Nandita’s fingers tighten around the paper cup. For the first time today, she seems to search for a word rather than a solution.
“When you look at people,” she says finally, “you make them feel selected.”
Aalekh does not answer.
“That is not harmless,” she continues. “Particularly here.”
He watches her carefully. “And do you feel selected?”
Her face changes—very slightly, but enough.
“That is exactly why I’m annoyed,” she says.
The line hits with a strange force because it is the nearest thing to honesty she has given him in weeks. Not confession. Not surrender. Just the admission that something in him has begun to matter against her will.
Aalekh’s voice softens. “Nandita.”
She looks at him sharply.
He does not move closer. He does not need to. The distance between them is already doing the work.
“I’m not asking for anything,” he says.
That is a lie, but a useful one.
Nandita’s eyes search his face, and for a moment the sharp edges of her control look tired.
“You should know,” she says quietly, “that if this blows up, I will protect the team first.”
“I know.”
“Even if it means sacrificing you.”
He gives a faint smile that is almost kind. “Especially then.”
That, finally, makes her expression shift. Not softness. Something more complicated. A recognition, maybe, that he has understood her more accurately than she expected him to.
She sets the cup down.
When she speaks again, her voice is lower. “Be careful tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because Priya is already emotional. Shalini is already irritated. Vasudha is already deciding. And you,” she says, looking at him in a way that seems to strip the air from the room, “are enjoying this far too much.”
Aalekh’s eyes meet hers. “Am I?”
Nandita holds his gaze for one beat longer than necessary.
Then, very quietly, “Yes.”
And leaves him standing there with the taste of that answer rising like something dangerous.
The evening meeting is supposed to be a final alignment call. It becomes something else.
Priya joins first, looking tired and beautiful in the exhausted way married women sometimes do when they have spent the day being necessary. Shalini arrives next, late by three minutes and making it feel intentional. Vasudha calls in from her private room on speaker, her voice calm and distant, as if she has no need to be physically present to own the room.
Aalekh is there already, laptop open, notes ready, face composed into that same pleasant, dangerous neutrality.
Shalini begins. “The board is uneasy.”
Priya folds her hands. “We need a unified message.”
Vasudha’s voice comes through the speaker with unhurried authority. “We need discipline.”
Nandita is not on this call. She has done her part and gone quiet, which is its own kind of power.
Shalini looks directly at Aalekh. “Tell us what you will do.”
The phrasing is deliberate. Not what happened. What will you do.
He understands the real question underneath it.
What side are you on?
Aalekh glances once at the screen, where three women—one present in body, one in voice, one in the room and one in the building—hold different shapes of authority and expectation.
He smiles, lightly.
“By tomorrow morning,” he says, “I’ll send a revised escalation matrix. I’ll also flag the vendor issue with supporting emails so there’s no ambiguity about where the delay originated. If anyone asks about internal friction, the answer is simple: the team is under pressure because the campaign matters.”
Priya’s eyes stay on him, unreadable.
Shalini says, “And the rumors?”
Aalekh turns a page in his notebook, as though considering this for the first time.
“The rumors are a distraction,” he says. “But distractions can be useful if they absorb attention away from the actual operational issue.”
Vasudha’s voice, smooth as lacquer, enters the room. “And what is the actual issue?”
He pauses just long enough to make the
Nandita’s throat moves once.
The pantry is too small for the silence that follows, too dim for the expression that crosses her face—something between anger and reluctant recognition, as if his question has found the one place in her she prefers to keep locked. The overhead light hums softly above the stainless-steel counter. Outside, the office is darkened and nearly empty, the glass walls reflecting only their shapes: her rigid outline, his relaxed one, the distance between them feeling deliberate rather than accidental.
Aalekh does not move. He lets the question hang there, warm as a hand at the small of the back.
Nandita folds her arms, but the gesture gives her away; it is defensive, not dismissive. “You think this is amusing.”
“I think,” he says, voice low, “that you’ve been watching me very closely for someone who’s offended.”
Her eyes narrow. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” His mouth turns, not quite a smile. “Not with you.”
That lands. He sees it. Her gaze flickers, just once, to his mouth and back to his eyes, and the smallest shift in her breathing tells him the rest. She is good at denial; he admires the effort.
Nandita steps closer, not enough to be careless, but enough that the air between them changes. “What are you doing, Aalekh?”
He tilts his head. “At this hour? Surviving.”
“Don’t play games with me.”
“Then stop looking like you want the rules explained.”
Her jaw sets. A flush—subtle, unwelcome—touches the edge of her cheekbone, and he knows it is not embarrassment exactly. It is irritation at herself for reacting at all. He has always found that particular battle more interesting than victory itself.
Nandita uncrosses her arms and plants one hand on the counter behind her, as if to steady the room. “You were in there,” she says, each word clipped, controlled, “with four powerful women trying to tear you apart, and you looked—” She stops, the rest of it refusing to become language.
“Relaxed?” he supplies.
“Dangerously pleased with yourself.”
“Better than panicked.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“No.” His eyes hold hers. “But it’s what you meant.”
The pantry feels warmer now, not because of the air conditioning or the coffee machine’s quiet heat, but because neither of them is pretending anymore. Nandita’s guard remains in place, but he can see the pressure against it, the strain of holding herself apart from a thing she does not want to name.
She exhales through her nose. “You enjoy being wanted.”
Aalekh’s gaze drops, briefly, to the line of her throat before returning to her eyes. “Who doesn’t?”
“You are impossible.”
“I’ve been told that by women who were far less angry about it.”
Her expression hardens, but the effect is undercut by the way her fingers curl against the counter edge. “You are making light of this because you think you can charm your way out.”
“No.” His answer is immediate, almost gentle. “I’m making light of it because if I answered honestly, you’d leave.”
That finally stills her.