THE PRETEND WORLD

Chapter 4

At Sizzle Fashion House: 8:25 am IST

Employees had started punching in with their employee ID as most of them were asked to report by 9 am and the daily updates would be usually sent by all managers to their managers by 9 am and would reach the CEO, Khushi Gupta, and no one wanted to mess with her and her discipline.

Khushi had reached the office making a mental note to meet the investors from a capital firm from the USA regarding their new venture and had to go over the slide deck for the final time and make sure her employees new the facts and figures of what we are proposing and ROI for them. With all these thoughts running inside her head she pushed open her cabin door without noticing Seema her Manager's assistant running behind her trying to tell her something.

The scene in front of her left Khushi surprised for a minute but Seema could very well see her face turning to stone and soon enough she yelled particularly at no one.

"What the hell is going on inside my cabin??" She looked at her cabin filled with bouquets of different kinds of roses and looked like someone was trying to woo the girl.

"Mam, I was not yet here but the security and receptionist were told it was a gift from AR Constructions that was personally delivered by Karan Singhania who works for ASR. So after a security check, it was placed in your cabin. I was informed now".

"Khushi walked ahead gritting her teeth and looked at the note from one of the bouquets-

Hello Kitten,

I know!! please don't be mad for calling you kitten because you look like an angry kitten always ready to pounce on someone. I wouldn't mind if you pounce on me you know? :)

Jokes apart I would like to date you and I know you didn't mean anything you said last night.

So see you tonight at 7 pm in Vivanta for dinner. You can also wear something red as it's my favorite color.

Your's
Arnav

The nerve of this man to create such a ruckus in her office and cabin Khushi thought angrily.

"Ask Rajesh to clean my cabin in 10 minutes and ask them to give these flowers to the small floral shop across the street, it might make them some extra bucks today. Something useful from this nonsense! Till then I will be in the conference room. Ping me once it's ready".

Saying this Khushi walked towards her cabin with Meera sighing in relief as she held her breath knowing it would have been worse.

Aman Mehra was sleeping peacefully in his bed when his 6-year-old daughter Pari, came running to him with his phone.

"Papa, Papa Dragon is calling!" trying to wake her dad snoring away.

Aman got up in a blink and took the phone from her hands -" Good Morning Mam!"

"Mr Mehra, what time are you planning to be in the office? or are you planning to be on leave today?" asked Khushi irritated

"Sorry, Mam, I will be there in 10 minutes" he ended the call and rushed to his washroom to freshen up. He hated why his boss was so punctual when it came to time. She had asked him to be in the office at 8:30 am and both of them knew since he handles most of her work-related communication his presence was very much essential. He also knew he was the only one who gets a call from her for being late else the situation would be different for others.

He had worked closely with her as her Manager for the last 3 years from her working under her dad for a year and being CEO for the last 2 years. He had thought some so-called Harvard graduate would come and start acting stupid but was amazed to see such a collected and mature girl and extremely brilliant. She was 3 years ahead of others in regular curriculum and it's also said she could have finished even sooner but it was too much logistics in India and all around the world to make it happen.

Soon after she took over as the CEO his wife was diagnosed with cancer and he had a tough time dealing with work and personal life. He had no issues when it came to paying for her chemos as the company paid him well and company insurance also covered most of the expenses. But his boss had offered him money as a loan in case he needed it and at that point, she had won not only his heart and respect but also his wife's for being so compassionate and human.

She had gone ahead and asked him to hire junior interns to work under him and allowed him to be present for the important meetings and work for 4 hours during the hospitalization of his wife for her treatment.

He clearly remembers the happiness on the faces of his interns after knowing that his wife's chemotherapy sessions were successful and he just needs to visit the hospital regularly with her and will be back full time. They hugged him in joy and some girls even teary-eyed as they could work under him easily now as they were not under the line of fire by the dragon itself!!

With these thoughts, he had gotten ready and his office was within walkable distance from his apartment. Now he was inside her cabin and was told by Meera that the ASR had sent so many flower bouquets to their boss. She had also taken a picture of her cabin just before her arrival to show him. He had been shocked to see it and gulped thinking she didn't blow the roof for this scene in the morning. He had asked her to delete the image and keep this information to herself and inform security too as it could become next page 3 sensational news.

"Take a printout of 354D of IPC and send it to Karan Singhania who works for Mr Raizada and tell him it's confidential and also attach this letter to that. Make sure that this reaches Mr Raizada only". said Khushi not looking at him and doing her work.

He took the letter and went out and googled the IPC section number and read the letter only to shake his head thinking why would anyone in their sane mind try to use this trick on Khushi Gupta to woo her! He did exactly what he was told and prayed to God this back and forth stops here itself!