Arjun, as he'd informed, was busy the whole day with meetings. Through the day, he might have only sent Sanam a total of ten messages back and forth. Even Sanam had sprawled out her things over his long desk: different colors of pens, highlighters, index cards as she made her last batch of notes before spending the other half of the day studying them.

During lunch, there had been a knock on the door and Sanam had twirled away from the city view towards the door to see someone holding a tray of food for her. She'd walked up and opened the door, letting the guy in his late 20s in. "Ma'am, your lunch."

Sanam was confused. "I didn't order anything."

"Arjun sir did. He was hoping to have lunch with you but his later meeting got pushed up so he won't be able to join."

Sanam nodded and walked to the desk to move some of her stuff away and make room for him to put the tray on. "Thank you...."

"Reese." He offered his name.

Sanam nodded, "Ah, finally nice to put a name to the face." She had overheard Arjun talking to him on the phone multiple times when he'd work from home instead of going to the office if he didn't have meetings. "Now I do remember. We did meet briefly at the engagement."

The blond-haired guy with specks nodded, "Yes, we did, though we must have only talked for a minute."

"Sounds right," She answered with a chuckle. It had been a long affair, that night, meeting hundreds of people that Arjun was associated with. "Again, thank you for bringing me lunch. I know that's not your job."

He gave her a kind smile, "Oh, I don't mind. It's rare he asks me for such favors. You should think about coming by often. Keeps him grounded."

"Really?" She questioned, surprise evident in her tone.

"Definitely. He usually cribs a lot during meetings through tiger text. It's a secure app we use to communicate with everyone who works here. Today, zilch. Not a single complaint my way. Makes my job easier."

She laughed, "Aren't you afraid I'll tell what you were saying about him to him?"

He waved it nonchalantly, "Nah, he's not going to fire me or anything. He needs me to keep his work life organized. He must have gone through firing atleast 30 secretaries before he was satisfied with me." A message tone beeped and he pulled out his phone from his suit pocket. "Oh, dang. I have to go. Sorry for rambling. It's a habit. Enjoy your lunch."

"Thanks, have fun with the meetings." She teased back, well aware he wasn't going to enjoy sitting through whole bunch of them for the next 5-6 hours. It might have taken him longer to drop off her lunch, but meeting him was still a welcoming break from the constant studying she'd done over the last four hours. Her hand needed a rest.

Closing the door again, she returned to her seat and opened the tray cover. A grin spread over her face instantly at the smell of Chipotle and Chinese food. Arjun knew well how much she loved the combination, however weird it was to mix Mexican with Chinese.

Towards the end of the day, she had shifted to the long couch and her flats off to give her feet some breathing space. Close to 6 pm, she heard the keypad beeping and sat up to see Arjun punching in the code before entering. He didn't have to say a single word for her to notice how tired his face looked. Still, he smiled at being greeted by her.

"Hey, how'd the studying go?" He asked, walking towards her and settling on the couch next to her while loosening his tie a bit and taking off his suit coat.

"Quite productive. I take it your day was tiring?"

He groaned at being reminded of his day and slid further in the couch by resting his head on her lap and hanging his legs off the arm of the furniture. "Too long. I usually love numbers but not when I have to crunch them the whole day. I should have gone into just business instead of taking finance as a concentration."

Sanam was starting to see what Reese had meant earlier. He rarely seemed the type to complain – he never did it to her, but even she couldn't blame him. After sitting in one room doing the same thing just with different statements could make anyone complain no matter how much they love their job.

He chuckled humorlessly as she placed her palm over his forehead lovingly looking down at him, "I shouldn't be complaining. I'm sure your days at the hospital are worse than mines... always on your feet from one place to another and a mistake could cost a life."

Sanam didn't get to reply as there was a knock on the door and he asked, "Press that green button on the wall behind you?"

She did and the door opened.

Reese walked in with files and Sanam would have thought Arjun would sit up but he remained laying with his head on her lap and went on to explain, "Since no one but me, and now you, know the code to get into this office, we had these buttons installed so I wouldn't have to get up to open the door every time someone needs to come in. It's like an override to the lock."

Wordlessly, Reese had went on to use his set of keys to open the locked cabined drawer and slip in the files one by one where they belonged. Seeing that he looked least bothered by their comfortable position, Sanam pulled her focus back on Arjun who had closed his eyes. "Did I thank you for lunch?"

He answered through a smile, "Hmm, no. I would have remembered that message."

"Well, thank you."

"Someone's got to make sure you don't forget to eat." He pointed out how he had learned over the month that when stressed over studies, often she'd forget whether or not she'd eaten. "Speaking of, what do you want to do for dinner? I doubt there's anything left at home. We need to do some grocery shopping."

"Really? Didn't we just do it on...?" She trailed off, not recalling when the last time was.

He laughed, "Yeah, exactly. It's been atleast over two weeks."

She sighed, "Okay, first thing tomorrow then."

"Oh, another thing to do tomorrow. We have a tasting from the caterer. I told Neha to just look over it but she said her pregnancy was acting up her taste buds and some smells just nauseated her so we're going to have to finalize the menu ourselves."

"Wait, aren't they the same caterers you guys had for their wedding?" She asked, briefly remembering Neha saying something about it. When he nodded, she continued. "Why do we have to go for tasting then? Their food was good."

"We still have to give them a menu."

Sanam nodded quick to give in. Arjun had informed her of their tradition to host a Christmas dinner a few days before Christmas before family and close friends and with Christmas two weeks away, there was still a lot of planning left to do. A lot of it was already handled by his parents, but menu was one thing that was assigned to them when they'd divided up the chores.

Reese came up to sit on the couch across them after he had finished what he'd needed to. "I haven't received my invitation, by the way."

Arjun turned his head in his direction, "As if you need one, Reese."

Reese pointed out, "Are you forgetting the security your dad is arranging?"

He sighed in response. He hadn't known, but he wouldn't put it past his dad. "Fine, there's a few in the right drawer of my desk. Feel free to take two. I'm assuming you're going to bring your girlfriend as plus one?"

Reese nodded in response, getting up to walk towards his desk. "Yeah, Lily wouldn't miss it for anything. She was pretty upset she couldn't make it last year since she was out of town then."

Arjun smiled, finally sitting up after feeling as if he had his energy back with a quick moment to lay down. "I remember. She'd threatened me she would make you quit if I didn't invite her this time."

Rahul and Ishaan popped in on their way out. Rahul questioned, "Yo, you're going to go to that tasting, right? Neha's getting all worked up over it."

Arjun answered in a positive while Sanam stood up and greeted Mr. Mehta with a hug who apologized, "Sorry, my dear. You were here the whole day and I couldn't even come meet you."

"Not at all, dad." She was quick to dismiss his worries, "Arjun had told me how busy you all were going to be today."

He smiled, patting her head, "Well, yes, but not for long. Four months till I retire and Rahul here becomes the new CEO and Arjun takes over the CFO duties."

Arjun rolled his eyes, coming up to them and hugging Sanam from the back, "Come on, old man. You can't even give me a few years off to enjoy my marriage?"

"Years?" Ishaan laughed as if that were the joke of the millennium. "Good try. You get four months. You all are old enough now. I spent too long working. Now it's my turn to tour the world with your mom while you two," he indicated towards his two sons, "learn what it means to have a family."

Rahul sneaked in, "You know, dad, I'm already going to be a father. Maybe it's best you don't make me CEO and add more responsibilities on my shoulder."

Ishaan shook his head, reprimanding. "Responsibilities, my foot. You're going to be a lazy dad, I swear. If you hadn't found Neha, I don't know what would have happened to you. By the way, Arjun, did you look over Willow's file?"

Arjun nodded, releasing his hold around Sanam just enough to stand next to her, "Yeah. Reese can double check but just eyeballing them and with their recent fluctuations in their market stocks, I say it'll be a bad investment. Atleast for now. Maybe a few months later we can revisit."

Just as it looked like the father and son would get into another work discussion, Rahul interrupted, "Oh no, save that for tomorrow. Dad, we've got to get home before Neha goes off on both of us. Let's go."

Everyone aware of Neha's short-temper, especially during pregnancy. They bid and exited the room one after another until it was just Sanam and Arjun. Arjun commented, "I thought they'd never leave."

Sanam chuckled and walked towards the desk to get her things in order too. "We never decided what to do for dinner."

~

Arjun was talking to Parth on the phone when Sanam walked out of the washroom in her outfit for the Christmas dinner two week after. She pulled her hair to the side, "Baby, can you zip me up?"

Parth commented as he'd heard her in the background, "Tell her you'd much rather undress her."

"Shut up, man." He replied getting off the bed, "Go get ready. We'll see you at dinner."

Sanam questioned, "What was he saying?"

"Nothing decent," He said walking up to her and getting a hold of the zipper. She turned to face him with a smile after he'd pulled it up and let her hair flow behind her. "You look great."

"Thank you." She blushed at his intense stare before asking, "Ready to go?"

He nodded and his eyes traveled to her bare wrists. "Wait, I've got something for you." He couldn't believe he was going to do this, but it seemed to be the time to come clean. He walked up to his side table and opened it. He pulled out the jewelry bag he kept her bracelet in.

"What's this?" She asked when he walked back to her and forwarded it.

He nudged her to open it, biting his bottom lip. Nervous. He had no idea how she was going to react.

She felt loss at words when she pulled out the familiar lost bracelet. "This...?" She glanced up at him in confusion. "Did you go find an exact replica?"

He chuckled, for he wouldn't put that past him. "I could have, but no... this one is yours."

"That's not possible." She claimed, her brain yet unable to comprehend the connection.

He challenged her with a gentle smile overshadowing his features and his thumb caressing her cheekbone, "I had my doubts since I saw you at Neha's wedding. I couldn't forget your voice even if I wanted to. You don't think I agreed to help you out with your marriage predicament out of the goodness of my heart, did you?"

This revelation was too much to handle at once. One by one, she asked the questions. "You stole this."

He nodded in answer.

"You remembered me by my voice?" She asked, for no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't recall the voice of the guy she had kissed five years ago.

Again, he nodded. This time, he added as well, "I know the saying... the first thing you forget about a person is their voice... how they sound. But with you... your voice was all I had." He expressed holding her hand to get her attention, noticing her head was miles away. "And the bracelet too. Then I saw that picture on your desk the day before the engagement. That's when I knew for sure."

She didn't know how to feel about this: humbled or worried. He kept her at such an importance that he held on to her by her voice when he didn't know how she looked like, but he also didn't tell her when he' realized. "You've known all this time?"

He caught the hurt in her tone. He knew, but never said a word. "Sanam, I'm sorry... I should have said something about it, but I had a feeling you wouldn't have been this forthcoming if you knew. That night at the beach house when we played 20 questions, I did try but you were pretty adamant you didn't remember anything about the guy... about me."

"I don't know how to feel right now." She expressed in all honesty, turning about to sit on the bed.

He attempted to assure her, gently squeezing her hand in his grasp. "This doesn't have to change anything, sweetheart. I'm still the same guy you've known this year. Our first meeting, as you remember, is all that changes."

He was right, and a part of her knew. She started to convince herself... this was the reason why she felt a strange connection to him every time he stood too close to her. A part of her remembered him from all those nights ago. Now, it just had a face to connect with the stranger who had brought out a different side of her in that closet, a side she kept repressed because she was afraid of the things it would lead to. The feelings. But now, she didn't have to fear it, did she? She could've gone her whole life not knowing the two guys were the same person and her decision to give things a chance with Arjun would've remained the same.

"Sanam?" He called her, growing concerned at her lasting silence. "Are you mad I hid it from you?"

She blinked back to reality, faint wrinkles on his forehead as he genuinely worried that things were going to take a turn for the worse. "No," She announced her decision. "I can't really be mad at you for not telling me. I'd never showed you that I was interested in knowing who that guy was. Arjun... for me, that guy was a fantasy. Something that back then had let me know that underneath all the walls I kept around my heart, I was still another regular girl who wanted the same things everyone dreams about. I was capable of feeling too... and I had needed that back then. I worried I would spend my life with all the limitations set on me by others, that I would never live my life on my terms. It may have been barely 7 minutes, but a guy I didn't even know had just doubled my self-esteem, letting me know I could be that person I always thought of being."

He reached for the bracelet and latched it around her wrist. "You did the same for me, you know?"

"I did?" She couldn't understand how she couldn't had the impact on him as such.

"Yeah," he sat next to her to tell her this part of his past life style. "I've told you, uh, about my flings. Since high school and up until that night. I'd never been curious about a girl more than I had been for you. I never paid attention to how I treated a girl until that night in the closet. Something inside of me just snapped back then. It made me realize I wanted something real."

"Since I'd been found after the kidnapping, my parents kept trying to reach out to me but I kept giving them a hard time. I didn't want to feel the guilt of how I had accepted they'd forget about me. It sounds ridiculous saying it now, but I kept testing them, pushing them to see how thin their patience would run out. I would get in all sorts of trouble and I was amazed how I never got scolded or punished for that. Then I realized that Rahul kept covering for me, taking the blame on things."

She held his hand to pass on the encouragement to keep sharing, that she was listening and she was still here. He squeezed her hand back, continuing with a smile instead of a heavy heart on remembering his teenage days, "It wasn't until much later that both Rahul and I found out that they always knew I was the one doing things and Rahul kept bailing me out. And that night, you just gave me a reminder that I needed to get it together. That I had to stop goofing up. That I had some amazing people in my life I needed to appreciate and stop living a hollow life. That I needed to be someone better to be worthy of a girl like you."

She pointed out the argument, "You couldn't have known what kind of a girl I was."

"Any girl at a frat party who was hesitant about kissing a guy was going to be different." He made his argument that he believed in, "And either way, it was the first time I felt truly vulnerable. In the dark, I wasn't this guy girls fawned over. I wasn't the son of a billionaire. The darkness stripped me of everything I associated myself with and it was the first time I realized how shallow I had let myself become."

Even though he thought he was arguing for her, she smiled. "See, you just proved how it wasn't me but the darkness that changed you."

He smiled back, not really caring for the specifics. "Maybe, but it was also that moment in the darkness with you."

She dropped the discussion on it, understanding he was going to keep believing it was her. She realized he needed to give someone the credit, and instead of giving it to himself for having the guts to change his life around, he was giving her that importance. "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Esha." He explained in one word.

"Ofcourse."

"Don't be mad at her, yeah? She was only trying to help you."

Sanam had to internally chuckle at that. Count on her sister to play the silent whisperer. "Oh, I'm not mad. I know she meant well." His smile faltered as she added, "But that doesn't mean I won't get back at her."

"Sanam." He said her name in a warning.

She stood up, "Gee, relax. She's my sister. I'm allowed a little, harmless revenge." She forwarded her hand, "Now let's go. There's no such thing as fashionably late at a family dinner."

Slipping his hand in hers, he stood up, but also gently tugged her closer. "She was right, you know? You are the most understanding person I know. Any other girl would've been furious."

She winced slightly, playfully pointing out, "Let's not talk about other girls, okay? I may be understanding but I can also be very insecure."

He chuckled and placed a chaste kiss on her forehead, "You so don't have anything to be insecure about. What I've felt for others is nothing compared to you."

It should warm her heart. It did, but she still slapped his shoulder. "What'd I just tell you?"

He shook his head in amusement, "Okay, I hear you. How about one day I tell you all about them and then you won't have anything to be insecure about? Though if you ask me, I'm married to you – not them. You already have a point over them."

Reaching the entryway, she started slipping into her winter boots. "Seriously, Arjun. Stop talking before I consider divorcing you."

"You wouldn't dare." He slipped on his jacket before getting hers and holding it out. She slipped her arms in.

She offered an alternative, "Okay, probably not. I'll just let Neha loose on you."

He joked at the cruelty, "Do you not love me enough or what?" The threat of Neha was more gruesome than the divorce.

She continued to tease him as he was locking the door, "Now that I think about it..."

He gaped at her, and she burst out laughing.

On a side note, she was working on not letting his comment get to her. More specifically a singular word: love.

~

authors note;

I'm here! This is me trying to keep to the schedule mentioned in last chapter *blush-blush* 

You didn't expect him to tell her about the bracelet or what it all meant to him, did you? xD But, he did! I hope you love the two of them some more on how mature & understanding they are and how their relationship is progressing!

The night is not over yet. Hold on! ;)