“Sorry?”
“Iram, your speechwriter is a spy.”
“Whose? Awaami’s?”
His chin tipped.
“How do you know this?”
“We caught her outside their office tonight.”
“Does Atharva know?”
“He is in his office with her. I just came out.”
“What was she doing there?”
“I don’t know, but why was she there in the first place? She lives here, she works here, why does she have to leave this place?”
Amaal frowned. Iram was publishing her novel. She left the office before or after work hours to meet her editor, and always informed her. This threw those trips under suspicion.
“Why would she spy for them?” Amaal muttered. Samar looked like he knew something, but he only said, “Atharva is interrogating.”
“Interrogating?” Her eyes widened. “Are you both crazy? This is not your SFF!” Amaal began to turn around to open the door.
“Let him.” Samar’s words stopped her. “You know he will not cross any lines.”
“It’s still wrong on so many levels. And he is the CM candidate! We should have an HR here in this party. Now that I realise it, I have been doing half the things an HR does.” Amaal whirled around. “I can’t believe she can spy. She doesn’t have that in her…”
“How long have you known her to claim that?”
Amaal clamped her mouth shut.
“I am giving you a heads up. You will not have a speechwriter tomorrow morning.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You sound downright happy about it.”
“No.” He deadpanned.
“Tell me the whole story.”
“I do not answer to you.”
“You still came running to me.”
“I didn’t come running.”
“You are definitely happy today.”
He stopped sparring. She kept staring at him. In the years that they had spent circling around each other, this one thing she had adopted successfully and seamlessly from him. She wouldn’t break. Not now, not ever.
Turned out, he wouldn’t either.
“If you don’t tell me, I am going there and finding out.” She turned to leave again, and he broke.
“We were driving from there and saw her outside their office.”
“Who, we?”
