The Fashion of Love | Adult F/M Romance [COMPLETE]

ch. 5 - January

Ravi pulled the wrinkles from his rumpled sleeves and Sora could only watch in wonder as he put himself to rights. The man who'd collapsed into her chair was receding and with him her friend. This was the heir apparent of Manendra Misra appearing, this was Jivika's son, put together and well-made. The tiredness that downed his posture was slipped into the inside pocket of his Armani suit like a phone number on a napkin he'd dial later on. He was becoming the man he allowed other people to see and shelving the man he'd shown her. The parts that are wounded are put away, not fit for public consumption. The two of them were so much alike beneath the surface it beggared belief.

He stood and stretched like it as a new day.

"Are you going to be okay?"

He smiled, putting his hands in his pockets. "I'm always okay."

Sora wanted to believe that just as she'd believed the vow he'd made her only weeks ago. But for all of Sora's newfound faith, she couldn't make it stretch quite that far.

"Would you tell me if you weren't?"

"If you'd tell me."

"Deal."

They shook on it, and Ravi drew her into one of his leaving hugs that always seemed to say more than goodbye. She held on tight, thinking of all the ways she'd come to rely on his presence.Don't ever disappear on us again. She couldn't say that to him yet, maybe one day...

"Take the corporate world by storm, Sora Gallegos," he murmured in her ear.

"I'll try."

He tucked his face into her neck and she might have held on for years had she a modicum less self-control.

"You will. I believe in you."

"I believe in you, too."

Then she let go and Ravi departed with his subtle smile and world-weariness to leave Sora to hers. Ravi had brought shades light and dark into Sora's life just by sharing it, and she found she didn't mind the contradiction, because she was sure Ravi wouldn't abandon her to face the darkness alone.

Ravi lasted little more than a day before he was in her office again. After the drubbing she'd taken from the Board of Directors this morning, because someone had leaked them the Miscavige piece (no guesses who), she was all in favor of a friendly invasion—provided her sister wasn't the sole topic of conversation. Martyrdom had its limits.

"Before you ask, I got bored at work and I wanted to see how you felt about lunch at Café Milan. The pasta primavera is in fine form this time of year."

"I have a meeting with the department heads at 2:30."

Ravi checked his watch, a dark brow rose dubiously at what he found. "It's just after one now. Were you planning to personally hunt and kill a wild turkey to dress the pasta? If we leave that to the cook, I think you should make it back in time to make your meeting."

"Funny!"

"I try."

She rolled her eyes. All the men in her life moonlighted as stand-up comics. "Right, what really brings you to HMG?"

"I wasn't lying. My office is bleeding the life out of me. I'm suffering from a terminal case of ennui." He draped himself dramatically over her chair, a happy contrast to his depressive mood of yesterday. She fought a smile; she knew better by now than to encourage him.

"You sound like Yelena." Her niece was as dramatic as one would expect a beautiful twenty-year-old girl to be. The trust fund she had at her disposal only heightened the melodrama.