Abhira- A Forbidden Tale

Chapter 8

Akshara 

As Akshara steps out of the cab in front of the office building, memories of her first encounter with Abhimanyu flash in her mind and a tear rolls down her eye...

She quickly wipes it and walks towards the elevator where she's instantly reminded of the time when Abhimanyu purposely closed the door of the life and made her climb up the stairs.

She shakes her head trying to let go of these painful memories...

As she arrives on the 12th floor, she senses weird looks all around her.

She walks up to her desk and finds Soumya waiting for her...

"Oh look who it is!" Soumya smiles cunningly "Our very own...oops, not anymore... Miss Akshara Goenka" 

Akshara ignores her and starts picking up her stuff... 

As she picks up the photograph of her family, tears well up in her eyes...

"Looks like sleeping with the boss...I mean working for the boss didn't work too well" Soumya smirks.

"What the hell are you-" Before Akshara can complete, Soumya throws a newspaper in front of her...

And at the top of the page, there was a big photograph of Abhimanyu and Akshara that was clicked while they were entering Mr. Sabarwal's party...

For a minute, Akshara keeps staring at the picture... it is a candid shot where Abhimanyu is holding her hand and is smiling at her while she looks a little nervous.

The headline reads

"Business tycoon Abhimanyu Birla graces the Sabawarwals' party in New York with his new found love" 

And underneath is an entire paragraph that describes their appearances, the brands that they're wearing and a speculation regarding the new woman in Abhimanyu's life.

It ends with 'If sources are to be believed, the mystery woman is Mr. Birla's secretary Akshara Goenka and the two have been secretly dating since a few weeks' 

"Surprised?" Soumya mocks her "Well, none of us in the office were... considering you had eyes on him since the day you first stepped here" she says bitterly. 

Akshara, too overwhelmed by all this, quickly picks up the rest of her stuff and turns to walk away...

"You did well Akshara, even if you had his attention for a night... it must be more than enough for someone like you, right?" Soumya speaks up again. 

And even though Akshara wants to slap her across the face, the numbness in her body doesn't let her do so... 

She runs towards the elevator and crashes into a familiar hard chest... 

Even without looking, she knows who the person is...

Her teary eyes meet those of Abhimanyu's and for a moment, she is lost in them...

She also senses some emotion from his end but then the client he is with, starts talking again, breaking their eye contact...

"Sorry" she mutters and runs away...

Abhimanyu

Abhimanyu entered the office that morning in a pathetic mood and with a terrible headache...

For the first time in many, many years, he wanted to take a leave...

But he had an important meeting that he couldn't miss...

He spent the entire meeting thinking about Akshara and wondering if he had made the biggest mistake of his life...

But something was stopping him...from trusting her.