“No, that’s not the whole reason.”
She waits for me to go on, and I wonder if I should let her know that her husband is an over-possessive, jealous person.
“He wants me and you to have dinner with him,” I let on. She doesn’t need to know that I got jealous. Not yet, at least.
“Me?” she asks, “Why me?”
“Because you are my wife. He said, and I quote, “to strengthen our business relations.”
“Bullshit.”
“Exactly. I just don’t want to bring you in his vicinity. I can’t stand him, and I have a lot more patience than you.”
She scoffs, and I bite my lip to stop the smile coming on my face. I know I have probably struck a chord.
“I have patience. How do you think I put up with you?”
I laugh, and I feel infinitely better. “I can’t even disagree. Maybe I am just being over-dramatic. The dinner is not scheduled for a week yet, so you have all the time to decide if you want us to go. Plus, we have to accompany Aarav in that influencer event.”
“Yes, true. If it benefits your business, then there won’t be any harm in that. Plus, you will be there with me, right?”
“Of course.”
“Then there’s no reason for me to be worried.”
Her words touch the deepest corners of my heart. I love it more than I probably should. A blush rises on my cheeks, and I clear my throat to calm myself down. If anyone walks in my office at the moment, and they see my face as red and smiling as it is at the moment, I will lose my grumpy reputation, and I like being called a grumpy boss in my office.
“You don’t. Especially when I am around. You never need to be worried about anything.”
She doesn’t say anything, but I know she feels just how I felt a minute ago.
“Yes. I will let you go now. I have work to do.”
“Yes, I will let you know once I am done with work and leaving for home.”
“Okay, bye. Have a non-pissed day ahead,” she says, and I chuckle.
“Bye. And Aisha?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
Aisha Kapoor
Even though I am a hopeless romantic, I never understood the importance people gave to these three simple words—I love you. I always felt that if you meant these words, even if you didn’t say them, it would be known by the actions of the person you are with.
It wasn’t until someone said those words to me for the very first time and not just said them but made me feel loved every second of every day that I realized the power these simple three words held in them.
I remember the day Reyansh first said “I love you” to me. It was only the first month of our relationship. Maybe that’s early for this generation, but for us, the timing was perfect. I feel like we have felt those words from the moment we locked eyes, but that is too cliché for today’s world.
When I think back to that day, butterflies flood my stomach the exact same way they did back then, and my eyes well up with tears that weren’t there at the time because things have changed so much between us.
We were at a picnic spot, having our first outdoor date. I had brought a romance novel with me that I was obsessed with at that time because he wanted to listen to me read it. It was an odd request, something I never thought anyone would ask me to do, least of all him, but I was more than happy to oblige. It made my nerdy, hopeless romantic heart way happier than I would careto admit. He had made cold cut sandwiches just the way I liked them and fed them to me as I lay down on his lap reading for him.
I was in the middle of a very intense chapter, where the main characters were quarreling about where their life was led, when he kissed me on the forehead, his fingers running smoothly through my hair, when he quietly whispered the words that stole my breath instantly.
“I love you so much, Aisha,” he had said. I could feel that he meant them because the way his eyes lit up when he saw the smile on my face was not something you see every day.
