Dil Beparwah | ✔

nineteen

||CHAPTER 19||
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┊A R V I K A┊

Samyak decided to make another appearance the next day. Out of congeniality, I smiled at him in greeting, though if it were up to me, I'd much rather have had him banned from setting foot near anything that had to do with our business. That snarky tell-tale grin of his wasn't what I would have appreciated with a hangover looming over, jamming with deadline worries and Oberoi's case, but eating the frog was what this Monday had in store for me.

Mia had informed me early morning that Samyak Deewan wanted to speak to me, and out of spite, I'd made him wait for a little over twenty minutes.  "Checking up on me again?"

An ankle resting over the other knee, shiny oxfords at display, he turned to another page of a document that I observed belonged to Project DEEV. "Just helping you out a little with work. I assumed you'd be late on a Monday, can't blame you solely for your generation's work ethics."

Huh. "I'm sorry that your weekends suck, Samyak," I responded, keeping the snarkiness to a bare minimum. I was pretty sure he kept reporting back to my father for the most minor inconveniences he'd faced because of me. Once a complaint box, always a cry baby. "Is this baby-sitting business an elaborate work-ethic of yours?"

He released a light puff of breath, rolling the band of gold in his ring finger, another indication of the competition that he was posing at me. "I'm satisfied with the fact that you're admitting that you're a baby in business."

I was glad that I had my back turned to him at that moment. He couldn't see the face I made at him while unlocking the  shelf that covered part of the wall. "Speaking of which, how are your kids? Unka bhi dhyaan rakhte hai aap ya fir meri hi khairiyat ki fikr hoti hai aapko?"

What irked me even more was the humor with which Samyak was playing me off. "Usi wajeh se toh aaya hoon yaha. The way your project is cruising, it doesn't look like DEEV will be setting sail by next month. Khair koi nai, Christmas vacation set ho jayega mere beton ka. In fact, kaafi sunehera mauka hoga. Binoy Chachu ka retirement and mera promotion."

I rapped my fingers on the leather of my desk-chair. Was he trying to be intimidating or just plain funny? Time and again, he reminded me how behind schedule we were running. In spite of the fairly strategic plan that the engineers came up with, there were too many factors that came under consideration only after the ship was built. No one could be blamed for the last-minute touches that seemed to last for months.

Biting my lower lip, I tilted my head to the side. "We kind of need to pause your wishful thinking, right there. Apne family vacation pe cost cutting karlo, I don't mind at all. Apna hi ship hai, jitne baar jaana hai jao. Lekin DEEV will be setting it's first sail very soon, and it definitely won't be your promotion that we would be celebrating when we do get on that cruise."

His response to that was to hold the binder up with an air of reassurance I could only wish to crush. "I don't blame you for your naivety, you are our pampered princess. Which is why, I'll let you have some fun."

"Kaafi generous ho aap," I cajoled, seething with rage on the inside.

"I don't want the vacation to suck like my weekends," he said, squaring his shoulder. "So, here's the new route, and the permit."

The heels of my pumps clicked on the floor as I made my way over to him, snatching the file from his grip. "You changed the route?"

It was his bushy moustache I felt like yanking off first when the papers confirmed his hi-jacking my project. "How did you get this done? Mai maheeno se High-Seas ka permit sanction karane ki koshish kar rhi thhi..." The paperwork and procedures were never-ending, and even then the prospective date hadn't aligned with our delayed schedule. In the end, we had had to opt for a safer, slightly less appealing route—Mumbai to Goa. How did Samyak, out of everyone, get this done so soon?