An Illusion That's Love

Chapter 6

A couple of weeks later Girish, the CEO had organized an outing for the COMM employees. The trip was to a nice resort on the outskirts of the city, near a backwater. There was supposed to be a bus that goes from the office to the resort.

Vandana arrived in the morning and mounted the bus. Ananth was already seated inside and there was a seat free next to him. Most other seats were filled. She hesitated. Ananth also looked up at Vandana. There was somewhat an awkward air between them ever since that night's talk. They did talk about the work. But kept their distance from each other. She did not want to travel sitting next to Ananth.

But seeing her hesitation, Ananth just got up from his seat and went to Karthik. "Can you exchange seats with me?" He asked. Karthik looked between him and Vandana and nodded. He got up. Vandana had already sat down at the seat Ananth vacated. But a lot of people were looking at Ananth and Vandana as they noticed this exchange.

"People will think you are Avoiding Vandana," Karthik whispered to Ananth.

Ananth looked back. Reluctantly he went back to the seat near Vandana and sat down. Vandana looked at him. "People will misunderstand," he whispered to her.

He turned around to look at Karthik who was whispering something to Jaseena who was sitting behind him. Ananth turned back to Vandana. It was awkward.

"Hm... Did Shruthi contact you after that?" Vandana finally asked.

"No. Not really." He said. Though he had to lie at home that he is regularly speaking to Shruthi, there was no more communication from her side. Shruthi did not need to pretend to be a normal fiancé to him anymore.

The bus started as everyone was boarded.

Vandana kept looking out of the window as they moved, and there was no talk. Ananth even took a nap on his way. By the time they reached the resort, it was 10 am. Everyone got out. It was such a beautiful resort. People were so excited to spend their time by the pool and take photos near the backwater. The food was so exquisite as well.

By the time it was lunch everyone was enjoying themselves so much. Then Girish came to Ananth. "How is it going, Ananth," he put his hand around Ananth. Girish was fancily dressed in shorts and floral shirt and a cap.

"Good, Girish," Ananth said.

"Good. Good," He smiled. "Listen, Ananth we got to hear something peculiar."

"What?" Ananth was confused.

"That you and Vandna are ex-es, that you were in a relationship..."

"How do you know that?" Ananth was stunned. Momentarily he forgot to deny that fact and this was the question that came out.

"Well, everybody is talking about it," Girish said.

"What?"

"I got to know from Jayamohan," Girish said. Jayamohan was their HR. "He heard it from Sanjay and Deepak. Apparently, everybody knows that. Look, Ananth I don't have an issue. But a reason I don't particularly promote office romance is that things become awkward and affect the work if and when the couple breaks up. In your case, you two are already broken up. I don't want it to affect work. Is it affecting work?"

"No. Not at all..." he said, appalled. He did not understand how the news got out and spread around the employees.

"Good. Okay..." Girish said. "I just want you to be careful in the future. You are our longest and most trusted employee and Vandana, as far as I have seen her work is an excellent designer. I don't want to lose either of you. So keep things professional, will you."