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 many times 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 to keep 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’s meant to camouflage the way my heart is behaving like an unschooled puppy.
He chuckles, amused, and the corners of his mouth tug toward a smile that somehow makes my chest both tighten and loosen at once.
He watches me, amusement softened into something like attentive curiosity.
“Let me show you around,” he suggests, voice low, as if the offer is both casual and considered.
I fold my arms, a reflexive barricade. “I don’t need that. I have the blueprint. I will figure things out,” I say, because that’s the voice I most reliably trust: precise, independent, unbothered.
I want to be a professional who can walk into a project and take ownership, not some novice who needs hand-holding from the man who probably throws money at problems and watches them fall into neat solutions.
“I don’t think I was asking, Ishika.” He states and I don’t like the way my name rolls so smoothly off his mouth.
“And why the sudden interest?” I ask, because my voice needs a weapon. “Are you secretly meddlesome, or do you actually care?”
“Maybe both,” he says with the hint of a smile. “Or maybe I prefer everything at Evergreen to be done right.”
He tilts his head, studying my face. “Also,” he adds after a beat as if remembering himself, “it’s your first day. We don’t usually sit back and watch our new people sink. We try to make them comfortable so they can do the work. It’s efficient.”
The statement is that careful blend of corporate-speak and genuine logic that makes me want to argue and simultaneously accept.
There’s no syrupy sentiment here. He doesn’t pretend his gestures are purely altruistic.
He frames them as mechanisms to make the business better.
Practical, efficient, slightly patronizing. I hate that I respect it.
“Do you really believe warmth and comfort are operational efficiencies?” I ask, because I want to poke the soft spot I saw in him in the conference room—the desire to make his office feel human.
He chuckles softly, a sound that could be taken as an outright dismissal if you weren’t tuned to the notes underneath.
“I believe people work better in spaces that don’t make them feel like they’re under a microscope,” he says.
“And I believe in not being a walking stereotype of a CEO. We’re trying something different here. ”
I look down at my shoes to hide the way my fingers tingle. He talks about people like they’re part of an ecosystem, not parts on a balance sheet. It’s oddly comforting to hear a CEO talk about humanity without the usual corporate veneer.
“Besides,” he says, stepping aside to let me pass, “I don’t think you need much help.”
His tone is casual, but the way he says it cuts through my defenses. There’s a compliment tucked into the words, honest and direct, and for a second I feel seen in a way that doesn’t require me to perform.
I march past him, head high, blueprint folder hugging my ribs like armor. “Yeah, I know,” I say, which is both a dismissal and a declaration. I don’t want anyone’s pity. I don’t want someone else’s help to mask my work.
He follows at a polite distance, hands in his pockets—a signal that he means to be present but not smothering. “If you need questions answered, contractors navigated, or a coffee that is actually drinkable,” he says, the ghost of a teasing smile on his mouth, “I am available.”
“Thanks,” I say, dry and practical. Inside, something warbles—annoyance, maybe.
The idea that a man like him would assume his resources are the default answer to problems irks me.
It implies people are a system to be toggled for comfort.
It implies I am a resource too—a resource he can wave at to fix a problem.
I take a step forward and the site opens into full commotion—voices, drills, the slam of metal, the aroma of fresh-cut timber. “I will handle it from here,” I state, my voice firm so he knows there’s no room for his opinions.
He smiles and gives me a single nod. Then he turns and walks away, and I let the work swallow me again, satisfied that I’ve survived the morning and managed, somehow, to keep my pulse functional and my dignity more or less intact.