Past Connections

“You are staring!”, a disgruntled voice pulled Anahita out of her musings.

Before facing the owner of that voice, she plastered a distant smile on her face. “How does it concern you Nash?”, she countered and turned to leave. But a hand on her arm stopped her mid-breath & mid-step.

“That’s my elder brother and your boss you are pining after”, grounded out Nash through clenched teeth. “So how can I not be involved?”, he finished harshly.

Jerking the restraining hand from her arm, Anahita very politely told her boss's brother to mind his own business before regally walking away from this pointless conversation.

She hung onto her composure till she was securely behind a bolted washroom door. She then dropped the lid and flopped down on it weakly.

Nash didn’t know it, but Anahita was not pining or harbouring any romantic type feelings for his elder brother, and certainly not in the way he was imagining it.

She won’t deny that she felt something for her boss and he was the reason she had initially decided to join Khanna Industries 3 years ago, but it was what she felt for Nash now that was making her stay in her job long past she should have left!

What she felt for her boss was vastly different from what she felt for his younger brother.

Her boss is not her first thought in the morning & neither is he the last one.

Her heart doesn’t skip a beat in anticipation of seeing him.

She doesn’t lose her train of thought every single time he takes her name.

Never had she felt the need to corner her boss in a secluded corner & have her wicked way with him everytime she sees him.

Her mind doesn’t start to visualize sultry nights, satin sheets, & entangled limbs whenever her boss is talking to her.

She doesn’t dream of running her hands all over his washboard abs whenever he wears a too-tight-for-his-body shirt.

She doesn’t feel like she is melting from the inside every time her boss glances in her direction.

She doesn’t feel like everytime he looks at her his eyes are making wild passionate love to her.

She doesn’t wake up wrapped in sweaty twisted sheets because she is dreaming of her boss.

She doesn’t burn in a jealous rage every time some other female so much as looks in his direction or breathes his name.

She is not dying to know his every thought, his every mood, his every emotion.

Her heart is never in her throat with worry every time her boss goes out for an important meeting.

Her throat doesn't choke with emotion whenever he talks lovingly about or to his family.

His triumphs don’t make her proud & his pain doesn’t make her cry.

So nope! She doesn’t feel for her boss what she feels for his younger brother for she’s in no danger of losing her sanity over her perfect boss!

In spite of his mercurial moods & constant baiting of her, she could no longer deny the almost karmic connection she felt with Nash.

She didn’t even need to be told that he is in the building, she just always knows when he’s around. Somehow, someway she invariably senses him.

She’s thankful for that though, because it helps her put her defenses strongly in place before she has to face him, which is almost daily.

She didn’t know why he came here every single day & crossed her path if he disliked her so much!

She didn’t know what he felt for her. Because she mostly felt confused around him. One minute he’ll be solicitous & attentive and the next he’ll be back to being dismissive & bitingly rude.

Sometimes he seemed jealous of his elder brother’s closeness with her and at times he seems to deliberately push the two of them together.

A few times she had caught him staring at her with an intensity that had shaken her to her core. But then the shutters would come down & he’ll be back to his bipolar behaviour.

His ‘sometimes cold sometimes hot’ behaviour was taking a serious toll on her rational brain & irrational heart. She didn’t know how long she would be able to carry on like this.

Something had to give and given her present state, it had better be soon! If Nash Khanna wasn't going to make a move, then it'll have to be her!

Anahita decided to stay hidden in the washroom cubicle a while longer, just in case…..