Dearest Readers,

Had a busy day at work yesterday but don't worry, compensated for yesterday's miss. Long chapter ahead.

Enjoy ❤️

Love Love
Srinidhi ❤️

KEDAR
✨

'Thats it? Just one cinnamon roll? Come on have one more...' saying I served her one more but she quickly stood up saying

'Ummm No...thanks Kedar. I'm getting late to the office. I need to leave' saying she sipped her coffee and ran to wash her hands

'But Prakruthi...you just had one cinammon roll...that's so little...what is it? You don't like cinammon rolls? You want me to make you something else for breakfast?' I asked and she was surprised. But she quickly hid her suprise expression and said

'Nope!!! Really I'm good. Not very hungry. Have a splitting headache. So I don't want to eat much. This coffee should be enough'

She has a headache? Oh wait... maybe cause she was up all night.

'Ummm you are just starting up with the team, you can maybe take a day off if you are unwell!!!' I offered and she was shocked again.

'No ways!!! I recently joined this team and there is so much to learn. I want to hear the briefing in detail' she said and I didn't want to force. However I gave a tablet strip and asked her to keep it handy in case she needs it but how did I forget the stubborn one that she is simply denied taking it and started running downstairs.

Suddenly something striked me and I ran to our bedroom window and screamed out loud 'Prakruthi!!!' and she turned around and looked up. But along with her all other ladies in the society who were purchasing vegetables from the roadside vendor also looked at me with surprised exoression

'Whatttt???' she asked and I saw a couple of women ogling at us. I quickly ran downstairs and told her

'Prakruthi I....I....I can drop you if you like...it's the same office!!!' and she opened and closed her mouth a couple of times but finally said

'Thank you but really no thank you...you are my CEO and it doesn't look good taking a lift from you!!!'

'I am also your husband Prakruthi!!!' I said and her eyes widened but she didn't have anything to argue. However she said

'You are kind. But no Kedar...Buses aren't a big deal to me. I can manage. Everyone takes their own transport to office and its completely fine!!! I enjoy travelling in bus!!! Relax' she said and flashed a smile and left. I kept looking at her while I heard a couple of gossips

Did you see how distinct they are...

I heard it was an arranged marriage but even we had a arranged marriage.. something is lacking in this couple...

Exactly Akka (sister) they don't even look like a couple to me. If I had not heard Ramesh Anna (brother) their property owner hadn't seen the wedding certificate...I wouldn't even believe that they are a real couple.

Areyyy both husband and wife are working na that's why...no romance...no love...

They don't even see each other like in our kannada films...no romance only!!!

Correct Akka...Not everyone can be like my husband na...hehehe...

Obviously Akka...look at him... he's like Burj Khalifa and she is like Gol Gumbaz...they look disastrous with each other...I mean just for a kiss they may have to do some gymnastics!!! Hahahaha

And I just turned around and shot them a gaze while they scattered like rats and I rolled my eyes and went back to my house however my eyes fell on mine and Prakruthi's wedding picture.

Do we really look that bad??? I mean look at how tiny she is but she is cute. I smiled as I remembered the moment I carried her in my arms and the photographer clicked our picture. The only picture of ours which looked flawless. I still couldn't forget the way her body trembled due to my touches.

We are awkward...but I don't think we are disastrous!!!

We aren't that bad Miss Ka...Mrs Nayak!!

Mrs Kedar Nayak!!!

✨

PRAKRUTHI
✨

'The software model that we are planning to use here is the agile mo-'

'Excuse me Shankar!!!' and we looked around and noticed that the session Shankar Sir was taking was been interrupted by Kripa Mam. Today was our technical discussion about the software model that we were using building K-Shot post which we had to make our daily report but now Shankar Sir looked a little skeptical. I noticed him looking at me and I was curious.

Kripa Mam walked into the room and cleared her throat saying
'Ahhhhemmm Miss Prakruthi Kamath!!!??' and I was alerted.

'Yyyes Mam!!!'

'Miss Kamath...looks like our CEO Sir has some concerns...he said it's about your CV...could you please go to his cabin? It's on the 13th floor.' and I gulped at once. I could hear hush hush whispers in the meeting room. The girls from other teams whispered 'See...didn't I tell you? It is not possible for someone to top every semester with an average of 98 percent. That is too much for an engineering stu-'

'Miss Nikita!!!' Kripa Mam immediately interfered and she looked at Mam 'Yes yes Mam!!!'

'Miss Nikita and Miss Payal...rather than gossiping about Miss Kamath it's better if you could send me your review report on the synopsis which I already received from Miss Kamath but not from you both!!! I hope you girls remember Ken Sir telling everyone that each one of you will be judged individually. So rather than gossiping about Miss Kamath please utilise it in making a decent report please.' Kripa Mam was strict and crisp. They both looked down and nodded.

Kripa Mam smiled and said 'Dont worry! If Sir asks you queries just answer without being nervous. I have read your snyopsis report ..it's good. Just relax ok!!! Mistakes can happen from anyone. Yesterday was yet another day...today is a new day!!! Take it fresh' and I smiled. She boosted my morale and I was glad I had mentors like them although there were some of my batchmates who always looked down upon me. I don't know why they hated me so much.

✨

I walked out of the elevator and looked at the reception and noticed this floor had no one except the reception counter which had a lady sitting who was busy typing something on the computer.

'Miss Prakruthi Kamath...Go straight take left...Sir is in his cabin!!!' she said and I nodded. It all looked so sus.

I walked towards the huge glass corridors to reach the corner which had two wooden doors unlike a glass door on all other cabins in this building. One was on left and other on right. The one on right read Neil Nayak- President and opposite to it was another wooden door which had written with golden letters

Kedar Nayak- CEO and Chairman.

I gulped and knocked at the door. I heard a 'Come in!!!' and I slowly pushed the door open to notice him sitting with a couple of men in business suits and I suddenly realised I must have worn business formals rather than Kurta and Jeans. The way those men looked at me made me feel like a sore finger.

'Ummm Mr Narayanan and Mr Chow I will go through the proposal and let you know about the investment plan soon.'

Men shook hands with him and walked out of the room while he instructed something to the lady standing next to him who flashed him a wide smile saying 'Sure Sir!!! Noted' and walked out of the room smiling at me too. Although she dressed up in a white shirt, black skirt with red lipstick and short hair... she wasn't the quintessential seducting secretary like they show in bollywood movies.

Once she left I turned around and looked at him. I saw he was leaning onto his business chair and looking at me.

'You...you called me Sir?' I asked and he raised his eyebrow saying

'Sir??? There is no one here Prakruthi...it's just us!!!'

'Wwwe...are in office Sir...You wanted to discuss something with me about my resume?' I asked him being as formal as possible to which he smirked and said

'So you want it to be all professional han? Okayyy!!! Yes Miss Kamath I had called you to discuss something about your resume but it's almost 12 pm and I'm hungry!!!'

To which I quickly took a step aside saying
'Sure Sir...I'll see you in someti-' but before I could complete that statement he said

'I didn't ask you to leave Miss Kamath!!! You can join me!!!' saying he picked two big glassware boxes from his bag and I cleared my throat saying

'Ummm Sir ...it's not right for me to eat with you!!!'

'Well...I don't think I'm a lion that I'll eat you up!!! Neither am I an alien to make you vanish...Let's say I want to discuss work with you but I have a busy schedule so ...let's eat together and discuss work!!!'

'But Si-'

'My every single minute is precious Miss Kamath!!! Let's discuss.......'

'What???'

'Work... ofcourse!!! What did you think?' he asked and I rolled my eyes.

I wonder if he's on weed nowadays. His sudden Bahubali version was something I wasn't able to absorb. But the minute he opened the tiffin box I gulped and a sweet smell hit my nose. I saw the food and a wide smile spread on my lips.

'Maggieeee wooow!!!' I squealed to which he chuckled saying

'Nope!!! Not maggi... Semolina Noodles with homemade noodle sauce. Healthy!!!' he said and I rolled my eyes again to which he said

'Miss Kamath I hope you know that your boss doesn't like it when his employee rolls their eyes at him!!!' he said taking a spoon full of noodles and I gave it a deaf ear and got busy digging onto the noodles.

'Ummmmmm this is delicious Kedar...' I said and he looked at me. Suddenly it striked me and I added a 'Sir' to which he smirked.

Although we had to discuss work, we both got so busy eating that everything else was forgotten. I gradually got comfortable. I removed my shoes, sat cross legged on the chair and continued eating the noodles and moaning at every damn spoon. Once done he offered me tissue but I was a messy eater so he asked me to clean up myself.

I slowly turned around and took a look at his cabin. Honestly his cabin was bigger than our house. I walked inside and noticed there was a room.

'Walk inside...to the left first door is washroom!!!' he said loudly still looking at something on his laptop screen and I followed his instructions but the moment I entered the cabin what my eyes captured made me gulp nervously.

There was a bed, a night lamp on a side table and on the table sat a couple of pictures. Him along with his mother and his brother Neil, him and his cousins but what caught my attention was a picture from our wedding where he had picked me in his arms. That moment I realised that he indeed considers me his family.

While I sat on the bed looking at the picture, I heard him push the door open and walk inside as he said

'Arent you getting late now??? You have a training session now right?' and I didn't know what to say...

'That is my family...my mother, my brothers and my wife!!!' he said so casually as he washed his hands and wiped his hand with a towel and I couldn't help but look at him. He never showed off how he felt but instead treasured people close to him and now I don't know why I really started thinking that maybe we could be friends.

Atleast someday we definitely could be friends.

✨

KEDAR
✨

She smiled as she saw the photo frames on the side table of my bed in my cabin

'You sleep here??' she asked and I smiled saying

'Is that an employee asking or a wife asking me???' I asked curiously and she smiled saying 'Lets say a friend is asking you!!!' she said and I looked at her

'Friend??? So you take me as a friend???'

'Hmmm yes ..but only inside these closed doors... outside you are my boss alone!!!' she said and I took a step closer to her and looked deep into her eyes and asked

'Just a friend??? Not your husband???' I asked. I could notice her swallowing dry and I smirked.

'That is default!!!' she said looking elsewhere and I slowly sat next to her on the bed and asked

'Well then...why are you hiding it from the world? Why aren't you willing to tell anyone??? Are you ...are you ashamed of the fact that our wedding was a compromise?' I asked and she turned and looked at me saying

'No Kedar please!!! It's not like that...it's just that I don't want people to talk nonsense about you and your work ethics. I know my batchmates...not everyone is good. Some are jerks too. They will think you are favouring me and I don't want any special treatment. Let's say I want it to be this low key and when time comes we can tell everyone but not now!!!' she said and although what she said made sense but her nervous body language made me curious if it was anything related to Karthik.

'Prakruthi you do consider me a friend right?' I asked and she nodded

'Why do you avoid Karthik's topic always? Is there an issue??? Is there something that's botheri-' but before I could ask further she interrupted saying

'Kedar please!!! There...there is no issue! It's just that...I don't want to discuss it. Can we let that topic go please...' she clearly wasn't comfortable telling me about him and I knew it's not going to be easy. She does consider me a friend but there is a difference in considering someone to be a friend and being someone's friend are completely two different things.

I didn't want the consideration. I wanted to earn her friendship. I wanted to be her friend. Her best friend. Someone to whom she would open her heart someday and I knew it would take effort but I will eventually do it.

Days passed and I never took this topic again. However everyday we had lunch together. The reason she gave her supervisors was that I had chosen her to be the representative for the interns batch to give updates for their entire batch. However she couldn't let other apprentices know that she was having lunch with me so she pretended to have a glass of juice for lunch and to everyone she gave a reason that food made her sleepy so she was following a minimalistic approach. And because she had slept on day one everyone bought that lie easily.

It has almost been a month and she is not just one of the best interns we hired but also one of the most humble and fun loving individuals. We had grown closer and now I enjoyed spending time with her. May it be back home or here in office it was fun spending time with her. She would crack the most lame jokes, discuss most bizzare bollywood movies and expect me to laugh. Strangely I would laugh too.

Why??? I don't know...let's say she is kind of infectious. She had started to grow upon me.

I was gradually getting addicted to her.

Lets say I'm tested Prakruthi Positive!!!