CHAPTER 37
ARYAN
By four in the afternoon, the office has that strange in-between quiet.
Not the calm of early morning. Not the rush of evening.
It’s the kind of lull where people pretend to work but are really just counting down the hours.
Chairs creak less. Conversations drop to murmurs.
Even the AC hum feels louder than usual.
Normally, I would have wrapped up my meetings by now. Left early, maybe, if I wished to. Found an excuse to step out, stretch the day somewhere that doesn’t smell like files and deadlines.
But today, I’m still here.
Because she is.
It’s a ridiculous reason.
I know it is.
I have actual work—calls to return, numbers to review, decisions waiting for me to make them. And yet, every twenty minutes or so, I find myself glancing toward the corridor that leads to the section she’s taken over, as if my eyes can somehow pull her into view.
They don’t.
So I stay.
And around three-thirty, when I realize I haven’t seen her step out even once—not for coffee, not for water, not even to glare at someone—I pull out my phone and call home.
Ma doesn’t ask questions when I tell her to send an extra tiffin.
She never does.
There’s a softness in her voice that tells me she understands more than I’m saying, and I end the call before she can say anything that might make me think too much about it.
By the time the food arrives, it’s past four. I let it sit on my desk for a full five minutes, pretending I’m finishing an email. My mind wavers back to that night. On the balcony. About the way she looked at me like I was something she wanted and feared in equal measure.
About how close we were. How close she let me get. And then how quickly she pulled away.
I have been thinking about that moment nonstop.
In the quiet parts of my day. In the pauses between conversations.
In the space right before I fall asleep.
The memory of her breath against mine. The feel of her hand on my chest. The way her voice broke when she said she couldn’t.
I shake the thought away before it settles too deep.
Then I pick up the tiffin and head to her.
Her temporary workspace is opposite to mine, half glass, half chaos. Even from outside, I can see the evidence of her—papers spread out, samples pinned, notes scribbled in margins only she probably understands.
And in the middle of it—Her.
She’s pacing.
Of course she is.
One hand holding a pencil, the other tucked under her elbow as she taps the end of it lightly against her lips. Her hair—those wild, stubborn strands that never stay where they’re supposed to—bounce with every step she takes.
She’s frowning. Lost somewhere in her own head. For a moment, I just stand there and watch. Because this version of her…this unguarded, unaware version…she doesn’t see me looking. Doesn’t brace. Doesn’t sharpen.
She’s just…Ishika. And God, she’s beautiful like this. Not in the obvious way people notice first. But in the way that sneaks up on you. The way that makes you look twice. Then a third time. Then forget what you were doing entirely.
I push the door open. She doesn’t notice immediately. “Sunshine.” She startles slightly, turning toward me, and for a split second there’s something soft in her eyes—something that disappears the moment recognition sets in.
“What do you want?”
Ah. There she is.
I lift the tiffin slightly. “Food.”
“I’m not hungry.” The response is immediate.
I lean against the doorframe, watching her for a moment. “You haven’t eaten.” I complain.
Her eyes narrow. “Are you tracking my meals now?”
“If I need to.” I shrug.
She scoffs, turning back to her table. “I said I’m not hungry.”
I push off the door and walk in anyway, placing the tiffin on the nearest clear surface. “My mother sent this.”
That gets her attention. She glances at the box, then at me. “I…Um…She didn’t need to.”
I pick up one of the containers and wave it slightly. “Ma won’t like it if I take this back untouched.”
“That sounds like your problem.” She snaps and I almost chuckle, I think I love getting on her nerves.
I smile a little. “It becomes yours when I give her a call?” I raise and eyebrow and she huffs.
“I will eat when I am hungry.” She announces. Right on cue, her stomach betrays her. A soft, unmistakable growl fills the space between us. There’s a beat of silence. Then another. She freezes. I stare at her. And then I laugh. She glares at me like she wants to throw something.
“I can’t ignore that, Sunshine,” I say, shaking my head. “I have to rescue your stomach from you.”
A flush spreads across her cheeks, quick and bright. And for a moment, I forget everything else.
This soft, embarrassed color blooming across her face—It might be the most beautiful thing I’ve seen all day.
She looks away first. “Stop talking.”
“Start eating.” She exhales sharply, clearly debating whether this argument is worth continuing. Then, without another word, she walks past me toward the door.
I grin slightly and follow. My temporary office isn’t much—smaller, functional, lacking the personality of the one that’s currently being rebuilt—but I’ve grown oddly fond of it.
Mostly because of one thing.
It has that glass wall.
I don’t have to pretend I’m not looking at her.
I can just…look at her and that’s borderline creepy but I don’t think I can stop. She walks in, glancing around briefly before settling into the chair opposite mine. I set the tiffin down between us and start opening the containers.
The smell fills the room instantly—home-cooked, warm, familiar.
She tries not to react.
Fails.
She picks up the spoon with a kind of reluctant acceptance, like she’s giving in to something she doesn’t want to examine too closely.
For a few minutes, there’s silence. The comfortable kind.
The kind that doesn’t demand to be filled.
I watch her take the first bite. Then another.
Slow at first. Then a little less careful.
And something in my chest eases. “Better?” I ask lightly.
She doesn’t look at me. “Don’t make it a thing.”
“It is a thing. You forgetting to eat is definitely a thing.”
“I didn’t forget.”
“You ignored it.” She doesn’t argue that. Instead, she takes another bite, gaze fixed stubbornly on the tiffin.
I lean back in my chair, watching her. And before I can stop myself—“The balcony.” She stills. Just slightly but noticable. “That night,” I add quietly.
She sets the spoon down. “It was nothing.” The words come out flat. I feel something tighten in my chest.
“Nothing?” She finally looks at me. And there’s a wall there now. Solid. Immovable.
“Nothing happened,” she says. For a moment, I just stare at her. Because I was there. I remember the way she leaned into me. The way her breath caught. The way her hand felt against my chest like she was holding on and letting go at the same time.
Nothing.
Right.
I nod once, slowly. “If that’s what you want to call it.”
“It is.” Her voice doesn’t waver. That almost makes it worse. Something sharp flickers through me—hurt, maybe, or frustration—but I push it down before it reaches my face. Because the last thing she needs right now is me turning this into something she’ll run from.
“Okay,” I say simply. And I mean it. Or at least, I choose to. She watches me for a second, like she’s waiting for an argument. I don’t give her one.
Instead, I nod toward her tiffin, “Finish your food.” Her brows knit slightly, thrown off.
Good.
Let her be.
She picks up the spoon again, quieter now.
And I let the conversation shift. Not because it doesn’t matter.
But because she matters more. If calling that moment “nothing” is what she needs to stay here, sitting across from me, eating food she didn’t realize she needed—Then I’ll let it be nothing.
For now. But I don’t forget the way it felt.
I won't forget the way she looked. And I definitely don’t believe it meant nothing.
Not when I asked my mother to send food for her without thinking twice.
Not when every instinct in me is tuned to her in ways I don’t fully understand yet.
She might call it nothing.
But I’ve never been very good at believing convenient lies.
Especially not the ones that protect people from feeling too much.
And Ishika—She feels. Even when she pretends she doesn’t.
I see it in the way she avoids my eyes now.
In the way her fingers tighten slightly around the spoon.
In the way she stays. She could have walked out. She didn’t.
That’s enough for me.
For now.