Twist in Time

His Interest

Akshara had been working away at Birla Enterprises for five weeks and everyone was blown away by her work ethic and the difference she was making to the team. There was no denying it. She was exceptionally good at what she did.

Her attention to detail was sharp, she was well-spoken, and got along with almost anybody she met. In fact, she'd surprised the team, when they were visited by their Spanish delegates and Akshara easily rolled off Spanish from her tongue.

Shrugging, she'd admitted that she could speak five different languages like it was no big deal.

More and more people were drawn to her, asking her for advice, mimicking her mannerisms, and wanting to be like her.

She was used to this.

She had worked hard to be like this. How she'd built herself into being this version of Akshara only she knew.

And on the other end, there was a group of people who were undeniably jealous of her.

Five weeks and she seemed to have caught the attention of everyone at the workplace.

Including the one and only Abhimanyu Birla.

They had spent days working together on projects, sometimes even going into the wee hours of the morning to work on the finer blueprints of what they needed to be published. Most days it was him and a team of other people including Akshara and on some very rare days, it was just him and her. And he could not deny how much he looked forward to those days.

The way she listened and hung on to his every word. The way she'd take extra care of every detail he mentioned. The way she laughed or the way she bit her lip when she was done with a conversation. The way she was angry when she was hungry indicating that her limits had been reached.

No, he'd be lying if he said he didn't look forward to seeing her. Receiving updates from her. Getting coffee with her.

He had been right about her of course.

She was calculative. She was straightforward. She was cunning. She was intelligent.

And she was incredibly beautiful.

So beautiful that it had sometimes kept him up at night.

But he had his work.

And although she had become part of his routine, he suppressed every urge to give it more importance than that. Because Abhimanyu Birla did not believe in any relationship beyond work. He did not believe in encouraging emotion.

It all seemed meaningless to him.

And so he took seeing her as part of his day.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

***

Akshara sighed rummaging through the paperwork in front of her in her office cabin.

Step 2 of her plan had been successful.

His interest.

She knew that she had caught it.

He could not get his eyes off of her and more often than not recently, they found themselves bumping into each other. The air around them was thick and the chemistry was visible.

Biting her lip, she admitted to herself the one thing that was slowly starting to nag her. When had she got so caught up in it, why had she found herself wanting to stay back and talk with him? See his smile? That still had the same effect as the first day. Making her all soft and her knees all weak.