To Love or Not To Love

Chapter 22

Arnav Singh Raizada woke up with a headache. It seemed worse than a hangover and currently threatened anyone who dared to make his or her presence felt in his vicinity. Coffee. And just with that thought came another – there was none of it.

He got up, moved to the edge of his bed and glanced at his wristwatch that lay near his bedside lamp. It was 4 AM. He was forced to go without his favorite Colombian Dark Roast coffee for over six hours – and the reason was Khushi Kumari Gupta.

Massaging his temples in a slow circular motion to ease the headache that threatened to consume him, Arnav willed himself to get up and make his way into the bathroom for a cold shower.

His day had not started on a good note.

****

Aman Bansal was fast asleep when his phone rang. Cursing the blaring ringtone, Aman got up to tell the caller off for ringing at this ungodly hour. One glance at the caller id and all his sleep vanished into thin air – the id was blinking ASR. The tiny clock at the corner of the mobile read 4:45 AM.

"Hello", mumbled Aman, annoyed with the way his sleep had been hacked.

"I want a meeting with all the designers working on the European project first thing in the morning. And if anyone cannot make it to the meeting, they better have their resignation letter on my desk by noon", Arnav barked on the phone and disconnected the call.

Aman rubbed his eyes, briefly looked up at the ceiling of his bedroom and then completely transferred his attention to his latest Samsung Note 4, stared at it for a couple of minutes, willing it to dissolve in thin air. When that didn't happen, he proceeded to dial the numbers of all the designers working on the European project one by one. After all, life was unfair. It was time someone else's sleep was hacked as well!

********

It was 12 PM and all it seemed to Arnav Singh Raizada was that his morning was spiraling rapidly out of control. Sure he had managed to have three cups of his favorite coffee since he got into work at the ungodly hour of 6 am but everything since had been downhill.

The meeting with the designers was a disaster. The most renowned bunch of fashion designers in the country had no clear idea as to how they planned to address the challenges that faced them in the European market. And Arnav didn't have the luxury of time before he could get things moving.

He had been to Anjali's office over three times in the last one hour. Even though her secretary had clearly told him that Anjali would not be free before 4 pm, Arnav had still hoped he could catch a quick discussion with her before that. He wanted some clarification on the legal aspects of their expansion, and patience was never a virtue of Arnav Singh Raizada.

Of course, the worst one until now was Khushi. She was supposed to come in at 11 am to sign her contract but he still had not received word from HR that she was in the building. Had she changed her mind? Why would she? Especially after she moved into his penthouse suite?

Arnav felt like banging his fist into a wall. He was behaving like a hormonal teenager. "I have totally lost my mind", he said to no one in particular. He sat down on his desk and tried to rework some of the designs that had been submitted by his team during the meeting but nothing seemed to make sense.

He was frustrated. Just then his secretary walked in with his fourth cup of coffee. He took a sip, looked up at her and simply told her off for making the worst coffee in the world.

*****

When Arnav received the call from HR, it was 12.30 pm. He cursed. Surely this girl had no value for time. And with that thought flooded back the memories of last night when Khushi had pushed him out of his own apartment and shut the door on his face. Lavanya had done a poor job of coaching her successor.

Khushi Gupta didn't know who she was messing with but Arnav Singh Raizada would set her straight once and for all.

Channeling the remaining of his anger towards Khushi, Arnav made his way to the conference room. He entered the room to find Khushi sitting on the chair at the corner of the conference table, her back to the door. Her back was crouching on the chair, almost as if she were writing something, and she seemed so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn't notice someone had walked into the room.

Curiosity getting the better of him, Arnav made no sound, moving closer to see what she was doing, when he found her doodling exquisite designs for a tunic on a scrap piece of paper.