Because if Ishika Vyas wants to hide behind professionalism, then I will attack the one thing she cannot ignore. A project. I buzz Ajay in. I know this is stupid, but if I get to see my Sunshine everyday, if she can’t avoid me anymore then everything is worth it.
CHAPTER 35
ISHIKA
I know something is wrong the moment Ajay walks into my office alone. It is an absurd thing to notice first. Not the file tucked beneath his arm. Not the measured expression on his face. Not the fact that he entered without his usual knock because his hands were full.
No.
What I notice is who is missing.
For one ridiculous second, I look past him, expecting Aryan to appear in the doorway with that infuriating grin, shoulders filling the frame, already halfway into some comment about how pale my office walls are without him in them.
He doesn’t.
The doorway remains empty. And the emptiness lands harder than it should. I hate that I notice these things now. There was a time his absence meant relief. Silence. Productivity. Peace. Now it feels like a room where the electricity has gone out—everything still in place, yet something essential missing.
That realization unsettles me enough to make me angry. Because I have always known myself. I know what I want. What I refuse. Where the lines are. How close to let people come beforeI shut the gate. I have never been one of those people who sit by windows wondering what they feel. And yet lately, I seem to be made entirely of contradictions.
Part of me wants to find him, fist his expensive collar in one hand, and tell him the truth. That his smile is becoming a problem. That his eyes make me lose arguments I haven’t even started. That every time he chooses patience when I hand him sharpness something inside me loosens against my will. That kindness from him feels alarmingly like shelter. That each stupid, steady effort chips at walls I spent years building. Brick by careful brick. And another part of me wants to run. Run fast and somewhere far.
So yes, Ajay arriving without him should make things easier. Instead, it stings. “Ms. Vyas?” I blink. Ajay is watching me with the composed expression of a man who notices too much and says too little.
“Yes?”
“There was a fire in sir’s office last night.” The room tilts and my breath catches in my throat.
My chair scrapes violently backward as I stand so fast it nearly topples. “What?” The word tears out of me. Fear hits first—clean, immediate, merciless. It floods my chest before reason can reach it.
Of course something is wrong. Aryan Khanna would never willingly miss a chance to disturb my peace. If he is absent, then something must have forced him to be. “Was he there?” I hear myself ask. “Is he hurt? Where is he? Why didn’t anyone call me—”
“Sir is fine, Ms. Vyas.” Ajay says it calmly. Too calmly. There is something suspiciously entertained in his eyes.
I stop mid-panic. “He’s in a meeting.” Relief crashes through me so hard my knees nearly soften. Then embarrassment follows, hot and immediate. I sit back down with whatever scraps of dignity remain.
“Good,” I mutter, grabbing a pencil I do not need. “I was asking professionally.”
“Of course.” His face remains perfectly straight. Which somehow makes it worse.
I narrow my eyes. “Why are you here, Ajay?”
He steps forward and places the file on my desk. I stare at it like it might explode. “It’s a redesign agreement,” he explains. “For sir’s office.”
I look up slowly. “For Aryan’s office?”
“Yes.” I open the file, suspicion rising page by page. “He wants me to redesign his office?”
“You are already handling the Evergreen expansion. Sir would like continuity in design.” That sounds rehearsed. Too neat. Like lines practiced in a mirror.
Still, I turn the page. Then stop. Then look again. Then physically bring the paper closer to my face because perhaps my eyesight has chosen this moment to fail me.
The redesign fee is double my current contract.
Double.
I look up so fast my neck protests. “This is wrong.”
“It is not.”
