Transcendental Love

Part 19

Arnav was depleted.

Yes, depleted. The flight from Nainital to Delhi that morning had had to carry the additional weight of Arnav Singh Raizada's heavy heart besides the weight of the man himself. Although he had had no inclination to leave Khushi alone, when work beckoned, all else ceased to exist in his world.

Landing in Delhi, the first thing he had dealt with was that blot on humankind, Rishabh. That was on his commute time. No sooner had he stepped foot in AR, he had chaired a meeting on the upcoming cars they were launching. This was followed by a three-hour long conference with one of their clients in the States. It was what happened in a normal day in his life.

Rest was a luxury which he could barely afford on normal days. Being the owner of a multi-million company, which employed thousands, the little relaxations he got had become prized.

What he regretted the most was that he had had no time to talk to Khushi in all this. She was definitely hiding something. He had felt the distress in her voice through the phone when he had called her on his way home. If his work was done by a time respectable enough to call someone, he would find out what was bothering her.

His watch showed it was 11 in the night. But his day was far from over. Aman would be here any minute now to brief him on the details of the last two days. That man deserved a raise for working around Arnav's odd timings alone, he noted mentally. If only he could get his mother's ginger tea!

It was a long night ahead, he sighed.

*********

Twenty minutes later, Hari Prakash led a visibly tired Aman into his room.

"I have instructions from Badi Malkin to give you both this, Arnav baba.", HP said handing Arnav and Aman a cup each.

"What?!", Arnav cocked an eyebrow puzzled.

"Thank you, HP. It's a no brainer that she would have known we needed her special ginger tea to work through the night.", Aman exclaimed taking a sip of the hot liquid.

Once settled on the chairs by the poolside, the duo immersed in the work at hand. Looking at them, one could hardly point out that their professional association had been only five-year long. When Arnav looked for a pen to sign, he found Aman already holding one for him. When Arnav frowned at a clause, Aman was already handing him the bulleted list of pros and cons.