The Addiction of Love

I

On a breezy March evening, Inaya Khan was in her office, wrapping up her work. After a really long week, it was finally Friday, which meant she could sleep peacefully for the next two days. Being an interior designer was never easy, but the past couple of weeks had been extra stressful for her. Since the company she worked for, M&M Studio, was one of the best interior designing companies in the country, they usually got hired by rich and famous personalities, which meant they sometimes had to deal with rude, and proud clients. And Inaya had just finished designing for one such client. Shalini Mehra was a Bollywood actress and had been an absolute bitch towards every employee throughout the whole process. And Inaya couldn't be more glad that that project was finally over. 

Inaya was about to leave for home when her colleague, Rishab informed her that their boss, Suchitra Nagpal was calling her. 

Suchitra was the lead designer of the company and Inaya's idol. It had been almost five years since Inaya had joined this company. She had freshly graduated from her design school when she came across an advertisement that said that M&M Studio was hiring interns. Though the internship was unpaid, and Inaya had planned on doing her masters before joining any company, she still applied for it for fun. But what she didn't expect was getting a call for an interview. It was Suchitra who had taken her interview. Suchitra saw potential in that young twenty year old girl and gave her a chance. Throughout the internship, Inaya proved herself by working harder than anyone else and was offered a permanent post as a junior designer. She took it without any hesitation, but also enrolled herself at a distant university for her masters. The next two years were tough for her, juggling between work and studies, but giving up had never been in her blood. After all, she was the proud daughter of a late army officer. 

Her father, Muntashir Khan had served the Indian Army for twenty seven years before passing away.

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"Good evening, ma'am." Inaya greeted her boss with a smile. 

"Inaya! Come, have a seat." Suchitra smiled back at her. "So, the Shalini project ended?"

"Yes, much to my relief." Inaya sighed. "She was, till date, the worst client I'd had the misfortune of working for."

Suchitra laughed out loud. 

"Seriously, she made me design her flooring six times, changed the wall colors like thrice and don't even get me started on the wall arts." 

"Well, I might have some news that'll cheer you up." Suchitra said with a sly smile. 

"What?" Inaya was curious. 

"First tell me, how do you like my cabin?" Suchitra asked. 

Inaya looked around while speaking, "It is nice. Why? Do you want to renovate it? Are you bored with it?"

Suchitra shook her head. "No, I don't want to renovate it."

"Then?"

"I am leaving it. And I want you to have this cabin." 

Inaya's brain shut down. She wasn't able to register the words that came out of Suchitra's mouth. 

"Wh-what? What?" Inaya stammered. 

Suchitra gave her a soft smile. "I am taking an early retirement. So the position of the Lead Designer is up for grabs. The board of directors have asked me to suggest who should take up this position after me, and I'm giving them your name."

Inaya was still spellbound. She had always dreamt of becoming the Lead Designer and when her dream was finally coming true, it kind of felt surreal. 

"If you stay quiet for another second, I swear I am going to take back my decision." Suchitra threatened her to get her out of her bubble. 

"No!" Inaya shrieked, and then cleared her throat. "I mean I didn't see this coming. You're not joking, right?"

Inaya wanted to be hundred percent sure that this was happening before letting her heart dance happily.

"Yes, Inaya. Your performance has been only getting better in the past five years. You deserve it more than anyone else in this office. Congratulations, your hard work finally paid off." 

A big smile appeared on Inaya's face and she thanked Suchitra for believing in her to give her such a big opportunity. 

Inaya left the cabin in a giddy mood. She collected her laptop bag and purse from her desk and bid goodbye to her colleagues. She was still dreamily smiling to herself while waiting for the lift. 

"I only had my doubts before, but seeing you smile so creepily to yourself had made me believe that you indeed are insane." A husky voice broke her lovely thoughts and she blinked her eyes to look at her surroundings. She had been so busy fantasizing herself as the Lead Designer that she didn't even notice when the lift door had opened. And inside the lift stood the man who Inaya hated with every fibre in her being, Zain Mir Siddiqui. 

"Ugh, just when I thought that I'm having the best day of my life, you had to show me your ugly face and ruin it." Inaya grumpily said and entered the lift. They stood in the farthest corners of the confined space. The lift started going down. 

"Wait a minute, are you calling this ugly?" Zain rotated his forefinger around his face and asked. "Let me inform you, this face has made many women crazy." His voice held smugness. 

Zain was handsome, and Inaya knew that. She also knew that girls threw themselves at him. But there was no way in hell she was going to accept this fact out loud. 

"You know, it isn't healthy to always live in a fantasy world." Inaya retorted back.

"I don't live in a fantasy world. Instead, I make others fantasize about me." He winked at her. 

Inaya couldn't help but scrunch her nose at him. This is why she hated him. He was always so full of himself. 

She was really happy after the promotion news and she didn't want to spoil it by arguing with him. So she just gave him a disgusting look and walked out of the lift after it reached the ground floor. 

Inaya and Zain had met almost a year ago. The building in which Inaya's office was located was a skyscraper in Mumbai, and many companies had their offices in it at different floors. Last year, a multinational company bought the floor above Inaya's office and set that space as their head office. Zain was the CMO of that company. 

They had come across each other a few days after Zain had started at the new office. Inaya had slept in that morning and was in a rush to reach the office since she had an important meeting. While hastily walking inside the building, she tripped over her heels and accidentally collided with Zain who had also arrived just then and was walking towards the lift. Luckily none of them fell on the ground, but the paper cup he was holding filled with hot coffee spilled over his white shirt. Thankfully the coffee wasn't too hot to cause severe burns, but the grand ruining of his favorite shirt, early in the morning was enough for Zain to scream at Inaya, in front of other people. Normally, Inaya would have apologized for causing such a blunder, but when Zain had started to scream at her, she lost her cool and came back at him with equal force. Other people in the building had to intervene and stop that verbal fight. And because of that, she had gotten late for her meeting, which just added fuel to the fire. 

And since that day, they both had gotten bonded into some strange hate relationship. It had been a year since that collision,but till now if they came face to face, they just had to abuse each other. Everyone knew that they couldn't be in the same room without cursing each other. Ask anyone in the building about Inaya and Zain, and people would say that they were arch enemies. But little did anyone know that it was not exactly hatred that was blooming between them all along. It was something else, something much more deep and beautiful. 

🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸🔸

And there starts a new journey of love.

This short story is going to have approximately 10 chapters.

Let me know what you'll thought about our protagonists, and whose side are you going to take during their fights.

And most important, start voting!