I need someone reliable. Someone good. Someone who won’t run when things get messy. Jayesh better find me a damn miracle. I sigh and scrub a hand through my hair, glancing once more at the empty designer seat through my window.
The office suddenly feels colder. The city outside feels alive and relentless, and I sit in the middle of my glass kingdom, pretending I have everything under control. But the truth is—I’m thirty-two. My staff still treats me like a golden retriever in a suit. My mother is plotting marriage threats. My designer just quit. And I have a brand-new building that looks like a barren stage waiting for someone else to write the script.
Perfect. Just perfect. I open the file again, forcing myself to work. Because that’s what I do. Because unlike my love life, my company won’t fall apart if I show up for it, which I always do, because all I have is Evergreen.
No. Not thinking about that. Focus, Aryan.
I grab my pen again to push the feeling. Work first. Everything else later. That has always been my way, and it has always worked.
Hopefully, Jayesh finds someone good. Someone who knows what they’re doing, because God knows I don’t.
CHAPTER 2
ISHIKA
Stranger Things season five is going to drops three months later and yes, I have already rewatched the previous seasons at least five times. Who am I kidding—I’ve watched them more than that and I know it’s unhealthy but it’s my comfort show.
There are people who read, people who meditate, people who jog; I have Eleven and Hopper and a couch and a very specific brand of déjà vu when the opening scene hits. I could watch the same episode a thousand times and still feel like I’m coming home.
The world makes sense inside those frames—monsters with rules, friendships that don’t flinch, a town that keeps turning even when it’s trying to fall apart. I like that about it. I like that when the noise outside gets loud and people become unpredictable, the show is steady. Predictable in the best, most forgiving way.
I almost jump when my phone rings because no one really calls me. Calls mean interruptions that I cannot bill for, and more often than not a sales call followed by silence when I realize they’ve dialed the wrong number. Why? Because I am a lonely 25 year old who doesn’t have anyone in her life. Pathetic, I know.
The shrill voice echoes. My hovers hovering over the answer button. Maybe it’s a brand wanting to collaborate, or one of the vendors with a question about samples, or maybe—this is ridiculous—a friend checking in, oh wait I don’t have any.
Then the voice comes through. “Hey, Ishika,” and I recognize it immediately. I would never forget a man I worked with for a year, someone who was immensely kind to me. Jayesh greets, so casually it’s like he’s standing right there in the doorway of my life, unannounced and somehow expected.
“Hi, sir,” I reply, because that’s how I have to answer. He’s not a client in the traditional sense; he’s the man who taught me how to see a room and then filled my notebook with notes and corrections for about a year. He trained me, then handed me projects. He’s the kind of mentor who expects blunt honesty and gives brutal feedback wrapped in tea-scented patience.
He’s familiar, which is why I sit straighter when he speaks, which is also why my stomach tightens in a way I don’t like. “I have a job for you, if you’re looking for one?”
Looking for one? Being an interior designer is a master class in instability. There are barely any steady jobs and when you find one, the pay is a joke unless you negotiate like you’ve never seen a proper meal.
Freelance is the lifeline; I bounce between client calls and little gigs and sometimes the money lines up and sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve learned to live off the rhythm of inconsistency. I will not say the word desperate out loud because then I become exactly what I refuse to be—needy, small, visible.
“Yes, sir. I’m interested,” I say, making sure my voice is flat. I do not say please. I never say please. Please is a weakness, like asking someone to stay because you’re afraid they won’t.
There’s a beat of silence where I hear him shifting, “it’s good for your career. High paying, too. I was working on it until yesterday, but my wife’s ill and I need to be with her, so I’ll have to drop out. I need you to fill in, is that okay?”
My first thought is practical—Jayesh knows how I work, sure, but stepping into someone else’s project halfway is never clean. There are patterns to a project: mood boards, supplier calls, the way the original designer’s vision leaves fingerprints in the choices already made. I don’t want fingerprints that aren’t mine.
I feel my hesitation in the way my fingers curl around the mug. Jayesh, in his slow, measured way, answers before I can say anything. “I’ll be on the phone with you wherever you need me,” he assures like he can hear my small doubts.
“Why me?” I ask, because I have to ask. Not for ego. For clarity. He trained a dozen interns. He knows half the designers in the city who would bend their backs for a line on their CV. Maybe he’s thinking I’m cheap, maybe he’s thinking I’m convenient. Maybe he’s thinking something else and I don’t like the guessing.
“Because you’re talented, Ishika. You know how I work, and it’s urgent,” he says calmly, and there’s nothing theatrical in it. No flattery, just the fact that someone thinks I’m capable. That should comfort me. It does, in a way that makes the hollow place beneath my ribs loosen. Yet my distrust is a muscle I’ve trained for years; it doesn’t relax easily.
Then he says the number.
“Fifteen lakhs,” he says, as if reciting a phone number. Typical Jayesh, practical right down to the decimal. My mouth goes dry for a moment, and I hate that the texture of my breath changes at the sound of money. It’s terrible to admit that this can tilt the axis of my choices, but it does. Money is not only freedom—it’s bargaining power, a chance to breathe without counting every transport cost against my sanity. Maybe I could save. Maybe start a firm. Maybe stop saying yes to clients who disrespect timelines because I need the cash.
“I’ll do it,” I agree almost immediately, the decision coming out before my brain has time to dissect it. When money like that speaks, reasons that were once carved in stone become negotiable.
There’s an audible release on the other end. Relief, which I suddenly realize I have been holding in my own chest too. “Thank you, Ishika. This means a lot to me.”
I throw the word no-issues like a glove. It’s easier to make it sound like not a big deal; easier than admitting my heart is thudding in a way that has nothing to do with excitement. Easier than letting Jayesh know I’m not immune to the weight of the offer.
He continues, practical as ever. “I’ll send the briefs and the current supplier list. Can you meet the CEO tomorrow?”
