again, wondering if she should do it. She tilted her head to the side and raised her hands.
Her bangles made noise as she raised her hands and Arnav opened his eyes to see her fair hands coming down on him. "What are you-" He groaned when her smooth, cool fingers touched his throbbing forehead. "Shh" She started massaging the tight knots of tension in his head in gentle circles, gradually building the pressure as she noticed that he was relaxing. She smiled happily when he closed his eyes and let out a deep breath.
In silence, she massaged him, working from the sides to the centre and back to the sides again. After five minutes of soothing, he caught her hand in his and brought her to stand at his side while he turned in his chair to look at her. He opened his eyes, the tired lines surrounding his eyes earlier now gone. "Thank you." He needed that. Khushi averted her eyes to where he had still caught hold of her hand. It felt.. nice. His bigger hand had enveloped hers, and it felt warm and safe. What was this feeling? She swallowed.
She looked back up at him and smiled. "No problem, Arnavji. Buaji says that my hands have magic in them. I worked my magic on you" She wiggled her eyebrows at him, making him chuckling at her unique one piece Buaji who had rightly warned him about her unique one piece niece, about how she was slightly sanki. But Buaji had failed to mention how sweet and cute and pretty her niece was..
When she gently pulled her hand away from his, he let go of her hand and looked away, cursing himself for holding on to her like some scared kid who had gotten relief. Khushi looked down to the carpet, the intensity in his eyes just seconds ago eating up the effort she'd put in to lighten up the moment. Her gaze fell onto the coffee the same time he reached for it and she blurted out "The coffee is cold, let me make you a new cup" She offered, reaching for it while he picked it up. "No, it's okay- damn!" He cursed when she pulled on the mug, causing warm coffee to spill on his desk and drip onto his shirt.
Khushi let go immediately and turned red. She fumbled with some tissues and started wiping desperately, hoping that her bipolar boss's new relaxed mood did not turn sour again. "I'm so sorry, Arnavji, I didn't mean to. I was just-" Khushi rambled but stopped when again he caught her hand with his. She stilled and looked at him. He was gazing at her with a look she didn't understand.
"Relax, Khushi. It's just coffee." He bet his answer would have sent half his staff into coma. Two months ago, when someone had accidentally spilt coffee on him, he had shown his ASR persona. And now, he was acting like a normal human. He smirked. He stood up, not releasing her hand. Khushi's wide eyes followed his movement. Slowly he took a step forward and watched with narrowed eyes and a smirk as she took one back to maintain the distance between them.
He let go of her hand and started to unbutton his blazer, the silence of the room and his beautiful PA stirring up emotions in him that he couldn't quite define. In the back of his mind he knew that he shouldn't really be doing this, though he wasn't sure what this was, but he knew that he had a deal that went south yesterday, and today he discovered that someone was spying on him, and so that made him want to prolong this moment between them just a little more.
This moment, where it fell out of the frame that they were boss and employee, that he was ASR and she his PA, that this was not the kind of behavior he wanted in his office. But he was feeling.. feeling unusual, feeling inwardly smug about her reaction to him, the way she bit her lip as she
trained her gaze on the way he was unbuttoning his blazer, the way she was breathing, slightly hollow and her stance, uncertain, vulnerable almost. It was amusing to see the normally silly, naughty, rambling cute PA of his this silent and unsure.
He shucked his blazer to the side and pulled his shirt out of his pants, her gasp the only sound in the otherwise quiet but charged room, his chest expanding with sudden pride at knowing that she wasn't used to such behavior, that she probably hadn't encountered such a situation, that she was innocent, a real innocent like she projected herself to be. Somehow, that brought relief and satisfaction to his mind.
Just as he was about to unbutton the top and loosen his tie, the moment, the spell was broken by Aman who poked his head into his cabin. Aman ignored that fact that his boss was near undressing himself in front of his PA, who looked like she wanted to hide somewhere. The distraction that was currently named Aman paved way for a slightly breathless and confused Khushi to quickly drop her eyes from her boss's still, regrettably, covered chest and she nearly sprinted out of his room, trying her best to put on foot in front of the other. She stopped to fold her hands in front of Aman, bowed a little and said "Good morning Amanji" and continued her mad race to her own cabin before Aman could say a word. If Aman noticed ASR's chest rumbling with laughter, he was wise to keep quiet about it.
"Boss?" Aman piped up, stepping in. Arnav sighed. "Yes, Aman?" Couldn't his right hand man come after ten minutes, when he'd had his fill of fun with Khushi? "This just came for you." Aman handed out a box that was wrapped with a card tapped to it. Arnav accepted it and Aman left. After sneaking a peek at Khushi whose eyes widened when they met his and she quickly closed one, winking at him and gasping as he winked back at her, he chuckled and closed the blinds to his cabin, quickly tossing his coffee stained shirt to the ground and putting on a new top.
Settling down, he tore the wrapping paper off the box and looked at it closely. It was a plain, simple white box. Opening it, his eyebrows hit his hairline at the content. He read the card and called the sender.
"Arnav! I figure you've received my box of sweets." Suresh Nath's voice came through the phone. Arnav cleared his throat. Nath may be involved with the spying. "Yes, I did. To what do I owe the pleasure of this?" Arnav drawled.
"It's just a thank you for attending the party last night. And a peace offering, I know the deal didn't close the way you wanted it to. Anyway, I hope we can work around it." Nath quipped. Arnav narrowed his eyes and bit back a retort. He looked back down at the box of sweets.
"I'm a diabetic." Arnav said randomly. "Oh, I know. All the sweets are sugar free. I like to watch my weight." Nath assured and laughed.
"So have them, Arnav. The caterer did a good job last night." Nath complimented. Arnav opened the blinds to the cabin and looked across to Khushi, remembering that Khushi had been there at the party as the caterer. But if Khushi was getting catering orders from big time people like Suresh Nath, why did she come to his office to find a job?
"What made you hire Satwik Mishtan Bhandar? How did you hear of them?" Arnav wanted to know how Nath heard of Khushi's business. Nath paused and frowned. "Who?" He asked in confusion. "The catering company, Satwik Mishtan Bhandar. How did you hear of them?" Arnav repeated.
"I hired Cookz Limited, Arnav. Not Satwik Mis whatever it is you said." Nath informed him, not realizing the iciness that had suddenly gripped Arnav's body. "Anyway, I've got to go now. Catch up later." Nath hung up, leaving Arnav staring at Khushi across the cabin glass.
He felt the earlier moments of teasing, of her blushing, her vulnerability, her.. her everything.. all of it went away.
She'd lied to him.
And if there was one thing he hated more than losing control, it was lies.
NO PMs - look out for the title + date for latest post please. 😳
Have not edited.
Hope you enjoyed !!
Previous
Next
comment:
p_commentcount