"Baba, why are you being so worried?" Sanam asked, exasperated and tired of consoling her father who had been down with fever since the previous night. "I know Mr Khan is very strict, but he won't kill you if you don't go for one single day and also due to very valid reasons!"
He will kill me for sure, her poor father thought as every employee in the company was aware of Mr Khan's awful temper and was often a victim of it too. Hence, the fifty-year-old man, despite having a 103-degree fever could not help but worry about the file that he had gotten home the previous night to finish it off quicker and to check for any mistakes because God forbid, if he had even made a single small mistake, he could lose his head, literally.
"You know what, Baba, I will go instead of you otherwise you worsen your condition by worrying so much,"
"No! I do not want you to go there-" the older man struggled to oppose due to his health.
"There is no other option, baba, even our driver is on vacation. There is no other option," she explained, gently caressing her father's hair, "And it's not like he is some kind of big, bad wolf that he will eat me," she joked, trying to smoothen the worry lines on her father's forehead. Lying there, sick and tired, her father looked years older than he originally was.
"You rest, okay? Saba will be here with you until I come back," The said preteen nodded enthusiastically, she loved taking on responsibility and proving that she was indeed a big girl.
As Sanam got in her car and headed towards her office, she couldn't help but smile thinking of her father, he was so hardworking and diligent that even when he was sick, he was worried about his office work. Little did she know how legitimate her father's worry was.
She had only met this enigmatic Mr. Khan once in her lifetime and heck she didn't even know his first name. All she knew was he was a devilishly handsome man, if looks could kill, he would've made the entire human race extinct. It would also be a lie to say that sixteen-year-old Sanam didn't have a prodigious crush on the Khan in his early twenties. Considering how manly he looked with that stubble, it was hard not to stare at him. Not only her but all her cousins and friends also swooned over him.
The one time she had seen him was on her sixteenth birthday eight years ago when her father had invited his entire office and even his former boss, Mr Khan's father, and the said man was kind enough to show up.
He had even gotten her a lovely gift, it was a baby pink colored snow globe, Sanam still had it on her bookshelf. She wondered how he had even chosen it for her. Considering he was such a busy man, he probably had his secretary pick it up for her. Still, it was the most beautiful snow globe she had ever seen.
As Sanam reached the head office, she felt overwhelmed by the sheer size and architecture of Khan district, one could easily get lost there. It stood tall and proud, with its gazillion employees working tirelessly inside. It was every graduate's dream to get a job here and she felt proud of her father who has been working here for decades for it was effortless to lose one's job if shown incompetence or laziness.
She called her father who talked to the guards who then let her park her car in her father's parking space which was right beside the boss's as her father was his secretary. Numerous black BMWs and Mercedes stood in one straight line, all belonging to the boss and his bodyguards. Sanam gulped, not having any prior idea about this man's sheer power and status. He was indubitably loaded, she just didn't know to what extent.
She was escorted to the security room where a female guard checked her thoroughly then a man, dressed in all black, whom she assumed to be a bodyguard escorted her to the elevator that only lead to the boss' floor. There was another bodyguard in the elevator that led up to his floor. Mr. Khan might have just been the most secure man in this world, she thought.
The bodyguards were not only intimidating for being tall and bulky but also because they were masked and hardly said a single word. Sanam reached the very personal floor of the boss and felt very out of place due to her clothes. Everyone in that office was strictly dressed formally while she wore a lavender, cotton salwar kameez. She gulped visibly, suddenly feeling cold, she blamed it on the air conditioners as she waited in the waiting lounge for Mr Khan to call her.
"Go inside, sir would be seeing you now," a man spoke from behind. She nodded timidly and went inside,
