I beam, “I will teach you…” I caress her cheek, “I won’t like it if you lose either…” I smirk, “It will be catastrophical for the world to see loser Ishika because something tells me you will be a pathetic loser and take your revenge.” She swats my bicep and snickers which feels like a win.
CHAPTER 44
ISHIKA
I don’t mean to go to him. Sometimes lying to oneself feels better than accepting the underlying truth. The file in my hand is real—final layouts, revisions he needs to sign off on, a few cost changes that can’t move forward without his approval. It’s valid and very necessary work.
But I could have sent it through Ajay. I could have scheduled it. I could have waited. Instead, I print it, align the pages twice even though they’re already straight, and walk out of my workspace before I can think too much about why my steps feel…lighter.
There is a small, quiet anticipation sitting under my ribs. After the conversation I had with him this weekend, I somehow felt…myself relax a bit. I could spiral and shut off like I always do but…I feel like I don’t want to. I want to show myself to someone and that’s only going to be him because I…trust him.
I don’t examine the way my fingers smooth down my hair as I walk. Or the way I check my reflection in the glass partition as I pass it. Or the fact that I’m already thinking about what he’ll say when he sees me. I am happy I am trying not only because I want to be seen…but because he deserves it too, my softer side.
The corridor to his office is quieter than usual. Most people are still at their desks, the afternoon lull settling into that steadyrhythm of work that doesn’t demand urgency. I slow slightly as I reach his door—not intentionally, just…instinctively.
It’s partially open. Voices drift through.
Ajay’s and his.
I lift my hand to knock—and then stop. “Insurance is sorted,” Ajay is saying, his tone low, controlled in that precise way he always speaks. “They won’t question it further.”
There’s a pause and the only sound audible is paper shuffling. “Good.” Aryan replies, his voice so calm. Something about it makes me frown.
I don’t move. I don’t know why I don’t move, it’s not like me to eavesdrop but something about this doesn’t feel right. Maybe because something in Ajay’s tone has changed. Sharpened.
“You were reckless,” he says quietly. “This could have gone very differently.” My fingers tighten around the file.
Reckless?
There’s a small beat of silence. “I know.” Aryan
And then Ajay says something that makes everything inside me go completely still.
“You committed arson, Sir.” The word lands like a crack through glass.
Arson.
My heartbeat stutters.
No.
That doesn’t make sense.
That—“What exactly was your plan?” Ajay continues, quieter now, but the edge is unmistakable. “Because burning your own office down is not—”
“I didn’t burn it down,” Aryan cuts in, irritation threading through his voice now. “It was a controlled fire.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“If it brought her near me,” Aryan says, voice lower now, something almost careless in the way it slips out, “I’d do it again.”
Everything inside me stops. The file in my hand suddenly feels too heavy. My mind doesn’t process it immediately. It just…echoes.
I’d do it again.
For a second, I think I misheard. That I filled in the blanks wrong. That this is some misunderstanding I’ll laugh about later. But the silence that follows isn’t confusion. It’s acceptance.
Ajay doesn’t argue. Doesn’t correct him. Just exhales like a man who expected that answer and didn’t like it.
