Nilay did not wait to acknowledge the light in her eyes. He wasn't here to dilute his image. He wasn't a tyrant, but he wasn't a softie either.
He IDed his palm print on the lock outside his office and the doors popped open. This space was forbidden for most of his team since it housed his originals, under-designs and source materials. Trade secrets, so to say. He had heard the lower-level designers gossip about how it housed a king-sized bed and some seriously kinky stuff that they dreamed up from the trashy novels floating around in women’s fiction nowadays. They thought he brought men here, and now apparently women too, in order to become his muses, and more. He let them believe it.
It was really an open space with a wide work desk, a wall-to-wall glass wardrobe and mannequins with different pieces in multiple stages of completion. At the back, where most of his staff didn’t even know a room existed, his fabrics and inspirations lived. His own collection. They were things he had picked up on his travels, paintings that invoked his creativity, materials he had ordered in small batches for his baseline work. If they set, he went in for bigger consignments. Currently, most of those had been delivered from GK Textiles. For his latest collection.
His laptop pinged with an email and he sat down on his chair, the full glass window stuck to the desk bringing in bright sunshine. He glanced over the email. Rain songs. His mind was stuck on Fiza. He had listened to it on loop while driving here. And Eureka!
Nilay minimised the email and reached for his mobile.
NiP
Good morning
He winced. Was he in school? Wishing his teacher? Deleting it now would look wimpy. He was anything but that.
NiP
How’s the tapori voice this morning?
He winced again.Idiot. You don’t know how to talk to a girl? Forget flirting, this is borderline insulting.He went ahead to delete it when she popped online.
DR. RITU KAPADIA
Typing…
He waited, knocking his phone on the surface of his palm.
DR. RITU KAPADIA
Ready for its golden jubilee concert
He grinned.
NiP
I’d like to attend
DR. RITU KAPADIA
Freshly sold out
NiP
Good thing I bought season tickets last night
His stomach began to flutter. It felt like he was a teenager. He had never done this as a teenager.
DR. RITU KAPADIA
You are lame
NiP
I thought I was obnoxious
DR. RITU KAPADIA
That too
