Page 6 of That Same Old Love

Samrat looked through the glass wall at Mahi and her team interacting with each other. He was extremely irritated, but it was mostly directed towards himself. From the past two hours, he was trying to focus on the documents on his laptop, but his eyes kept going towards Mahi.

“Hire her to keep her busy, so she’ll leave you alone. What an idiot,” he told himself viciously and immediately felt like a fool. Oh God. Now I’m talking to myself like her and becoming crazy. Thanks to her, he thought irritably.

It was almost close to two and half months since he had generously offered Mahi a chance to interview at his company. A week later, he received a confirmation that Mahi had been found suitable for a team lead position in one of the development teams at work.

He had given Mahi’s hiring manager strict instructions via email that he was to fire her if she could not keep up with work or caused them any sort of trouble.

He knew he sounded harsh, since it wasn’t in their company policy to simply fire people who were not performing.

They usually got trained and were placed in other teams that would fit them.

But in Mahi’s case he didn’t want to give her any more chances.

Surprisingly, or maybe it shouldn’t have surprised him that Mahi was able to cope well, and got glowing reviews from her manager, who somehow presumed that he would be interested to know how Mahi, someone he had ‘recommended’ was doing.

The whole thing was a disaster right from the beginning.

On her first week of work, he had seen Mahi heading out of her house at the same time as him.

She was dressed in business casual attire with formal shirt and pants.

But somehow she managed to make it seem a little racy, especially with her bright red lipstick.

Adding to that she even dared to come towards his car and then ask him for a ‘ ride ’.

“Hey neighbor slash the big boss, how about we carpool? Seeing how you are in your corporate monkey suit and not in your usual shorts and T-shirt, you must be heading to work too,” she said, grinning at him.

“No,” he answered her curtly, still irritated by her dressing. How can she not realize that her top two shirt buttons were open or that her pants were too tight? Even her office footwear looked racy with their high heels.

“Oh come on. What’s the no for? For carpool or that you are not headed there?

I know you are. Everyone knows that you are going to work today, especially considering how rare it is supposed to be.

I just want to carpool because… because…

it’s like going green. Aren’t you supposed to be working on things that are helping us save the planet and stuff?

Think of all the… petrol we’ll save if you give me a ride along.

And besides I hate driving in this city, I feel like I’m in one of those virtual video games the company is working on.

Only here… one wrong move and then BAM!” She shuddered dramatically.

He just looked at her and quietly got into his SUV, “You are going to be late, and my company does not tolerate tardiness,” he informed her through the lowered window and drove away.

Their interactions had not stopped there. He was avoiding her near their homes and letting his lawyers complete all the transactions needed for the land sale.

Luckily, the land sale went through without any issues and the money was already transferred to Mahi’s bank account.

He ignored the text message from Mahi that said, ‘thank you for the money’ with a smiley face.

Later he felt guilty because she was helping him out and the land was needed for his senior community plan.

He wanted to thank her for the sale. Deciding not to go to her home and meet her at a neutral area, he made a quick trip to her work desk. His intention was to ask her if she could join him for a short lunch where he could thank her and not feel indebted to her in any way.

He passed through the open plan working spaces that were meant for effective collaboration.

Most of the people were getting prepared to leave for lunch.

He finally found Mahi surrounded by a team of five men and three women.

None of them looked to be more than twenty five years old.

Just the kind she probably had an affair with , he thought a little resentfully.

Mahi was sitting on a desk and facing her back towards him.

“Careful, Mehul, you wouldn’t want to lose that hard earned six-pack for a bite of my wicked looking Baklava,” she told someone and everyone laughed.

He felt that she sounded extremely flirtatious and inappropriate.

“Come on, Mahi, have mercy. One bite wouldn’t hurt or break anything. Even you can’t be that cruel to me,” a man from her team replied.

Some of the team members noticed him and their entire demeanor changed, irritating him.

Most people, who looked at his naturally stern and serious expression, assumed he was a tough taskmaster with no sense of humor.

Maybe he was that way sometimes, but he also knew how to relax and enjoy some good sense of humor once in a while.

“Mahi, may I speak to you for a moment?” he asked evenly.

She looked at him and broke into a wider smile. “Sure. What’s up?”

He felt hot and bothered, watching her lips with bright red lipstick. “Follow me please,” he grated out and went into one of the unoccupied conference rooms and said, “Close the door.”

Mahi closed the door shut and looked amused when he sat down, looking at her sternly.

“Any form of inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated in my office. This is not like our college campus where you can rule or behave in any way you want.”

Her smile slipped a little. “Excuse me?”

He watched her coldly. “I need you to behave like a professional and not flirt with your co-workers. If you want to have any unsuitable interactions, take it outside work. Take this as your last warning or your hiring manager will be notified. Do you understand me?”

She looked angry and was almost fuming. She went closer to him and took the seat right next to him, even though there were at least ten other seats remaining free.

“That was my hiring manager, you fool. We were just joking around. He’s getting married in a month, and his fiancé, who by the way was sitting right next to me, was asking him to keep up his oath of not eating any sweets until they got married.

They are dieting together so they look good in the wedding pictures. I wasn’t flirting!”

He did feel like a fool after listening to that explanation.

He didn’t know why he was so upset about a silly harmless office flirtation.

He felt that he must have reacted that way because it was Mahi, and he was trying to protect his male employees from distractions or heart breaks.

He felt that maybe it could affect the company performance in a long run.

Even he didn’t exactly believe in that baseless logic, but grabbed on to it anyway, to avoid thinking too much about his irrational behavior.

“Well… I didn’t know that, and I jumped into conclusions, for which I’m sorry,” he said with dignity.

She looked at him with an exaggerated shocked expression. “Wow, you’re actually apologizing for your mistake? I’m touched, really, really touched. So did you want to see me for anything in particular?” she asked, knowing well that he wanted to thank her for the land sale.

He was feeling uncomfortable with her saying the word ‘touched’ so many times.

“I wanted to thank you for the land sale, and maybe take you out for a quick lunch, as an appreciation for your help,” he told her a little sheepishly, since he had done the exact opposite a few minutes ago.

“You are most welcome. Can we take a rain check on the lunch though? I have a meeting in a few minutes that I need to attend. Maybe some other time when you’re in the office and free for lunch?” she said.

He just nodded and left the room not liking the feeling of being beholden to her somehow.

After a few weeks, he saw her at the Stimmulus product lab. He was checking how the testing was proceeding.

She was there along with some of her team members, exploring the Stimmulus product.

She saw him and began to wave at him with a smile.

She also did that each time she saw him outside his house or when he was on his balcony.

And he acknowledged her the same way each time, with a chin nod.

But this time, she came towards him, looking very enthusiastic about something.

“Isn’t this the coolest place! Wow Samrat, this is going to be the best product ever to be released into the market.

A virtual game where one can feel the things happening!

How I really wish I was a part of the product team or even had one of the Stimmulus consoles at home.

I’ve heard that you have one at home. No wonder, Srishti is visiting you often,” she said.

At the mention of his niece, his good mood vanished. He didn’t like that Mahi was maintaining contact with Srishti. It wasn’t behind his back, but it was blatantly in his face.

Srishti had joined as an intern for the summer and often came to talk to him and Mahi during her breaks.

She had also joined Mahi and him for the thank you lunch that was overdue from his side.

And sometimes, Srishti even insisted that they have lunch together with Mahi in the office cafeteria, which he did because he didn’t want to leave Srishti alone with Mahi.

Mahi and Srishti also spoke to each other near his home, usually about harmless things like music or some books. But he was upset at Mahi, because he had explicitly asked her to stay away from his family.

He looked at Mahi’s eager face. “We only allow the brightest and the best to be involved in the Stimmulus project. It is a very important product for our company, and I’d prefer it if you don’t flirt or charm your way into any of these teams,” he warned, staring at her indecent lips.

What is with her bright red lipstick? Didn’t she own any other less bright colors?

Her smile dropped. “You know Samrat, people do change. I’m not that same girl I used to be. But you… you are not the guy you used to be either. You’ve become into someone who is patronizing, judgmental and mean spirited. I’m beginning to pity you.”

Her furious gaze swept over him and she walked away. He felt offended and guilty at the same time. That was almost a week ago.

Considering the whole of last year, he was in the corporate office for maybe a maximum of thirty days, his presence in the office almost thrice a week from the past two and half months had raised some eyebrows and people were speculating.

He was annoyed at their looks; especially since he was the chairman and could go to work whenever and wherever he damn well wanted.

Currently, he was sitting in his new office space which was right across Mahi’s team.

She interacted with her team and he could see that most males in her team always paid a lot of attention to her.

And she had just blatantly hugged one of them.

He left a message on her office email asking her to come and see him about something important.

Her time in his company would soon come to an abrupt end.