Chapter 14 - The Perks Of Owning A Conglomerate

Advika was too speechless to even think of what to say. For a moment she froze. Then it dawned on her that she was looking like a mess, sweating from her jog and her hair piled up on her head in a bun.

"I am going to be herein Bangalore from now on," Arjun affirmed with a grin, his eyes dancing at the sight of her.

"Re... really? What do you mean?" she gasped.

"I'll explain," he said and took a step towards her.

She was too flustered, and as she realized how terrible she must be looking in front of the one person she wanted to be pretty for, she stepped back into the house closing the door on his face.

Arjun caught the door before she could close it completely, thrown off with Miss. D's sudden reaction. "What...? Hey, what happened?"

"You do realize how terrible I am looking right now, right?" she asked, trying to hide behind the half-open door, pushing it against Arjun who was holding it open.

"Oh, come on, the first time I saw you, you were dressed in track pants and sweat shirt. I am more used to your morning look than you being dolled up," he heaved as he stuck his arm between the door and its frame, trying to keep it open, reasoning with her.

She stopped closing the door realizing he was right, sighed and opened it again slowly. "You got me so surprised I wasn't thinking straight."

He ruffled her hair playfully and said, "That's understandable."

"Still, this is not the right time," she said, hiding her smile. "You can't come in now. I have two other roommates in there. What do you think two women would do if a man walks in early in the morning right at the time they are getting dressed for office and having breakfast?"

Arjun realized where he had erred. "Right," he admitted. "My bad, I just rushed over to see you first. I didn't think of the appropriateness." He took a step back and then asked, "I will wait nearby. There's a coffee shop on the way here. Let me know when you are ready for work. I will drop you. How is that?"

She chuckled at his fazed expression and willingness to still wait for her, noting how adorable he could be at times despite his big frame and gallant and strong bearing.

"Sounds great," she replied, smiling warmly at him. "And be prepared for all the questions that are about to come from me."

"Already am," he said, placing his hand on his heart as an indication of his preparedness.

Half-an hour later, as Miss. D walked into the cafe dressed in blue formal pants and peach coloured dress shirt, Arjun waved at her from a corner table, breakfast and coffee ready on the table, hot and steaming, for her.

"What do you mean you are moving to Bangalore for good?" she asked him as soon as she sat down.

"Well, there's an advantage when you have a business sprawling the country. You can change your work base to any location you want," he answered quite enigmatically. "Remember the eco retreat projects I was ideating about. I am planning to start somewhere along the west coast. Plus, there are a few other projects we are handling from our Bangalore office. So, I took a "transfer" to this place."

Miss. D opened her mouth then closed it unable to say anything. She took a deep breath squeezing her eyes shut, sighed and opened her eyes, pursing her lips to stop her grin.

"You are here for me," she deduced.

"I am here for work," he said with a straight face and then smirked.

She ended up laughing. "I have my tickets booked for the next weekend to our hometown, which was for visiting someone as a surprise there. Should I go?"

He jerked forward in his seat exclaiming, "No, no way. Why go there when I am already here." After a pause he added on a serious note, "This is the first time I am actually doing something tangible for you."

"In that sense Mr. J, even I have never done anything tangible for you, except for maybe our first date meal," she clarified. "We don't have to weigh and do things for each other."

She noticed the look on his face. He was silently asking for her to understand why he was doing what he was doing. "All the same," she added. "I am really happy you are here."

Thus began a new routine for both Mr. J and Miss. D.

She lived with two of her friends in an apartment close to her office. Arjun, though having his office at quite a distance from that location, chose to live in an apartment midway between his office and her house.

Though they never went to each other's house, Arjun would join her for a jog in the morning at the public park in her locality. They would run and walk around talking about almost anything and everything. When time permitted he would drop her at her office and sometimes pick her up in the evening for a quick dinner before retiring for the day.

Though he tried his best, Arjun didn't have all the weekends for himself. He wasn't lying when he said he had work commitments in the place. There were times when he would be away on business trips. He felt like asking Miss. D if she could join him on the trips at least on a couple of occasions. But every time that thought crossed his mind, he would remind himself that he should give her time and space, that propping such questions to her would only pressurise her with an obligation to say 'yes'. He knew she would agree to his request, but only because he was asking her, not because she wanted to. He didn't want to force her to walk faster than what she could.

He had promised to match his pace to hers.

For the first time, Advika was feeling a lot peaceful. She had always missed Arun. She had missed the way he looked at her, his easy laugh, how he regarded each and every word of hers with importance, how he cared for her and respected her, how his eyes always searched for her and how he never judged her.

Romanticism is not everyone's cup of tea. Advika was a dreamer who placed more importance on the emotional perception of people than practical and materialistic approaches. Seldom did people understand what she valued or how her thoughts ran. Mr. J was the only person who seemed to consider everything that she viewed and opined as reasonable and perfect even, without any sort of judgement. It might have been the acceptance and importance he gave to her that made her fall for him.

Or maybe, they both had gotten so attuned to each other that they never realized where the boundaries between got dissolved and why they loved each other.

Arjun was waiting for her one evening outside her office, working on his laptop sitting in his car. She was supposed to finish her work by seven. It was eight and yet there was no sign of her. She texted him twice that she was going to be delayed because of some urgent work. There was some error with a PR material they had posted online and the repercussions were keeping her occupied.

She came out an hour and half late, looking mentally exhausted.

"I told them literally a dozen times to check the typos in the flyer, to correct them," she grumbled angrily as she got into Arjun's car. "I know they are not my team, but still, can't they really consider a friendly advice. I mean, I pointed it out clearly, and yet they went ahead and forgot about it. Now the whole marketing department is hearing it from the higher management."

Arjun watched her for a moment in concern and then in amusement.

"What?" she asked him, eyeing his slight smile in confusion.

"So, the angelic Miss. D can also get angry," he remarked, his voice low and deep, lips puckered into a smile. "This is the first time I am seeing you so frustrated."

She gave him a hard stare and informed, "Well, you in for a surprise Mr. J. I do get a bit of a temper at times. It might not be that frequent, but..."

"When you get actually angry it is glowing to blow up," he finished her sentence.

She scoffed. Then a smile eased onto her face as she asked, "How do you know?"

"It would be weird if I didn't know you," he replied as a matter of fact. He turned his body to the side to face her directly and said, "You tend to hold back and bear it all for as long as you can. So, if you can no longer keep it bottled in, when you have reached a limit, you can't help but explode. It's perfectly normal, no one can keep holding it in for infinite time. Patience has a limit. Your patience levels just have a higher limit."

She gazed at him, her frown softening and her warm gleam returning to her eyes.

"Yeah," she finally managed to say. "You do know me so well."

As they had a late dinner, Arjun couldn't help admitting, "I had wanted to ask you if you could work in my company."

"What?" she asked, a little irked and more surprised.

"I know, I know," Arjun added hastily, putting down his fork and giving her a look that asked for some understanding. "I would be coming off as a jerk if I ask you to switch your workplace based only our personal connection. Which is why I never actually made you the offer."

Miss. D nodded slowly, observing him and getting his point. "And the Mr. J I know will never make a professional decision based on personal connections either," she sealed the discussion.

He nodded, relieved that she wasn't offended or upset. It could have very well been a sensitive topic for them. Miss. D loved working on her own abilities and him offering her a job would have undermined her talents.

They got into discussing Arjun's work as he told her about the discussions they were having about an eco retreat resort targeted at couples and families. He sighed about the varying market feedback they were getting and the ideas of project branding they were discussing about.

"If you are planning for the project in coastal areas, why not collaborate with the local fishing communities, environmental protection groups and create a sustainability focused learning and living retreats? There's a lot of sensitivity in the youngster about sustainability and many want to learn more about the related activities," she suggested.

They spent the next hour fleshing out Miss. D's ideas, delving so deep into it that they actually asked the restaurant manager to fetch some blank sheets of paper and pen and started jotting down the ideas, points of discussion and research, collaboration ideas and so on.

As they sat discussing way past their dinner, Arjun could see the talent, passion and fine in Miss. D. She really meant it when she said she loved her work and job.

And he could see how creative and capable she was, better than a lot of the people he was working with.

She was indeed an asset to any organization that would employ her. He could see the value she could add to the projects he wanted to work on.

He could see where his thoughts were going, what his mind was mapping silently.

"I cannot come off as a jerk," he thought to himself silently as they made their way out of the restaurant, with Miss. D looking positively radiant with the brainwork she did, the frustrations of her overworked evening no longer bogging her down.

Arjun realized what he could actually do to make her an offer of job without coming off as a jerk.