Silver Lining | Grooms #3

IV. Late Meeting

The next meeting was at the corporate office for Jace & Sons. Esha was accompanied by Louis since Camille had another meeting. The meeting was also at 5:30 in the evening on a Friday, making Esha wonder why it had to be late.

Louis sent words of encouragement as the two of them sat in the conference room, waiting. "Relax. You'll do great."

Esha tried to smile, but she kept bobbing her leg up and down, an obvious telltale of her nervousness.

A few minutes later, he put his hand on her knee, stopping her. "Okay, enough. It's getting a bit annoying now."

"Sorry."

Louis brushed it off, not honestly mad, taking his hand off her knee. "Esha, you've got to be confident in your ideas. If you have created it, you must have after some thought. You can't sell something you don't believe in so unless you think someone else can create a better design for this than you, than don't let anything get in the way."

"I don't know if he'll like them though."

"Do you like them?"

"Yes."

"Did you give it your best?"

"Yes."

He concluded, "Then that's all that matters. You can't control what others do, but as long as you have controlled everything you can do in your power, there are no regrets."

It made her smile. For someone who looked so carefree, he sure had a way with words. In that way, she was reminded of Parth. And this was her philosophy on regrets as well - she just needed someone to say it to her for her to remember it herself and follow it.

"Thank you." She expressed, a lot more at ease than earlier.

He nodded, offering her a last word of wisdom, "Trust yourself."

They turned towards the door when it opened, and in walked Nikhil followed by Julie. They all greeted each other. Esha's eyes lingered a second longer on his outfit. He was in a light blue shirt again with a suit coat and tie and business pants. In any other meaning, it was normal for a guy in his position to be dressed as such. Only, the color of his shirt reminded her of Vegas.

Her mind travelled off for a few, wondering about that guy. Had he found her note? Who was he? Did...?

"Esha?" Louis called her for the second time, this time placing his hand on her arm to get her attention.

She blinked away, staring at his shirt, and towards him. "Hmm? Sorry, uh, let's get started?"

She walked up to the front of the conference room. Nikhil walked over to the back end, taking a seat at the head of the table there. She started the presentation, avoiding direct gaze at his eyes. Something about it had her off her balance.

All the confidence she had gathered had started to waver off the second he had stepped inside the conference room.

She stopped a few minutes later when Louis' phone vibrated and all attention turned to him. "Uh, I'm really sorry about this, but family emergency. I have to go."

Nikhil nodded, "That's fine, Louis. Can't delay family emergencies. I'm sure Ms. Shah will be okay to complete the presentation?"

Esha nodded, seeing she didn't have much of an option. "Yeah, yeah, no problem."

Louis stood up, walked over to her, and softly whispered to her, "Email me to let me know how it goes." She nodded again, and after he'd walked out, she cleared her throat before continuing.

At the end, Nikhil commented, "Well done, Ms. Shah. Just a few changes I'd like to discuss. If you don't mind, we can do it now."

"Um, maybe we should do it when Mr. Santora is present?"