The hum of the air-conditioning filled the silence, useless against the heat creeping up her neck. Her pulse beat louder, faster, betraying her composure.
"Is there anything else, Boss?"
The title did what nothing else had.
Raghav blinked once. The warmth vanished. Control settled back over him with practiced ease.
“No,” he said, voice rough. “That will be all.”
Ishani nodded and turned quickly, opening the door before the silence could stretch again. She didn’t look back.
Behind her, Raghav remained seated, eyes still fixed on the place where she’d stood, aware that the line between them had been tested.
And left trembling.
Outside the office, Ishani exhaled slowly, resting her palm against the solid wood of the door. Her fingers trembled—not from fear or anxiety, but from something more unsettling.
She returned to her desk, aware of the glances tracking her movement across the floor. News of the morning’s confrontation had spread throughout the office. Now her colleagues watched with poorly disguised curiosity, wondering what had happened behind the partially closed blinds.
Ishani sat and turned to her screen at once.
She gave them nothing.
Her fingers moved over the keyboard, drafting an email she would later have to rewrite. The words blurred. Her focus wasn’t on them. It was on the awareness she couldn’t shake.
The awareness of Raghav watching her through glass and shadow. She felt his attention as tangible as a touch against her skin.
This changed the course. For her. For him. For them.
Chapter 6
In the evening, one by one, employees packed up and left. Ishani remained at her desk, organizing tomorrow’s schedule.
The sharp click of heels announced Kavya’s approach before Ishani saw her. Marketing’s social media manager perched herself on the edge of Ishani’s desk, coffee cup in hand. Her eyes sparkled with barely contained curiosity.
“So,” Kavya began, blowing steam from her cup, “are we going to talk about what happened today?”
Ishani didn’t look up from her computer. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Oh, come on.” Kavya set her cup down. “The entire executive floor is talking about it. Mighty Raghav Khanna, who once made the CFO rewrite an entire quarterly report over a misplaced comma, swooping in to rescue his assistant from a rude client?” She leaned closer, lowering her voice. “That’s not normal behavior for him. That’s not even in the same universe as normal.”
“He was protecting the company’s reputation,” Ishani replied, echoing Raghav’s own explanation.
Kavya snorted. “Please. I’ve been here three years. Last month, the assistant of the finance head got reduced to tears by that awful real estate developer from Dubai. Boss walked right past her crying at her desk without even looking up from his phone.”
Ishani finally stopped typing, giving Kavya her full attention. “What’s your point?”
“My point is that Boss doesn’t care if clients yell at his employees. He cares about results and reputation, in that order.” Kavya took a sip of her coffee, eyes never leaving Ishani’s face. “Until today, apparently. When someone yelled at you.”
Heat crept up Ishani’s neck. She turned back to her screen, resuming her typing though the words blurred slightly. “You’re reading too much into it.”
“Am I?” Kavya raised an eyebrow. “Samrat said Boss actually used the word ‘bastards’ when he told you to come to him with problem clients. Boss, who once fired an intern for saying ‘crap’ in a presentation.”
“Samrat should mind his own business,” Ishani muttered.
“And then you brought him coffee.” Kavya’s tone grew more pointed. “And stayed in his office with the blinds half-closed for what, ten minutes?”
“I thanked him for handling a difficult situation. That’s all.”
