A Business Deal [MxM]

Chapter 7: Vansh

He looks at me as if he has just seen a ghost. He is transfixed in his spot, all pale. He is the ghost right now, not me. I take giant strides towards him and stop a foot away from him. His breathing is heavy. The hair of his handlebar moustache quiver every time he exhales. I smile at him. "I am going nowhere. No matter what you think of me, you have to deal with me." He stares at me, dumbstruck. I feel a sense of achievement. I did to him what he did to me yesterday. We are even. I turn and start walking towards the main courtyard. I hear his footsteps behind me. They are slow, calculated, careful. I smile to myself.

There isn't much to smile about. I was gutsy enough to announce my departure. My arrival, however, was cut short by my father. When I called him after dinner to update him, he warned me to stay put. He refused to tolerate any more of my tantrums. Did I ever make tantrums though? Never. People assume things about me because I am rich. They assume that I will go on to become the perfect heir to Shah Industries when I am nowhere close to being that. Rather, I am on the verge of losing a major percentage of my shares. Winning in life? Not at all. Every passing day, I see a deeper level of hell. If hell is indeed below, soon enough, I'd be able to see the core of the earth.

To worsen things, my father asked me to look for areas which would make harnessing wind energy possible. Now is that something I am supposed to do? I started working for the company over 7 years ago, and all I have done till date is dog-work. Tara gets to sit in the office comfortably, and I don't even know where I'd be sent next- lock, stock and barrel. I admit it was my idea to expand into the renewable energy space, and everyone in the company-including the very directors who now hate me-lauded me for the expansion. Within a year of launch, we were making landmark progress. Although it may not sound much, we made a drastic shift from non-renewable to renewable energy in the past three years or so. And now, just because I made some mistakes-which I don't count as mistakes-the directors are pressurizing my father into reducing the shares I own. They even threatened my removal in the last meeting, which took place six months ago. I laughed at that threat. In the meeting room. In front of all the directors. I am horrible at controlling my expressions and tongue. A week later, I got into a heated argument with a director. I had been travelling for close to a year a half before that particular meeting to expand our solar power projects, and also look into wind power projects. After that meeting, my travels merely increased. My father realized keeping me away from the headquarters was the smartest choice.

Wait. That just seems like someone else's story too. I am in the passenger seat now while Dhruv is driving. We are heading towards the construction site; we would be there in five minutes. Dhruv asked Mayank to let us be alone. He has not uttered a word. His eyes are glued to the road, and mine have been glued to him for too long. I look away. His family keeps him away for different reasons. I lower the window.

"Not right now.", he says rather sternly.

I meekly shut the window. "About yesterday..."

"I don't need to know what happened to your plan." He turns to face me. "I won't give an explanation either. We end it here." He faces the road.

"We are on for the business deal, right?"

He nods. "Do we have a choice about that?"

Choice. If he had one, he might have chosen not to work with me. I might have chosen the same, especially after what I witnessed over the course of two nights I was here. I'll be lurking around for four more weeks and things might just get worse. I admit, when that Shashi first came the night before yesterday, I was perplexed. I had never expected Dhruv to be gay. I did not mind that he was- it was none of my business. Shashi's arrival yesterday unsettled me. Yet, I pacified myself by the knowledge of my return. When that plan went down the drain, I was truly concerned about myself. Seeing Shashi come every night, and leave at dawn, was not in the menu. Yes, I heard him leaving. I was in a perpetual state of fear I could neither comprehend nor explain and that kept me awake for most part of the night. Walking in my room or courtyard did not help. I went out into the lawn and jogged the entirety of it from all directions, but it did not help either. I filled up the bathtub with warm water and relaxed in it in the end.