And I’m not letting anyone leave me again. Not even a Golden Boy with perfect coffee-stealing dimples.
I set my alarm for early morning, take one last long breath, and whisper to myself like a promise:
“Tomorrow, I’ll handle him.”
Even if my heartbeat isn’t fully convinced.
CHAPTER 7
ISHIKA
I tell myself a thousand small lies on the walk from the reception to the site gate. Rehearsing practical sentences—“Good morning, I’ve submitted the contract, I’ll start with the ground plans”—like a mantra to steady my hands. I repeat the names of suppliers under my breath, the sequence of rooms I need to check, the questions I will ask the contractors. All the while trying to be calm, competent, and in control. The lies help for a while.
It’s nine o’clock, the exact time the site manager told me the gates would open and the contractors would start. The morning light pours through the unfinished windows and spills onto the concrete floor, making everything look both raw and capable of change.
The smell of fresh cement, dust, and something sharp reminds me of a hardware store—metal, oil, the faint sweetness of sawdust.
I breathe it in and exhale; the scent steadies me more than I expected. This is why I like sites. They smell like work, like transformation—something I am capable of changing.
My boots clack against the floor as I clutch the blueprint folder to my chest like it’s a talisman. I’ve studied these sheets so manytimes in the last twenty-four hours that the lines between the offices and the communal spaces start to blend and hum in my head. I can already picture where the lounge should sit, how the light will fall across the reception in the afternoon, which wall needs a texture rather than a paint. My fingers itch to start pinning ideas to an invisible mood board on the concrete.
I don’t notice the slick patch until it’s almost too late. One minute my stride is purposeful, the next my foot slides—slowly, treacherously—and that terrible sense of free fall spikes in my stomach.
Time stretches.
I reach for something, anything, a railing, a pipe, an immovable object. My hands close in the air. The world tilts. I see the ceiling in the wrong place and for a heartbeat I think I am going to kiss the floor and that the rest of my career will be a cautionary tale about a designer who couldn’t stay upright.
Slowly, a hand slides around my waist, firm and warm, and steadies me. It’s a swift, practiced movement, the kind of instinct that belongs to people who are used to other people falling—physically or metaphorically—and catching them without drama. Close to my ear, a voice breathes, “Careful there, Sunshine.”
His breath tickles my skin. It’s ridiculous how close proximity can create a small, private universe of sensation. The sound of his voice, the warmth against my back, the steady evenness of his grip: everything presses into me like a sudden, sharp truth. My body jerks back on reflex, the hold loosening as I step away, eyes wide and heart racing.
Of course it’s him.
He stands there like he walked out of a magazine—tailored but not trying too hard, crisp collar, sleeves rolled to a casual, competent length. The sunlight catches the planes of his face, and I can see the lazy way he’s smiling, like this is both normal and irreverently amusing. He looks impossibly composed for nine in the morning and looks perfectly dangerous in the way sunlight on glass is—bright and beautiful and a little blinding.
“Morning,” he says, as though this is just another day and we’re both late for a meeting.
He is too calm. I am not. My mouth opens before my brain catches up. “Why are you here?” is what comes out, blunt and stupid and oddly accusatory.
He tilts his head and looks at me the way someone studies a small, interesting animal—curious but not unkind. His green eyes narrow fractionally.
“Because I can be here,” he replies. The simplicity of the sentence makes me both furious and oddly mollified; there’s something refreshingly unpretentious about a man who answers simply.
He raises an eyebrow as if daring me to be anything other than defensive. Then he chuckles, that easy sound that makes the edges of his face crease in an amusing, infuriating way, and steps ahead as if he’s been waiting for me to collect myself before moving on.
“Besides, I wanted to help you settle, considering it’s your first day,” he adds with a shrug that makes the gesture look nonchalant and monumental at the same time.
My muscles tense. My heartbeat picks up speed. Why would he want to help? Why, when everything in me is tuned tokeep people at a measured distance, is this man offering me proximity? I did what was expected—signed the contract, agreed to the deliverables, promised to do the work—why does he need to hover like a concerned parent or a micro-managing boss?
“Do you help all your employees settle?” I blurt out before I can iron the question under a more diplomatic tone. I hate the sharpness with which the words leave my mouth. I want to clamp down on it, to apologize, to explain. But something about this place and this morning and the audacity of his arrival makes my mouth operate on its own.
“Besides,” I try to cover up a bit as I glance at my phone, “it’s 9, the receptionist said you come at 9:30.” I realize as soon as the words leave my mouth that I have no rights to interrogate him, it’s his company, he can do whatever the hell he wants to. He can be here even at midnight. I don't really care, all I care about is him leaving me alone so I can focus solely on my work and definitely not on his green eyes.
He chuckles, amusement evident on his face, “I thought you told me to be on time,” and then he takes a step forward, “but did you come early to avoid me, sunshine?" he smirks and it’s visible he’s enjoying this too much. I want to push him away, because he’s too close, close enough for me to be able to smell his earthy perfume.
My face betrays me—heat creeps up my neck in a way that makes me want to hide under a concrete pillar. “No,” I squeal, and the sound is too high, too breathy, too revealing of how little control I have over my own reactions when he’s nearby.
“Why would I do that? I just value punctuality, unlike someone,” I add, rolling my eyes in a practiced move that’smeant to camouflage the way my heart is behaving like an unschooled puppy.
