2. OS 19. His Elusive Lover (Part 2)

Part 2

Khushi stared at the leonine man standing in his office with all the fear and fascination of a child seeing a barely caged lion in a zoo for the first time. ASR was fury personified. In the short time she had been here, she had heard many a tale of his anger and his volcanic eruptions.

ASR looked at the slip of a girl who had sucker punched him just with her appearance and presence.

“Err...ASR,” Aman cut into the silence that was freaking him out. “This is Khushi Kumari Gupta.”

ASR said nothing.

Aman looked at ASR’s closed face and burning eyes, disturbed. What was going through ASR’s head? Eight years of working with him had alerted Aman to his wily and shrewd ways and unpredictable reactions.

Aman’s eyes turned to Khushi’s fearful face. Poor kid, he thought. He cleared his throat and said softly, “Khushi, ASR doesn’t want red roses anywhere in the office, especially not in his room.”

Khushi nodded slowly, her wide eyes on Aman’s kind face.

“He doesn’t want you to arrange flowers in his room,” Aman added.

Khushi nodded. She lifted her eyes to the molten chocolate eyes glaring at her. “Humein maaf keejiye,” she whispered.

ASR swallowed hard, her whisper touching the heart he didn’t know he had.

Khushi walked into the room on shaking legs.

ASR looked at her coming closer and then passing by him to reach the vase of red roses. She was poetry in motion and his gaze was trapped, caught, held captive.

She lifted the glass vase with the roses and walked by him to the door. She then bent to pick the red roses he had thrown at her.

His eyes traced the length of her silky plait as it swung against the trim figure of her back as she knelt on the ground. As her hand reached to pick a shard of broken glass, he said, “No.”

Khushi stopped as if frozen. The husky voice could kill her a hundred times over in a second. Her gut twisted in knots and her heart raced faster than before.

“Leave it, Khushi,” Aman said kindly, grateful that ASR had forgotten to dismiss the girl. “Get back to work. We will go over your duties later and I will draft a list for you.”

Khushi jumped up, nodded and left the room as fast as she could, taking care not to look at his face again.

“ASR, I will make sure she doesn’t enter your room again,” Aman said quietly, taking advantage of ASR’s uncharacteristic mellowness.

ASR opened his mouth to tell Aman that he didn’t mind, but stopped himself at the last second with great effort. What was wrong with him? He was ASR, dammit!

                                                                    ***

ASR frowned at the lack of his coffee mug on his table. “Where is my coffee?” he growled at Aman.

Aman blinked.

“There is always a mug of hot coffee or tea or a glass of fresh juice on my table when I return from meetings. Where is it?” he asked again, cross. He had gotten used to the perfect cups of black coffee and tea made just the way he liked it over the last month.

Aman wet his lip. “Sir, I think it was Khushi who used to place it here for you. I asked her not to enter your room. Shall I place a standing order in the canteen?”

ASR clenched his jaw. He couldn’t ask Aman to ask the girl...Khushi...Khushi to make coffee and tea for him after kicking up a fuss about the roses. Nor could he be seen to need her services. He was ASR, dammit! “Yes, inform the canteen,” he replied brusquely.

                                                                     ***

Khushi jumped at the strange sound.

Aman clutched his head as the sound of another mug breaking filled the air.

“Kya hua, Amanji?” Khushi asked, worried about her kind supervisor who was an uncle and a brother rolled into one. “Aapki tabeeyat to theek he?”

“I will die of hypertension soon...,” Aman muttered. “...if ASR doesn’t murder me before that.”

“Kya hua?” Khushi asked, her whole body trembling at the very sound of that name.

“This is the fifth cup of coffee he has thrown against the studio wall,” Aman said with a sigh. “The cleaners are going to walk out. Employees are going to resign, unable to put up with his growling any longer. And he is going to kill me.”

Khushi looked in the direction of the studio and felt her heart stop.

ASR was marching out, his long legs carrying him towards his office. She could almost see fumes coming from his ears and fire emanating from his nostrils. Only a villain’s background score was missing and her ever-fertile imagination supplied that too.

Khushi hastily hid behind Aman, but her eyes followed the trim figure clothed in formal designer wear till she could no longer see him.

“Khushi, my dear, my sweet child, what was the concoction you used to place on ASR’s table?” Aman asked.

“Coffee and tea, Amanji,” she replied. “Just coffee and tea, like I make at home. Sometimes black, sometimes with milk, sometimes with ginger, sometimes with herbs. Sometimes I used to give him juice. Woh kya he, you told me he has shakkar ki bimari. Our neighbour, Chandu chacha is diabetic and his wife told me he tires easily. Isliye...”

“Will you make him a mug of coffee now? I will take it up,” Aman requested. “Otherwise his anger is going to burn this building.”

“Ji,” Khushi said and ran to do his bidding.