“Srivastav,” Vasudha says when she finally reaches the group. Her voice is low and controlled. “I’m told you have already made yourself useful.”
He bows his head slightly. “Only trying to justify airfare, ma’am.”
“Don’t be modest,” she says. “Modest men are usually hiding incompetence.”
Shalini’s expression does not change. Priya almost smiles. Nandita glances away, as if unwilling to give the moment more attention than it deserves.
Vasudha’s gaze moves over them all, taking inventory in a single sweep. Then she says, “We have a private dinner room at nine. I want the regional buyer shortlist by then. No drama. No heroics. Just numbers.”
She turns and is gone before anyone can respond.
Priya exhales once Vasudha is out of hearing range. “She says no drama as if she did not just arrive like a coronation.”
Aalekh, standing close enough to catch the subtle scent of Priya’s perfume—something floral and dry, elegant without sweetness—lets the corner of his mouth lift. “Some people don’t need to announce power. They just compress the room.”
Priya looks at him then, directly.
There is something in her face that is not quite hunger and not quite caution. More like the ache of being understood and the fear of being seen too clearly.
“Very poetic,” she says.
“Very true,” he answers.
Her gaze lingers half a second too long, then slips away.
By the time dinner ends, the official obligations have thinned into fragments. A few distributor heads remain to be entertained at the bar. Shalini has retreated into a private call. Nandita is in a breakout room reviewing lead sheets with the analytics team. Vasudha has disappeared upstairs to a suite meeting with legal and finance.
Priya stands near the hotel lobby, phone in hand, her shoulders held with the rigid elegance of a woman who has spent the entire day being competent for everyone except herself.
Aalekh emerges from the ballroom a minute later, jacket over one arm, tie loosened just enough to look intentional.
“Ma’am,” he says softly.
She turns.
The lobby is half-lit, all marble floors and gold lamps and the muted hum of a late-night property that has seen too many conversations it will never repeat. Outside the glass doors, Mumbai glows in broken lines of traffic and office towers.
Priya glances toward the lift bank, then back at him. “You should be with the others.”
“I was,” he says. “For most of the evening.”
That earns the faintest trace of dry amusement. “And now?”
“Now I was hoping to ask if you’d like tea. Or coffee. Or silence. Depending on which one is less insulting.”
It should sound flippant. It does not. His voice is quiet, and there is something almost careful in it.
Priya studies him. “You’re very good at making ordinary things sound like invitations.”
He gives a small shrug. “Maybe I’m just good at asking.”
The lobby feels suddenly smaller. A bellboy passes, then looks away at once, sensing something he has no business carrying.
Priya slips her phone into her clutch. “Tea,” she says. “But not in the restaurant. Too many people.”
Aalekh nods once, as if he had not hoped for anything else. “There’s a lounge near the mezzanine.”
She follows him without another word.
The mezzanine lounge is nearly empty. A single couple sits in one corner, speaking in low voices over untouched drinks. The rest of the room is shadow, muted brass, and the smell of bergamot. Aalekh orders tea. Priya asks for nothing, then changes her mind and asks for green tea with lemon.
When the waiter leaves, the silence that settles between them is not comfortable. It is charged, intimate in the worst possible way—meaning it asks for something neither of them can safely give.
Priya looks out at the city through the dark glass. “Do you know what I dislike about these trips?”
Aalekh leans back slightly in his chair. “The expense reports?”
She glances at him, and there it is again—that almost-smile, the one that seems to surprise her by existing. “The hotel version of everyone. People become more polished away from the office. More generous with compliments. More careless with boundaries.”
Aalekh’s gaze does not move from her face. “And which version do you dislike more?”
She is quiet for a beat. Then, “Both.”
He accepts that with a slight nod, though he does not stop looking at her. “You don’t seem like someone who is easy to fool.”
“No,” she says. “I’m not.”
The tea arrives. The waiter sets down the cups and vanishes.
Priya wraps both hands around the warm porcelain, though she does not drink yet. Her bangles shift softly at her wrist. It is a small sound, but in the silence it lands like intimacy.
Aalekh notices her fingers. The slight tension in them. The disciplined way she holds herself together.
“Your husband called you three times today,” he says, not as a challenge, just as a fact.
Priya’s eyes lift slowly.
He does not look apologetic. He looks attentive. That is more dangerous.
“You were paying attention,” she says.
“I always am.”
Her mouth tightens, not in annoyance. In something more fragile. “Yes. I’m beginning to notice.”
Aalekh lowers his eyes for a second, as if conceding the point. When he looks back up, his expression is stripped of its usual teasing ease.
“My mother used to say women get tired in places men never think to look,” he says. “Not because they’re weak. Because they’re carrying too much for too long.”
Priya is still. The room around them seems to recede.
He continues, voice quiet. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I just—” He stops, as if deciding whether to complete the sentence. Then he does, but softer. “You looked tired.”
It is not a grand confession. It is worse than that. It is precise.
Priya’s eyes move over his face with an expression so unreadable it is almost painful. “Everyone looks at me and sees efficient. Or competent. Or difficult.”
Aalekh says nothing.
She gives a tiny, humorless exhale. “No one says tired.”
Something in his jaw tightens for the briefest moment. “That seems like a mistake.”
The words hover between them.
Priya looks down at the tea cup. “My husband thinks if he stays calm enough, everything stays in place. The children need schedules. The house needs supervision. I need to be the one who handles what cannot be handled.” Her voice remains level, but the levelness is a kind of fracture. “Sometimes I think I am not married to a man. I’m married to a routine.”
The sentence lands with enough force to make him blink once.
He should not say anything personal. He knows that. He has built a career on knowing where not to step, and when to make his step look accidental.
Instead, he says, “That sounds lonely.”
Priya laughs once, very softly, but there is no amusement in it. “It is.”
The honesty between them is suddenly so clean it feels almost indecent.