A Love I Buried: My Daughter's Father is Now My CEO

I don't know if today was a bad day or just a bad day dressed up as a normal one. A lot happened since morning. It started with Tanaya. My manager doesn't shout without reason, but when she does, it's like a small bomb going off in the middle of the office — everyone freezes, and somehow you're the only one standing in the blast radius. Today it was the flowers. Our supplier had sent fake ones instead of real, and we had no choice but to make do, because there was no time left to fix it. Tanaya's rude when she's stressed, but I'll give her this — she's rude because she actually cares whether her team survives the day, not because she enjoys it. That didn't make standing in front of her any easier. I thought that was the worst of it. Then came the evening meeting. Tomorrow, the chairman son is arriving — the owner's son, the one everyone's been talking about for weeks — and since we're an event management company, the higher-ups decided our team would organize the welcome ceremony ourselves. Real flowers, a proper stage, the works. Except the flowers were fake now, because of me, and that mistake had already cost the team one scolding today. So when the conversation moved to who would actually hand the new CEO his welcome bouquet, I already knew I wanted my name nowhere near that decision. It didn't go that way. Rahul stood up first. He's never liked me — not since the green plantation event last year, when my idea ended up being the one the whole company got credit for, and he didn't. He smiled when he said it, which was somehow worse than if he'd just said it flatly. "Can we give this opportunity to—" I didn't even let him finish. I don't know what came over me, but the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. "What is there to even discuss? She's our manager, she's the most capable person in this room." I said it looking straight at Tanaya, a little too warmly, hoping it would be enough to end the conversation there. Tanaya's face did that thing where you can tell she's pleased even though she'd never admit it out loud. "Fine, say yes so I can go home," she said. Please, I thought, just say yes. Say you'll do it yourself. I stood there hoping, actually hoping, that she'd agree to hand the flowers herself and let this be over. She didn't. "Last year, because of your plantation idea, this team made the most profit we ever have. When the reward for that came, it was the CEO himself who handed it to us — the same man who's Chairman now. You weren't even in the room for that. So this time, you're the one standing on that stage." Both of them looked at me like the matter was closed. I opened my mouth to argue and found nothing worth saying, because their faces had already made it clear there was no version of this conversation where I won. I picked up my bag and left without another word. If I hadn't given that stupid plantation idea in the first place, I wouldn't be standing here now. Outside the gate, Daksh was leaning against his open car door, one hand braced on the frame like the pose cost him nothing. He wore a crisp checked shirt with skinny, pale-yellow trousers, the color so light it nearly bled white under the evening sun, and his hair sat in that perfectly styled frizz he never quite manages to flatten down. His jawline was sharp enough that I used to trace it with my eyes without meaning to. His chocolate-brown eyes found me before I'd even fully stepped through the gate, and he smiled and waved like there was nowhere else in the world he'd rather be standing. A picture-perfect man. My boyfriend, and my daughter's doctor before he was anything else to me. A man without secrets — or at least, none that I knew of. He walked around and opened the passenger door for me before I could reach it myself. "You look like something good happened to you today," I said, half-joking, sliding into the seat. "Nothing happened." "Then why are you smiling like that?" "Can't I just be happy looking at you?" "No, why not," I said, and smiled back at him. But my cheeks didn't go warm the way they were supposed to. My heart didn't do anything at all. I don't know why I noticed that today of all days — that when he says things like this, I feel nothing close to what I used to feel once, a long time ago, with someone else. Back then even the smallest touch could put my whole body on edge in a way I didn't have a name for. I don't know why I was thinking about him now, of all evenings. "What happened? What are you thinking?" Daksh asked, glancing over. "Nothing. Just a lot of work today." I told him about the flowers, about Rahul, about how Tanaya and Rahul had somehow turned an old success into today's punishment. "It's like the two of them are settling some score from a past life." "I have to give the welcome bouquet tomorrow. To the new CEO." I felt the change in him before I saw it — his hand went still on the wheel, and the easy air went out of the car. "New CEO," he repeated. "The Chairman's son. He's the one coming tomorrow?" "Yeah. Why?" I turned to look at him properly and that's when I saw it — his jaw had gone tight, his eyes somewhere past the windshield, not really seeing the road. "Daksh, watch the—" The horn from the car ahead cut through everything. He hit the brakes hard enough that my seatbelt caught me across the chest, and for a second neither of us said anything, the car stopped at an angle just short of the bumper in front of us. "Sorry," he said, breath uneven. "I wasn't paying attention." "Are you okay?" I asked, and I meant it — his hand was still gripping the wheel like it was the only solid thing in the car. He didn't answer right away. I reached over, took his hand off the wheel, and pressed it against his own cheek instead — the way you'd hold something still until it stopped shaking. "Hey. Look at me. Whatever that was, it's fine. We're both fine." He let out a breath and nodded, though something in his face hadn't fully come back yet. "Okay." Neither of us brought up the new CEO again for the rest of the ride.