Stay With Me

3.

"Ocean blue eyes,
looking in mine
I feel like I might
sink and drown
and die..."

✿⁠

Nurvi knew this was a bad idea. But did she have any other option than to work upon the suggestion of her P.A? No! So here she is, in the changing room assigned for her company's collection models, getting her hair done while another one artist did her makeup according to her outfit.

She had spent the other day to come up with another solution which didn't include her to do the modelling, but seems like luck wasn't in her favour. Every solution she came up with had one or other loop hole, resulting in loss. She couldn't bare loss, Afterglow was still in it's initial phase, it still needed funds and for that she needed investors.

"Ma'am the hair's done.", she came out of her thoughts when the hair artist completed her work, undoubtedly superb in their work.
Nodding her head, slightly annoyed cause the makeup artist didn't even look nearly done. One could say she wasn't entirely a fan of makeup and stuff. People found it ridiculous that being a designer and not liking makeup didn't suit together, but she loves clothes, fabrics but nothing that touched her face. She liked being raw.

She focused on her outfit for the day, it was a maroon red cotton lehenga with golden detailing and broad gota pati borders along with mid length blouse in the same colour with detailing of golden threads on the outer part and two dupattas to go along, one over the lehenga, while the other around her head which the hair stylist's gonna keep after she's fully done with makeup.

The theme of today's fashion show Designers Dreamscape was Indian tradition. Each company had to come up with something new while keeping the old theme together.
Her company had decided to pick up 5 states and showcase their traditional attire in their own style.

What she had worn was the traditional attire of Rajasthan with a little modern touch.
Adorned in jewelleries like matha patti over her forehead, chokkar around her neck along with another gold necklace, nathani, bajuband around her left arm with red gold mix set of bangles around her wrists, long earrings that had strings of moti go around her ears and tucked back at her hairs, kardhani around her waist and payal around her ankles making slight noise as she moved.

(These are the references I took to imagine the look.)

The other four models had the traditional attires of West Bengal, Maharashtra, Punjab and Tamil Nadu.
She didn't admit but she was a little jealous of the model dressed in the dress from Tamil Nadu, because she would have been more comfortable in her origin traditional dress rather than the one she's wearing.

After what felt like hours sitting straight in the same chair, the makeup artist was finally done with her coloring session. Nurvi decided to call her Ms. Art teacher, with the way she was doing her makeup, all concentrated like a toddler colouring in his drawing book.

Checking the time and informing her P.A beforehand, she moved towards the elevator and to the 30th floor where the cabin of the CEO of the Style Icon Models was situated, a meeting was scheduled. The modelling agency had their own area where the fashion show conducted by them would take place and the CEO had expressed his desire to meet her before the show started.

Reaching the floor, she saw two pairs of big mahogany doors on both her sides, and a hallway in between. According to what the secretary of Mr. Malik, the CEO had informed, she had to go to the right one. Knocking thrice on the doors, she entered after hearing 'come in' in a deep old voice.
She saw a man in his late 50's sitting behind his desk, going through some papers and looked up upon hearing her enter.

"Ms. Nurvi Rao, the great designer and CEO of Afterglow. Welcome to Style Icon Models.", the old man said in a teasing yet warm voice, removing his specs.
"Hello Uncle.", she remembered him asking her to refer him as uncle because they were old family friends and formalities weren't needed anymore.

"Please take a seat. And I'm really very sorry to call you all the way up here in these cloths. They seem uncomfortable.", he said referring to her attire and took a seat on the nearby sofa himself across from her.
"No worries, uncle. And it wasn't any problem for me but it might have been for you since you are a old man now.", she said amused and the seemingly 'old man' fake gasped at her comment on his age and muttering a small ageism under his breath, while both chuckled.

"Well as you know I was out of town for some work and the manager of our fashion show conducter was the incharge of this show tonight", she sat straight as the matter grew her attention. "I got to know about what that bastard had done.", he spat his words filled in venom for the man. "He's fired for all I care but I'm really very sorry that you had to go through the problem because of our company. He was involved with your rival company and due to the hunger of money, he let them hire the best and the last available models even though they didn't need them. They took the advantage of your situation and the need of another model. Can't believe someone can go so low for a competition, just to win.", he sighed giving her a apologetic look while she shook her head at him.

"What's done is done. We now have a solution to our problem and you have done your job by firing him, so let's move past it now. Let's just focus on the upcoming event.", he looked at her proudly, no wonder she was considered as the best and mature designer for her age. Keeping apart the bad part, she focused on what's more important, with no feeling of unhealthy competition.

"Aren't you too mature for your age, Nurvi?", the old man mused while she just chuckled and he smiled. "Well, there's still 1 hour left for the show and your company's chance is the 3rd one, so that makes it 2. So why don't you take some rest or may be power nap before the show. You can take the room here and rest there.", she didn't mind the offer really.
Sleep was far away gone since she started working for this show and a small nap won't hurt, so she nodded and exited the cabin after biding farewell.

The hallway was empty and the receptionist wasn't there either, all she could see is a room in her right and on the left of the hallway, thinking this must be the room uncle have suggested, she walked towards it all while texting Sanvi and informing about her whereabouts and asking her to call her before the show starts.

Pushing open the door, she found it to be another cabin, and thought may be this wasn't the room but since there wasn't any name plate over the door specifying it to be someone's, she entered it and moved towards the couch, which seemed to be calling her into a deep slumber.
Comfortably lying on it, while half the lehenga flowed downwards, she closed her eyes and letting herself rest for sometime.

After what felt like hours, she woke up with a heated gaze fixed upon her face and all she saw, when she opened her eyes, were a pair of the most beautiful blue eyes, she have ever seen, starring down at her.

✿

Hey guys!
So, here's the 3rd part of "Stay With Me". I had thought of making them meet in this chapter but the word limit got a little too much so I had to stop. But no worries, they are finally gonna meet in the next chapter and after that I might even give a chapter with Iman's pov (not promising but yeah).

And all these description about her attire was written after preference from Google so if there is something wrong in it, it's Google's mistake.
Lol!

But I hope you enjoyed reading and if you did, then please like and comment your thoughts below 👇🏻

Stay tuned!
Bye 👋🏻
KM