To Love or Not To Love

Chapter 33

Khushi was pacing the length of her apartment ferociously spewing expletives at whom she referred to as "Ravan Kumar". She had recently discovered that Arnav was an acronym of Ravan and had decided that the name Ravan suited him better than Arnav.

"How dare he", she muttered to herself. "First he asks me to be his...," she stopped midway, shaking her head, trying to get rid of the horrid pictures that were beginning to draw themselves up in her imagination. "And now when everything has sort of settled down there, he comes up with this other nonsensical "be my friend" proposal. I might have even agreed if he had asked nicely. But forcing me into friendship? What does that Laad Governor think of himself? The world might be afraid of him but I'm not. I won't listen to him. I won't take a week off to go to Lucknow. I won't go with him to Milan. And I won't become his friend."

Khushi continued her tirade, unaware that her apartment door was slightly ajar and that someone was listening to every word of her rant very carefully.

*****

The next day, Khushi reached AR Designs earlier than usual. On reaching work, she discovered her desk had been cleared. There was nothing on her table, no papers, no color pencils, no stencils, no files - except a white envelope that sat squarely in the middle with the words Khushi Kumari Gupta neatly printed on it.

With quivering hands, she opened the envelope to discover a flight ticket to Lucknow. The flight was due to take off in exactly six hours. Rage built inside of her. She looked at Arnav's office. Through the glass walls, she saw him perched on the side of his desk, peering into a file, the phone sandwiched between his neck and shoulder.

Picking up the envelope and the ticket, she marched into Arnav Singh Raizada's office. When the door opened without a knock, Arnav casually turned and ended the conversation. Not that Khushi was thinking about etiquette at that point in time.

"What the hell is this?", she yelled.

"Tickets", he replied, casually, still browsing his file, hardly looking at her. His attitude irked her further. Reigning in her anger, which was right now encouraging her to go strangle Arnav's neck, she asked again.

"And why do I have them?"

"I told you, yesterday."

"Well, Mr. Raizada, I am not going anywhere with you, least of all, away from this country. I don't think I can contribute to this project in Milan."

"Well, that is not your decision to make."

"Funnily, it is. And I am going nowhere."

Just then, Aman barged into Arnav's cabin to discuss some details related to the Milan project. Seeing Khushi in Arnav's cabin, he cheerfully inquired, "So all done with the packing?"

"P..packing...for what?" Khushi stammered, fearing Aman knew about the Milan trip.

"For Lucknow of course, silly. I met Sanjana at HR and she said you were on vacation from today for a week, visiting your parents. Well, well, I'm sure you are extremely excited to go."

Heaving a sigh of relief, Khushi put on her brightest smile, which suddenly seemed to irk Arnav.

"Of course, I am going to Lucknow. My train leaves at 8 tonight. I will be seeing my parents after three long months. I honestly can't wait."

"Well, good for you. Have fun!" chirped Aman.

"Oh I will," said Khushi conspicuously leaving the envelope with the air tickets on Arnav's table before leaving his cabin.

"Nice girl," remarked Aman, once Khushi had left Arnav's cabin. "Her infectious enthusiasm will be missed at work."

"Bansal, I don't have all day to chitchat about the personality traits of all AR employees. Get to the point," barked Arnav, leaving Aman flabbergasted as to what possibly could have turned his mood sour so early in the morning.