If You Let Me Go: A Sweet Romance (First Love Billionaire Romance novel)

by Sonia Rao

  “Cool decor,” said Krina, the new intern. On Nate’s request, Shivalika had created an exquisite party ambience. The multiple rows of fairy lights cast multi-colored shadows on the walls and the disco balls threw neon flashes over everybody. The strobe lights gave everyone a pallid complexion as if they were ghosts undulating their bodies and this was what all were doing: dancing, singing and generally having a great time.

  The air of gaiety that hung in the air completely passed her by. The party held no appeal for her. She accepted the compliments gracefully but furtively glanced at her watch to see if she could leave without causing any offence.

  Nate was moving around amongst the office staff, smiling and being his cheerful self. He had taken to proposing to her every other week, once offering her a stuffed toy and the other time, a bouquet of orchids.

  It was interesting to see what he would come up with but that was the only level of interest she had in his proposals. Every time he proposed, though, a pair of steel-grey eyes holding a sardonic expression entered her vision and wiped out all thoughts of Nate.

  She began moving towards the exit, planning to slink away before Nate thought of proposing to her.

  “Shivalika! Shivalika!” It was Nate. “Oh shucks, trapped!” Shivalika muttered under her breath.

  She walked back to where Nate was standing with the other employees. The games had started and he wanted her to join in.

  The first game was to name palindromes.

  “What’s a palindrome?” someone shouted from the dance floor. Shivalika smiled, thinking of the many times she had played this game with her father when she was a child.

  “It’s a word that’s spelled the same both ways. For example, words like madam, level, rotor.”

  “Madam, I’m Adam,” Nate said.

  “You got it!” Shivalika replied, laughing.

  The game began. Very soon everyone was shouting at the top of their voices and a lot of laughter ensued. Shivalika too got into the spirit of the game, happily throwing out palindrome after palindrome.

  "Saippuakivikauppias," she shouted, when it was her turn. Only she and Krina remained in the game, the others having dropped out one by one.

  “What does that word even mean?” Krina was incredulous.

  “It’s a Finnish word that means soap vendor. And fun fact: it’s the longest palindrome.”

  “Hey, that’s cheating. Foreign words are not allowed,” Krina said, not willing to give up victory so easily.

  Shivalika laughed as the others cheered. She pumped the air with her fists and Nate came forward to give her a victory hug.

  At that very moment, as she looked at the doorway she felt a tingling sensation that travelled all the way down her spine. It reminded her of those sardonic grey eyes that had bored into hers, at the restaurant, a month ago. She turned in that direction but just got a fleeting glimpse of a dark suit as the person wearing it went into Mr. Naidu’s room.

  Her breath felt rushed as if she had run a marathon. It was a strange, new feeling and she’d not ever felt this way, certainly not even when Nate brought her gifts and made profuse declarations of love. Why did the thought of those grey eyes make her resolve against love and marriage even stronger? Would she ever see those eyes again? For the sake of her own mental peace, she hoped it would never happen.

  CHAPTER 4

  The next day, Shivalika was more than an hour late for work. She looked at her watch once again. Yes, she was very late.

  “Damn you!” she silently cursed her alarm clock. Either it had not rung or else she had slept through its ringing. She suspected it was the latter. Chatting with her childhood friend Aloka after ages—okay, after one month—sent the time flying. It must have been 3am by the time she got to bed. No wonder even the shrill ring of the alarm clock didn’t penetrate through her deep sleep.

  She couldn’t remember when she had been late for work last but she knew that she should have received a few calls from the office asking where she was. Strangely, she hadn’t, as yet. But she would sort it out with Nate. She would stay an hour late today to make up for the lost time. Nate would allow it, she was sure.

  But as she entered the office and walked to her desk something seemed amiss. For one, there was utter silence in the room. The room that never stopped buzzing, from 9am till the last person left and the office boy locked up, was now so silent that if a pin dropped she was sure she would hear it. This room had never seen a minute of quiet during working hours in the last five years.

  Her heart suddenly clenched with fear. “Is Mrs. Naidu…” She refused to even entertain that thought in her mind. Also, Mr. Naidu would have surely informed her.

  No, it had to be something else. And then she saw Krina signalling to her with her eyes.

  Before Shivalika could respond, she heard the voice that had been in her head ever since that dinner with Nate at Mainland Chinese, when she had fallen into the arms of that stranger who she was sure she would never see again.

  “Ah, finally, the rockstar of the office has deigned to arrive!”

  Such cruel words! She should be angry. She was. But at the same time a current ran down her spine and ignited all the millions of nerve endings she never knew existed in her body.

  She felt on fire and somehow, she knew it was not solely because of the anger his words caused her to feel.

  But how could that voice be here? No, it was just not possible. She shook her head. It was not HIS voice. Why did every deep voice she heard remind her of that stranger?

  She turned to look at the speaker of the words and a pair of the greyest eyes, the most sardonic and the coldest she had ever seen, locked their gaze with hers.

  He was the stranger she’d bumped into at Mainland Chinese. He was now standing very close, his very masculine fragrance enveloping her and making her senses go haywire. She took a step backwards to move away from the mesmerizing effect of his nearness.

  As she moved back, she tripped on her lunch bag and would have fallen if the tall and very handsome stranger had not put out his hand and pulled her into his muscular arms.

  The two seconds that she was held against his hard chest was sufficient time for her to realize that she faced real emotional danger if she stayed around. She looked down to hide this sudden realization that shone in her eyes. What sort of danger it could be she was clueless about but she knew she was totally out of her depth here.

  “Rock star, darling? You must surely not mean that.” The husky, female voice had a note of iron behind the short laugh that accompanied the words.

  “Wow,” Shivalika muttered under her breath. If she even thought the stranger was out of her league, looking at his companion confirmed it.

  The woman was tall, thin...no, not thin... it was called size zero. Toned and sculpted as if by a master sculptor, her angles and muscles were primed to perfection. Shivalika knew of gyms where women spent hours and hours honing their bodies to the very peaks of perfection, or at least, what they thought of as perfection.

  She herself was too lazy to ever do that and was pretty satisfied with the way her body was. She felt fit and that was enough for her. She was not a film star who might need to pose in a bikini for a movie or a photo shoot.

  But the woman who stood in front of her now, her hands linked through the stranger’s arm, was as glamorous as any film star.

  The lime green top highlighted her curves to perfection. Off-white leggings fit over her firm legs like a second skin. Her sleek dark brown hair was cut in the latest pixie style and Shivalika wanted to laugh out loud because the innocent-looking style clashed violently with this apparition in front of her who was clearly a woman who knew her way around the world.

  She still could not understand why he was here. Mr.Naidu was standing next to this stranger, with a benign smile on his face.

  “Was he a relative who had come to meet them before they left for the US?” she wondered.

  She looked around at the office. Almost everyone had on a se
rious face, although the two new interns were staring adoringly at the stranger. The most flustered was Nate. The man who always looked like the cat that ate the cream looked harried and hassled now. He never had a hair out of place but now his hands trawled through his hair, and his furrowed brow seemed to reflect the great mental stress he was going through.

  Something was really amiss and the culprit seemed to be this stranger.

  “Well!”

  She was brought back to the present by the voice that played tricks on her body and mind and it was all she could do to concentrate on what he was saying.

  At that very moment, the stranger gazed deep into her eyes with a glittering look that was totally unfathomable and said:

  “Welcome Ms. Shivalika, glad you got the time to come to work. Since you were late for the general introductions, let me introduce myself to you. I am your new boss, Vikramarya Kumar, known as VK to friends,” he said, hand outstretched to shake hers.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Oh! No, no! Oh no! It couldn’t be!”

  Even as her mind went through its own turmoil of thoughts, her body was not a step behind. As she placed her hand in his hard, muscular grip, her body almost shook with the sudden thrill of electricity his touch evoked. Shivalika’s eyes reflected her panic and when she looked up at him, his eyes looked as if they could read what she was going through.

  When Mr.Naidu had mentioned a new owner, she’d imagined him to be an elderly person and had not given it much thought. But, this was a disaster. How could she work with this man whose eyes bored deep into her soul and a voice that set all her senses alight? This stranger...no...her new boss, had been in her thoughts so much that it felt unnatural to see him in flesh and blood.

  “Would you be kind enough to step into the office this way, please? And you too, Nate,” Vikramarya said, his tone icy-cold polite. Without looking back, Mr. Naidu and he walked towards what used to be Mr. Naidu’s room.

  She meekly followed behind them, feeling the angry stare of his statuesque friend on her back. They really suited each other, both of them so arrogant and bossy—she had to laugh at that one: bossy...a boss was expected to be bossy, right?

  Once all were inside the room, Vikramarya firmly shut the door and motioned them to take their seats. He walked over to the chair that used to belong to Mr. Naidu and sat down. The table in front of him was covered with open files.

  Working in proximity with VK was not something that would go well, she knew. Shivalika had heard of new heads often preferring to bring in their own teams but since she knew she was very talented—Mr. Naidu never tired of telling her that—she was not afraid of losing her job. But it was time to update her resume.

  Nate had too often quipped, with a leery nudge and a wink, that the best designer and the best supervisor in the company should get together and form a team which would, no doubt, be a prize-winning team. She always felt her toes curl at this joke but she took it bravely on her chin and hoped he realized that she was never going to marry him.

  “Why is the Sainik account not yet executed?”

  Vikramarya’s words were like whiplash. Her head shot up and she saw his eyes on her, his eyebrows raised in question.

  For a moment she was confused. The Sainik account? But it was being handled by Nate and Rati, another colleague, so why was VK asking her about it?

  Confused, she turned towards Nate to verify it and, as her eyes met his, she saw the plea in them to save him. He had not completed it in time. Now he was being wimpy and did not have the courage to face up to the new boss. Rati was absent, so the ball fell in her court and she had to see how best she could lob it.

  Vikramarya saw her glance at Nate and misunderstood it.

  “Sorry, your best friend is not going to be able to help you. You were in charge and you did not do it in time. Do you realize how much loss our company has to bear for late work especially since each of the contracts include a clause that we would have to pay a fine for each and every day we are delayed?”

  His eyes were on Shivalika and he clearly thought she was the one who was at fault.

  She was happy to hear him say ‘our company’ for it showed that he believed in loyalty and she appreciated and admired that about him.

  But Nate’s bad habit of taking shortcuts and the easy way out whenever the workload was too much, had become a common feature especially with Mr. Naidu out of the office more and more because of his wife’s illness. He trusted his staff to do the right thing and had no clue about Nate’s misbehaviour. She couldn’t call him out on it but tried to chip in with extra work wherever and whenever possible.

  It was having repercussions now, not for him, but for her. Unjustly. But she just shrugged her shoulders. She couldn’t be the snitch now and had to keep quiet even if it showed her in a bad light.

  But why was Vikramarya so angry with her? Because she was late? But this was the very first time it had ever happened. Many times, she had reached office even before the security guard did and had to wait for him to open the office. But how would Vikramarya Kumar know...Vikramarya...that was one big mouthful of a name.

  She continued to listen to the new boss as he continued his litany and then suddenly he looked at her and said, “Shivalika, why is the Kanjurmarg project on hold?”

  She had let her thoughts wander and his rude tone brought her down to earth with a thud. She was familiar with the case and was able to give him all the details but somehow she got the sense that he did not seem very convinced.

  The meetings continued throughout the day and it was after 8pm when people started inching towards the door. Everyone’s nerves were on edge with the difficult day they had faced and were looking forward to getting out of there as soon as they could.

  “Shivalika, could you please get me your designs for the next season?”

  Mouth agape, she stared at Vikramarya.

  Mr. Naidu had already left a few hours ago after handing over the business to VK. His duty now lay towards his wife. Though Misha, the glam goddess who Shivalika assumed was VK’s girlfriend, sat for the meetings, she’d been busy scrolling through her phone when not throwing sharp glances at Shivalika. She too had left a little while after Mr. Naidu did.

  Nate had been working on a project in the conference room with his team and was now bringing VK up to date about it. When Shivalika came into the room, VK looked up and threw both Nate and her an appraising look. He had been scathing in his remarks in the morning but he seemed to have mellowed down since, thought Shivalika.

  “And don’t expect your savior Nate to save your skin for you this time. He’s finished his work and he’s leaving already.”

  Shivalika could not believe her ears. His words made her fume. Added to that, she was both mentally and physically wrung out from the events of the day but could do nothing. Nate gave her a sheepish look and left without giving her a backward glance. VK’s sardonic gaze trailed her, observing her reactions. She was glad he did not say a thing for she wasn’t sure she would have restrained her words.

  Suddenly, her phone buzzed. The sound shook her out of her rage-induced stupor as answered it.

  “Shivalika, where are you? What time are you coming home, darling? We are waiting for you for dinner.” Her Gramma’s gentle tones floated down through the airwaves.

  “You begin eating. I’m still at work. Shall call back later,” she said, hoping to wind up soon. “Yes, yes, all is well. I’ll be home soon,” she said, softly, replying to her Gramma’s questions, hoping VK’s attention was elsewhere.

  But apparently it was not because as soon as she got off the phone, he said, “I have ordered dinner for both of us from Mainland Chinese. You did seem to enjoy the food the last time you were there. Though, whether it was the food or the company, it’s still a toss-up.”

  How did he know? Had he been watching her all the time? He couldn’t have been because he was entering the restaurant when Nate and she were leaving from there. He was surely jumping to conclusions. S
he just shook her head and said, “I’m not hungry.”

  He did not say a thing. She looked up and saw him going through her files which contained her ideas for the coming season.

  He was looking at them very closely, a furrow between his brows signifying his concentration. She knew she was staring at him. The high forehead, the aquiline nose and the strong chin were all hallmarks of a determined nature which she had already discovered at her own expense. She couldn’t do anything about it. In fact, she got the sense that her new boss was quite glad to find as much fault as possible with her.

  “Is this what you have in mind for the next season? Are you sure?”

  “Sure? What do you mean? Of course, I’m sure,” she said angrily.

  He clasped his hands behind his neck and leaned back in his chair which distracted her as it brought his broad chest into focus.

  “This is utter crap. I don’t think it will work at all,” he said.

  Shivalika was aghast. His words left her speechless. She had a feeling from the morning’s events that she would not be given her due and would even have to face some smirky looks but this seemed to be a full-on assault.

  “Why do you say that?” she questioned him, taking a deep breath to calm herself. She was not ready to give up without a fight. And, fight she would. For over six months, she had immersed herself in the subject. She had researched her topic thoroughly and only after a complete market research, she had come up with these ideas and had begun working on them. She had fallen in love with her collection and her instincts told her that it would be a winner.

  And here was VK, who was supposed to be an astute businessman, who she thought would have understood her concepts and designs, giving her shade about it. Had he missed the section where she’d given the projections for its positive effect on their bottom line, the most important thing in a business.