Austin wraps Lilly strongly in his arms and says, "Don't worry about anything. As long as I am on your side no one on this earth can hurt you."

Lilly didn't utter anything hence Austin loosens her from his arms to see her. He sees that Lilly does not open her eyes and just trying hard to stay strong. He then turns around to go back to his cabin and Lilly calls him, "Austin"

He promptly turned back and sees that Lilly is giving him back his coat and pen. She is still not looking into Austin's eyes and after giving his coat back she runs away from there.

Austin immediately goes to his cabin and calls his manager; he orders him to make a team to investigate on this matter properly.

Whereas Lilly rushes to loo. She immediately locked it and started crying. She cries hard. She looks herself in the mirror that how messy her face is looking and started splashing water from basin on her face and again looks back in mirror, she sees her face is splattered with water droplets but her eyes still flooded with tears.

She looks in the mirror and says,

"Lilly...... You are as strong as rock......!!!!"

"A rock that nobody can smash just by their misapprehension."

"You know that you have done nothing wrong...... Hence, fight back."

She takes a deep breath after saying this.

Ava is trying to call Lilly but she realizes that Lilly has left her phone on her desk only.

Lilly clean up the mess on her face with tissues and determines to be strong and firm.

She goes back to her cabin and sees how worried Daniel and Ava are looking.

Both asks hundreds of questions to Lilly about her sudden disappearance.

Lilly put a smile on her face and says, "I have disappeared for a while merely and you both are worried this much."

Ava and Daniel are amused on seeing Lilly smiling hence asks,

"Lilly are you okay.?"

Lilly replies, "I am as strong as rock. On top of that I have not done anything wrong that I should be scared of. I am ready to face all consequences and I want further investigation about this."

Ava hugs Lilly after this and says, "Yes Lilly you are strong."

Daniel says, "No matter what it is we are with you at each and every step."

Austin is restless about this whole matter and is trying his best to figure out that what has went wrong.

He thinks in his head, "This girl Lilly is behaving that she is not shattered by all this. But I have felt that how much agitated she is already by this incident."

Lilly went her home and didn't made her parents realize that what happened with her today. She doesn't want them to worry about her matter.

She goes to her room and laid down on her bed. She tries hard to sleep but the harsh words of Mr. Clive Brookes are echoing in her mind and she open up her eyes with a gasp.

She checks her phone now which is filled with the messages from Ava and Daniel. Among them one message is from Austin also.

She directly opens Austin's message ignoring numerous messages of her friends.

"Lilly, I know you are very strong. But do you remember that you have asked me that am I strong or not. I want to say this I am not brave as you but I will pull out all my efforts to prove your innocence. Just wait for tomorrow."

Lilly again started crying and says to herself, "It's been few days only that I have joined this company. But I already have two amazing friends supporting me and one is......... Austin....!"

"I really don't understand that what kind of relationship we have actually?"

"Today when I was almost shattered, he rescued me from the heat of my environment and gave his warmth."

"His warmth indeed was as cool as ice. I felt that all heat around me was as cool as sea at that moment."

"His actions now are misleading me more."

"I ignored him as I was not in the state to respond him."

Lilly after saying this stuff tries to sleep again by recalling her only worth to remember moment with Austin from today.

Next day Austin holds a meeting where he grumbles at Mr. Clive Brookes.

"Mr. Clive, I know you are short tempered but that doesn't allow you to insult your employee."

"I have seen the footage of you throwing your rage on Lilly Marker."

"Is this behavior being tolerable?"

"Have I ever behaved like this with you people?"

"This is my first and the last warning to everyone present here that none of you is allowed to behave this impolite to any of the employees."

Mr. Clive speaks intermittently, "I realized that I was wrong. But it was on the spur of the moment. I have never expected such mistake from her."

Austin says, "Then I should presume that there is no significance of Lilly Marker's fault in this matter."

Austin's manager holding some bunch of papers interrupts in between of meeting and shows Austin something from the papers with him.

Austin allows his manager to speak to everyone.

"I have been working on this since last 24 hours. The food products that were send under the label of MSK Industries after inspecting by Lilly Marker were not toxicated."

Right now, Austin's manager has probably dropped a bombshell on everyone especially Mr. Clive Brookes.

He further adds, "Someone in between the link had swapped the reports."

Everyone started gossiping as the question arises that who have done this?

Austin's manager continues and says, "As the new project of our company is already getting hype in the market. We can assume that some rival company has done this for the defamation of our company's reputation."

Austin sighs and says, "Lilly Marker became the victim of some dirty rivalry games between companies."

"In next half an hour everyone has to gather in the hall and I will personally apologize to her."

On hearing this Mr. Clive says, "I will also ask for forgiveness."

After half an hour everyone gathers in the hall. Austin comes to the stage and asks Lilly to join him.

Lilly is perplexed but she believes that if it's Austin than everything will be definitely fine.

Austin says when Lilly join him on the stage "Ms. Lilly Marker, I sincerely apologize for everything happened yesterday."

Mr. Clive Brookes also joins him and says, "It's my fault that I didn't scrutinize this matter in depth and believed on the surface. I will make sure that this behavior will never be repeated again."

Lilly is dumb struck on all this and says, "Please don't apologize. I feel heavy on this. Please."

Austin explains everyone that how Lilly was trapped unknowingly in this whole situation.

Ava and Daniel started clapping for Lilly, Austin follows it and is now clapping hence everyone present started to cheer for Lilly.

Lilly is astonished and still can't believe that this is reality.

She smiles contentedly and bows her head to everyone and then sees Austin clapping for her. She forgets that she is in front of everyone for a while and stare Austin deeply.

Her eyes, body gesture is speaking everything that she maybe is not able to speak for herself to Austin and it's a "Thank You".

Austin also understands what Lilly's eyes spoke for her.

Two weeks has been passed. In these two weeks Austin and Lilly don't miss any chance to peep each other in office. They bump into each other sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally. Their eye contact is the only way to speak to each other. They also chat through messages but not much just Hellos and likewise stuff.

As time is passing, they keep coming close to each other. Austin many times can't really hide his jealous side and tries his best to interrupt Lilly whenever she is with Daniel.

Its now weekend and Austin try to speak with Lilly in person at parking,

"Hey Lilly from tomorrow there is the weekend. If you don't have any plans then can you come over my place to eat signature dish of my house."

Lilly beams on his statement and says in a teasing tone, "Your house is not a restaurant so that you are inviting me for lunch over there."

Austin replies, "Once you will taste it, will definitely regret for not finding such restaurant style homemade food before."

Lilly chuckles and says, "OH!! So, see you tomorrow!"

Austin don't believe that she agrees and hence says, "There should be penalty for saying lie."

Lilly laughs and says, "Yes definitely."

Next day, Austin is working very hard to prepare his signature dish. He left no stone unturned for this dish and is now waiting for Lilly's arrival as she will be here anytime soon.

Doorbell rings loudly of his mansion and Austin's heart started beating rapidly. David opens the door and welcomes Lilly.

Lilly is wearing a normal mustard yellow dress; she has kept her long golden hairs open and Austin is lost in noticing her sharply.

David clears his throat and says, "Master your guest has arrived."

Austin soon realizes that how he has fixed his eyes on Lilly and David interrupts to stop him.

He looked down and grins.

A/N: I hope this was good and hopefully you all will love it. Just stay tuned for next episodes... Love you all.