Annika Mehra has a hundred things she needs to take care of: her business, her sister, her familial responsibilities and quite a few things she would rather forget.
The unfortunate circumstances which entangle the lives of an unorganised and energe...
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Nervousness wasn't something I was all too familiar with.
Not even before my first meeting as CEO of Oberoi Industries had I felt as nervous as I did currently, cuffing the sleeves of my shirt in front of the mirror.
The first time I'd met the Maheshwaris had been at the age of ten when Bade Papa and Badi Maa had decided to take me to a charity auction which the Maheshwaris had been hosting for the Cancer Relief Foundation.
While Mukesh Maheshwari had been stoic with Bade Papa, he'd been polite and nice to me. But from the way Bade Papa and Badi Maa had clearly been giving them tight-lipped smiles, I'd picked up on the fact that we weren't friends.
Avni Maheshwari, on the other hand, had been completely different. She'd glanced at me with a haughty raise of her chin, before steering her eight-year-old son away from me to meet other people.
And now, nearly two decades later, I was cursing the aisle, looking for an appropriate gift, to give to the Maheshwaris when Om and I would be going over to theirs for dinner, later tonight.
I shook my head.
I couldn't believe Annika had sprung that up on us—— out of the blue!
Breathing out slowly, I selected a small pair of pearl and diamond earrings—— a square shaped diamond as the stud, and a hanging pearl which would most likely reach the shoulders of the person wearing them.
"That's a nice pair," I stiffened, before turning around to face a most familiar and most unexpected face.
"Miss Chowdhury," I inclined my head.
"Shivaay," she pursed her lips, sighing softly. "Please, call me Mallika. We were close once, after all."
"Were being the key-term," I replied. "Past tense."
Her eyebrows furrowed, and she exhaled slowly. "Is that for your girlfriend?"
I had expected there to be a bitterness in her eyes and a bite to her tone, but it was simply melancholic, and slightly dejected.
"Hmm?" I hummed, glancing down at the small box in m hands. "No, it's not for her."
"Oh?" Her eyebrows furrowed. "For who, them?"
"A family of hers," I shrugged. "They wanted to meet me and Om tonight."
"Ah," Mallika nodded. "So an official meeting-the-family?"
I shuffled on my feet, glancing ag the cash register a few feet away. "Something like that," I cleared my throat.
"You never bought earrings for my mother," Mallika shrugged. "When you met her."
I hadn't.
I'd merely given Mallika's parents a bottle of one of Dad's favourite red wines, imported from Brazil.
