Vijay had called her into his office on Monday. Surabhi had suggested a new structure of managing value of the projects in pipeline a week ago. But Surabhi was not sure if the meeting was regarding that. She sat in his cabin waiting for him, using her spare time answering emails.

Vijay came in apologizing for the delay, "Surabhi I just got off the phone with the client. I had a brief discussion with them about the structure that you have proposed for the pipeline projects. They are interested to know the details. Could you put together a presentation by Thursday morning and we can have a conference call set up with them?"

"Sure, will do that," Surabhi answered making a note on her laptop.

After the short meeting with Vijay, she got busy with team activities, monthly birthday celebrations that were held that week. It was the week after the hectic month close and as always was very relaxed.

Soon after the meeting, she was hoping to take Neel's advice regarding the presentation but he left office early that day to catch a flight to London. He was out of office the entire week. She worked on her presentation for 2 days but with all the fun activities taking place in the office, she forgot all about it.

Sun rose to start the day, it was Thursday. The meeting was set up for 8 am to accommodate clients time zone. Surabhi woke up early and went for a jog. On her way back she picked up the newspaper. She read a few headlines and then her eyes fell on the day and the date. She was about 500 meters from her apartment when suddenly the day's planned events dawned on her. She made a mad dash with her full energy, constantly apologizing to any joggers or passerby she brushed against. Upon reaching the flat she ran to the shower and dressed up hurriedly. As she was dressing up, she checked for cabs but with each of them being 10 to 15 minutes away, she got impatient. She ran down the stairs to avoid waiting for the elevator and as luck would have it, she got an auto at the gate of her apartment. The moment the auto stopped near her office building she hurriedly handed over money to the driver and without waiting for a change, shoot off towards the elevator.

As she ran inside, she saw the elevator door closing. "Please hold the elevator," she screamed hoping someone would hear her.

Someone did hear her and with one swift motion of hand swiping between the doors, reopened the doors of the elevator.

She walked in and there was just one person in it. Without looking, she thanked and quickly checking time, heaved a sigh of relief. She had reached office just in time.

She then looked at herself in the stainless steel panel wall of the elevator which doubled as her mirror. Looking at her unkempt hair and her disheveled clothes she almost gave out a scream. She quickly tied her hair into a bun. As she was doing that she realized the person who had stopped the elevator was staring at her with a smile. She saw his reflection in the panel of the elevator and turned around to look at him. An extremely attractive young man was her co passenger and she realized it when it was almost time for her to get off at her floor.

"Late for work?" he asked with a handsome smile.

"Yeah, messed up days in my head," she replied in more words than her usual monosyllable reply to strangers which surprised her.

"Don't worry, you look fine," he said as she continued fiddling with her hair.

"Thanks!" she replied as the lift indicated that it was 7th floor.

She again ran inside checking time. It was 2 minutes to 8 when she entered Vijay's cabin.

"Good that you are here just in time. I thought you were going to be late." Vijay said as she pulled out a chair and hurriedly set up her laptop.

"Very sorry. My presentation is ready," she said catching her breath.

An hour later Surabhi was at her desk sulking. The presentation did not go as well as she had expected. The clients had raised a number of concerns which she had not foreseen. She had requested for additional time to address the issues. But Vijay seemed to be happy with the outcome. Vijay sent her a message asking her to come to his cabin. She immediately went in thinking he would scrap her idea. But to her surprise he asked, "What's wrong? Are you not happy with the meeting?"

"Yes, I should have been better prepared," she replied pouting.

"This is your first attempt at new implementation. You will learn slowly. I am glad that you have come up with a novel idea in such a short time that you have been here," he tried to cheer her up. He then continued, "We will have our next call in the coming week. Neel will be back by then. I think it will be a good idea to consult him."

"Thanks for the chance Vijay. I'll be better prepared the next time and will also consult Neel before our call," she said and walked back to her desk.

When she was walking over to her desk she saw someone in her cubicle, with his back towards her, standing and chatting with Megha, Poorvi and Raj. There was some laughter there and it seemed to attract a lot of attention from the surrounding cubicles. As she reached her desk the new person turned around. He took a step forward with his hand stretched and introduced himself, "Hi Surabhi, I'm Dhruv. So, finally we meet."

Surabhi was dumbfounded. Here in front of her stood a tall handsome man with chiseled body. Broad shoulders, a wide jaw line, perfect smile, hazel eyes and his voice....... she forgot what she was thinking the moment she remembered he was in the elevator that morning. How could she have not recognized his silvery voice? She just shook his hand without saying a word. It was as if Greek god had himself taken a human form. She just stood staring until he spoke up again, "I wanted to meet the person who is doing my job so well."

"Thanks for training me well!" she said finally getting out of her trance wondering if he did not remember her from that morning.

"I'm working with my team on the 8th floor. I'll be here for 2 days. Will meet you again some time," he said as he took leave.

She sat down in her seat after he left, muttring under her breath, 'damn he is handsome'.

As she continued working, a chat box popped up a message from

Dhruv : Could not talk a lot but I would like to meet you again sometime today. Can we meet for coffee today evening after office?

Surabhi replied: Sure

Dhruv: I have office car at my disposal. The hotel where I am put up is close by and has a nice coffee bar may be we can drive there.

Surabhi: ok. Sounds good.

It was a little after 6. Many had already left the office. Surabhi was

waiting for a message from Dhruv. Finally, he asked her to meet him in the parking lot. When she reached the parking lot she saw him waiting for her leaning against the back door of the car. He was smiling as he saw her walk up to him.

"You ready?" As she nodded he said, "Lets go," as he opened the door for her. He went around and sat next to her. Wow! Also a perfect

gentleman she thought to herself. He gave instructions to the driver and began chatting with her.

"If I knew you are so beautiful, I would have never stopped the training. At least on that pretense I could speak to you everyday," he said.

Surabhi blushed and said, "Stop with the flattery. I am going out with you as a friend and don't want you to get any other ideas. We are meeting for the first time and we don't know anything about each other, so why not learn that first."

"Let me tell you something, you are very difficult to impress. Seriously!' He said as she laughed out trying to dismiss him. "I'm telling the truth. You are beautiful. Has no one every told you that? I will stop that but

earlier you promised me that I could flirt with you after we meet. And now you want to just be friends? I have told you before and again I am telling you I was interested in you from our exchanges through mails or phone calls, and then I heard some very nice things about you through friends at the office. And now that we have met, I must admit that

everything that I've heard was a hundred percent right and I want to reaffirm my interest in you," he said firmly grabbing a water bottle from arm rest.

Surabhi blushed. She was a very shy person. She had received many complements about her beauty before and also many guys had

approached her but none so frankly and directly as Dhruv. There always was a fear or hesitation among the boys who had expressed their

feelings for her. And their fear proved to be correct, for Surabhi had never shown any interest in dating anyone of them. She had a lot of friends who were boys. She would hang out with them. But she had never been on a date as such with anyone other than Rohan. They had once gone out to have lunch and shopping for the wedding. But that too was more of a discovering each other conversational date since theirs was an arranged marriage. Rohan too had never expressed his feelings. But what made Dhruv so confident she wondered.

"To begin with, unlike you, I'm shy and prefer to know a person more before jumping into anything."

"If you want to learn more about me, I am open to that. Let's talk as friends for the time being," he said which put Surabhi at ease.

They had a wonderful evening just talking about likes, dislikes, hobbies and dreams (most of it was Dhruv talking). He was a perfect gentleman. He answered any questions that she had and also listened intently to what she had to say. He barely took his eyes off her and did not shy away from flattery at every instance he got. A couple of hours had passed and Surabhi insisted that she had go home. He complained that he wanted to spend more time with her but finally agreed to see her the next day.

"I will be going back to Delhi tomorrow night. Can I meet you sometime again tomorrow?" he asked.

"Sure. But why dint you tell me about your visit? Since you never mentioned it I thought it was canceled," she asked blinking innocently at him.

"I wanted to surprise you. I wanted our first meeting to be completely unplanned but it turned out to be more exciting than I thought. When you ran into the elevator today morning, your hair was a mess and you were worried about being late. But your sight made my day beautiful. I should have known it was you because looking at you made me smile."

"Ha, what a mess I was. I was hoping you would not remember our run in earlier today," she said scrunching up her nose and smiling.

But before he could say anything more, she looked at her watch and announced that it was late and she had to leave.

"Let me ask the driver to drop you home" he said as they walked outside the restaurant.

"No, thank you. I will call a cab."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," she replied nodding her head and looking down at her phone.

As they walked out of the hotel and stopped outside he came closer to plant a kiss on her cheek. She instantly stopped him and stepped back.

"I'm not comfortable Dhruv," she said pushing him back with her palm firmly on his chest.

"Oh, I am sorry," he said as he stepped back.

She quickly got into her cab, waved him a goodbye and drove away.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author's note: Sorry for the delay in posting. Been a little busy, a little exhausted and a little of a lot of things. Thank you dear regular readers!