Chapter Two The Glass Orbit #2
Anshira watched them during the briefing.
When Ananya spoke, outlining the legal risks of a new telecom acquisition, Rovanth actually listened.
The stoic, impassive mask he wore for the rest of the world softened by a fraction of a millimeter.
He didn't interrupt her. He nodded, offering a low murmur of agreement.
He clearly respected her mind, and from the way he placed a brief, familiar hand on the small of her back as they exited the boardroom, he clearly adored her.
Sitting in the back row, taking minutes for the communications team, Anshira felt a dull ache in her chest.
Later that afternoon, in the employee cafeteria, the whispers were relentless.
“I heard they’re going to announce an engagement before the fiscal year ends,” one of the junior analysts buzzed, stirring her coffee excitedly. “It makes perfect sense. The Singhanias handle half of KDG’s external litigation. It’s a flawless merger.”
Anshira sat quietly at the edge of the table, chewing her salad mechanically.
She had heard the talk, of course. It was impossible to avoid. But as she sat there, processing the undeniable reality of Ananya's presence, Anshira’s mind did something extraordinary: it simply adjusted the narrative.
She's just a plot obstacle, Anshira thought with a naive, internal shrug.
In every great story she had ever read, the prince always had an arranged match, a perfectly suitable, elite woman chosen by society or circumstance.
But it was never the woman he truly loved.
It was just a hurdle the heroine had to overcome before the grand, sweeping realization at the climax of the book.
There was nothing bitter or scheming in Anshira's thought process.
She didn't hate Ananya. She didn't plot to sabotage their relationship.
She merely brushed it off lightly, believing with all the sincerity of a romantic dreamer that if she and Rovanth were meant to happen, it would happen anyway.
Destiny had a way of sorting these things out.
All she had to do was remain patient, kind, and present.
The other women in the office, however, did not view her lingering glances or her perfectly timed trips to the executive floor as the harmless daydreams of a romantic.
They were creatures of the corporate ecosystem, fiercely protective of the established hierarchy.
To them, Ananya was the rightful queen—polished, elite, and deserving of the crown.
They admired Ananya, aspired to be her, and, consequently, they formed a protective, defensive wall around her territory.
“Did you see her today?” Sneha, the intern-turned-marketing-associate from Anshira’s orientation day, hissed in the women’s restroom on the fourteenth floor.
Sneha stood in front of the mirror, applying a fresh coat of crimson lipstick. Beside her, a woman from the legal department named Rhea scoffed, washing her hands.
“Anshira? Yes. She was practically drooling during the telecom briefing,” Rhea said, rolling her eyes. “It’s embarrassing. Does she honestly think Mr. Kalresh-Dhen is going to look twice at a junior comms rep from Pune when he has Ananya Singhania sitting next to him?”
“She’s an opportunist,” Sneha said coldly, snapping her lipstick tube shut. “Don't let that 'sweet girl' act fool you. I've watched her. She orchestrates her route to the cafeteria just to pass the executive elevators. She’s trying to worm her way into a relationship that isn't hers to touch.”
“It’s pathetic,” Rhea agreed, drying her hands on a paper towel. “But it’s also insulting to Ananya. Someone needs to put that girl in her place before she does something stupid and humiliates all of us by association.”
“Leave it to me,” Sneha murmured, her eyes narrowing at her own reflection. “I know exactly who to mention it to.”
It was an unfair read of Anshira’s character.
She wasn't an opportunist. She possessed no grand strategy for social climbing, no villainous intent to break up a happy home.
She was merely a quietly smitten young woman with an overactive imagination, floating through the halls of a cutthroat empire without a tether.
But in the Kalresh-Dhen Group, perception mattered infinitely more than truth.
The consensus had formed. The target was painted.
It took less than a week for the whispers to filter upward, passing through the intricate, gossipy channels of the KDG hierarchy until they landed, softly and deliberately, on Ananya Singhania’s desk.
Ananya was not a woman prone to jealousy.
She was too secure in her position, too confident in her intellect and her pedigree to feel threatened by a junior employee’s crush.
But she was also a creature of the elite circles; she knew that unchecked rumors, however small, could eventually breed disrespect.
If the staff thought an employee was orbiting her partner a little too intentionally, it was a minor leak in the hull of her perfectly maintained public image.
She decided to plug the leak.
It was late Friday evening. The glass-walled penthouse atop the KDG tower—Rovanth’s private city residence for the nights he didn't want to make the long drive back to the Kalresh Bagh estate—was bathed in the amber glow of the setting sun.
The penthouse reflected the man himself: vast, meticulously ordered, and devoid of unnecessary warmth. The furniture was sleek, the art was bold and imposing, and the floor-to-ceiling windows offered a God’s-eye view of the city they practically owned.
Rovanth sat at his sprawling black marble desk, a tumbler of single malt whiskey untouched at his elbow. He was reviewing a complex merger document, his dark eyes scanning the dense legal text with the speed and precision of a machine.
Ananya sat on the low-slung leather sofa a few feet away, her bare feet tucked under her, nursing a glass of red wine. She had just finished a grueling negotiation with a rival telecom firm, and the quiet of the penthouse was a welcome reprieve.
“You're frowning,” Ananya observed softly, taking a slow sip of her wine.