Sealed Fate

[4] : Unanswered Questions, Dinner & White Dress

"And we could then..." I was sitting in his cabin once again on a brand new day waiting for his conversation to get over. He had been speaking on the phone for over almost an hour now not realising that I was there for work too.

While he went on discussing business over the phone, my mind raced back to last night. Manik Malhotra had dropped me back to my place, safe and sound without trying to do anything with me. He had kept shut the entire way back home and so had I. The fact was hard to digest that he didn't try any move on me. I was all alone, we were mostly on the highway so not much population on that road was seen but all he did was drive. I don't know if I felt bad or good about it. I mean, what? Am I not hot enough for him? Or suddenly he gave up the plan of kissing me?

Though I didn't like him a bit in my head but the rest of me was attracted to him from the moment I had seen him!

But well, nothing happened. He dropped me home, at my door step and vanished as soon as I stepped out of the car. I would have thanked him for his generosity but before I could, he left.

"Ms. Murthy?" I was brought back from the trip to last night as I heard him say my name.

Ms. Murthy? Wow. That a fresh.

"Umm.. Yes?" I straightened up.

"What all do you need to know about me?" He was off the phone now. Finally.

"Everything, I suppose." I said standing up from the sofa and walking towards his desk.

I seated myself in front of him and took out my laptop from my bag and opened it in front of me keeping it on his table.

"Pink?" He asked maybe smiling a bit. Yep. I had a pink laptop. Why? Because that was the last thing my father has gifted me before he died. So I kept this with me as a token of his memory. I personally wasn't fond of pink at all but my dad thought that no matter what my age is pink will always be my favorite like it was when I was 8. So yes, a pink laptop.

"Yeah.. Long story." I said avoiding eye contact with him.

If I looked into his eyes, he would have made me forget everything else. His eyes were like that dark ocean where you cannot swim your way out. You end up losing your brains to those eyes.

"Shall we start from the start?"

And that was when we finally did some real business. He told me some already known facts and then some unknown facts. Things were limited to his work. He didn't speak of anything on the personal front. He spoke about how he founded EMPIRE and how without no help he went from rags to riches. It was quite impressive, I somewhat grew a bit respect for him as he told about his initial days. He never fell weak on his tone. His patent, stern voice recited me the entire journey. Almost an hour passed by and this session was still incomplete.

"And what about those rumors?" I was asking him whatever came to my head and this was the thing that was there 24*7 since yesterday. I wanted to know if he was really the way the media had made him?

"Rumors?" He wasn't expecting that sort of a question. He knew where it would lead this conversation to.

"Yeah? I mean.. the... that! That you.." What should I say? His stare got me nervous.

"Sleeping around with women?" He had given up the stern voice and a smirk, light smirk rested upon his lips as he completed the sentence for me.

"Um.. Yeah. That."

"That's something personal, sweetheart" and there we go again, sweetheart. "I don't think that magazine requires a piece of this information-" He still hadn't lost that slight smirk, "-maybe you'll know soon."