Oops ! I Married My Boss.

At 9:03 a.m., Anaya Karvekar had already committed three crimes against the ASR Company stationery cabinet. The first was the stapler. She had pictured it as Armaan Singh Randhawa's left kneecap, and she had pressed down with feeling. The second was the highlighter, which she'd uncapped and left to dry out in a drawer. The third was a sticky note that read DEAR SIR, PLEASE DROP DEAD (RESPECTFULLY). She crumpled it and swallowed her guilt in one go. "Anaya." The voice came through the intercom, low and flat, as if it had never once enjoyed itself. She closed her eyes. "Yes, sir?" "My office. Bring the Mehta file, the Q3 projections, and the Singapore contract." "The Singapore contract is forty-two pages." "Then you've got a lot to carry." Click. Anaya stared at the intercom. "I hope your coffee is cold," she whispered. "I hope your Wi-Fi drops during every important call. I hope your pen runs out of ink mid-signature." "Talking to yourself again?" said Reema from Accounts, sliding past with a samosa. "That's day three this week." "I'm manifesting." "What?" "His downfall." Reema patted her shoulder with the sympathy people reserve for the doomed. "Good luck. Last month he sent Dhruv back four times over a comma." "A comma," Anaya said, "is how you get killed in this building." She gathered the files into a tower that rose past her chin and took the long walk to the corner office. The glass door was already open. Armaan sat behind his desk in a charcoal suit, his sleeves precisely folded, his expression as warm as a closed bank. He didn't look up when she came in, and that annoyed her more than anything else he could have done. She set down the tower. It landed with a thud that rattled his pen holder. "Dramatic," he said, still reading. "Heavy," she said. "Sir." "You'll need the Singapore contract proofread by noon." "It's nine-oh-five." "Then you have until noon." "That's three hours for forty-two pages, plus the Mehta file, plus the projections." At last he lifted his eyes. They were dark and calm, with something faintly amused flickering in them. It was the look of a man watching a kitten try to fight a curtain. "Is that a complaint, Miss Karvekar?" "It's a mathematical observation." "Noted." His mouth twitched, barely. "Also, I've spotted a problem in your last report." Her stomach dropped. "What problem?" "You wrote 'synergy' four times on one page." "It's a corporate word! You love corporate words!" "I love them when they mean something." He turned the page toward her with one finger. "Here, it means nothing. Here, it means less than nothing. Here"—he tapped—"it appears to be a cry for help." Anaya's cheeks burned. "I'll fix it." "I know you will." He returned to his screen. "Unless you'd rather resign. I hear stationery theft is up this quarter." She froze. "I have no idea what you mean." "The stapler on your desk has a dent in it." "Pure coincidence." "It looks like the dent a person makes when she's glaring at it." She picked up the three files, then the contract, then her dignity, and she marched toward the door. "Anaya." She turned. He still hadn't looked up. "Your hair clip is crooked." She slapped a hand to her head. The clip was, in fact, crooked. Walking out, she told herself she did not feel flustered. She felt murderous, which was entirely different. "He told me my hair clip was crooked," Anaya hissed that evening, flinging herself onto Niya's bed with a bag of chips. "Like I'm a hostage and he's the guard who judges my outfit." Niya Deshmukh sat cross-legged on the quil t, a bridal magazine open in her lap and a face like she'd swallowed a lemon. Her room still held its teenage clutter: fairy lights, a poster of a long-retired cricketer, a shelf of trophies from inter-college debates. Anaya had spent half her life in this room. Niya's parents had put her through school on scholarships and never once made her feel like charity. "Mine's worse," Niya said. "No. Impossible. Nobody's boss is worse than mine." "Mine isn't a boss. He's a fiancé." Anaya stopped chewing. "Say that again." "The wedding is in nine days." Niya slapped the magazine shut. "Papa and Mummy have been planning it for months. I just found out the groom's name last week. It's Armaan Singh Randhawa." The chip crumbled quietly between Anaya's fingers. "Randhawa," she repeated. "That's a common name. Very common. There must be hundreds of them." "He's the CEO of some big company in the city. I don't know which one. Everyone says he's cold, arrogant and miserable. One aunt said he hasn't smiled since 2014. Another swears he fired a man for breathing too loudly." "That's a lot of rumours." "Rumours are all I have! I've never even met him. Our parents decided it over chai, Anaya. Chai." Niya flopped backward in despair. "I'll be trapped for life with a man made of ice. He'll alphabetise my spice rack. He'll schedule our anniversaries a year in advance." "That does sound awful," Anaya said, her heart beating strangely, because it did sound exactly like someone she knew. But there were hundreds of cold, impossible men in Mumbai, weren't there? Surely she wasn't unlucky enough to know the specific one. "I can't say no to Papa," Niya went on, her voice cracking. "He's so happy. And after everything they've done for you and me, I can't be the daughter who ruins—" "Stop." Anaya sat up and seized her friend's shoulders. "Niya Deshmukh. Listen to me. Nobody is trapping you in anything." "Anaya, don't." "Your family took me in. Your parents paid for my education. I owe you everything I have, and I'm not going to watch you marry a refrigerator." "What are you going to do, make a speech at the wedding?" "If necessary, yes. But I have a better idea." Anaya's eyes took on a dangerous, glittering look that had already caused three fires, two police warnings and one lost semester in college. "If the groom doesn't show up, there's no wedding." Niya went very still. "Anaya." "I'll kidnap him." "Anaya." "I'll kidnap the groom myself." Anaya stood on the bed, one fist raised, a chip stuck to her sleeve. "I'll snatch him, hide him, and keep him far away until your parents give up. You won't have to say a single word." "That is a crime." "It's a rescue." "It's a felony." "Felonies are just rescues with worse PR." Anaya hopped down and began pacing. "I'll need a van. Rope, but gentle rope. Snacks, in case he's cranky. And a disguise, because the best criminals always wear sunglasses." Niya stared at her. In the silence, a faint question crept into her face. "Anaya, you wouldn't actually—" "Don't worry." Anaya grinned the grin of a woman who had never once been talked out of anything. "How hard can it be to kidnap one grumpy man?" Somewhere across the city, in a penthouse office lit by a single lamp, Armaan Singh Randhawa sneezed twice for no reason at all.