SHATTERED HER HEART

CHAPTER 04

I didn’t say anything immediately; there was no use. She asked me to wait a few more minutes, and I agreed because it cost me nothing to be generous when the stakes were my father’s reputation and not just my mood. If it had been anyone else, if it had been any other place, I would have cancelled all deals and left, but here, there was the involvement of my father, and I do not drop my father’s name into mud to feel taller.

We were seated in the meeting room inside his cabin, the resort designed with ‘quiet wealth’ in mind — wood that knows it’s expensive, glass that remembers how much it cost to be this clear — and I stood and walked to the broad window because the view had been calling me like a forbidden song; from there, the lake glittered in its valley, reflecting sky and memory with the same ruthless honesty, and I never had any good memory of this place but this view made me love this place so much that my love frightened me.

Back home during holidays in Lake district, I used to sit for hours by windows reading my favourite book, talking to my Mom and Dad until evening smeared itself across the hills, this view reminded me of that and that kind of memory is a trap that masquerades as a gift; my fingers traced the glass and I smiled in spite of myself, lost in the beauty and the ache, because the chirping of birds and the flapping of wings and the rustling of leaves in the cold breeze were not just sounds, they were time capsules, and in those days there were no resorts, only our cute little cottage and those mesmerizing view.

As I was lost in the memory a face appeared in my mind that of a boy blurred, but I knew he was someone close to my heart...... the only pleasant memory of this place it was him — the boy who was my best friend and my first love, the boy who held my hand with a conviction that made me think the world would never let go of me, the boy who offered me shoulders to cry on and words to coo me back into bravery, the boy who proposed under a sky that looked like it had consented to us, the boy I said yes to without negotiation, the boy who gave me my first hug that meant forever and my first kiss that meant now, all of it here at Nainital, all of it by this lake, all of it belonging to a version of me that I had fought to bury and failed to forget.

The only good memory of Nainital.

Sejal’s phone rang, slicing the nostalgia clean in half. She answered, listened, and all the color drained from her face at once, like the window had vacuumed it out; her frown folded her features into worry, and when she hung up I asked, too bluntly to be kind and too late to pretend I cared more than I did,

“What happened?”

“Vihaan… he met with an accident,” she said, and tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, and I felt a pure, simple, human sorrow for the news and an entirely separate, selfish surge of relief that this was not my failure to manage but his, and then professionalism asserted itself like a habit you can’t unlearn.

“So, what about the presentation?” I asked, and yes, it was rude, and yes, I should have inquired after his health, and yes, business makes monsters of us all, but I am a businesswoman and the thing must be done; she stared at me like I had revealed a secret ugliness, and I let the stare pass, and she requested ten minutes to prepare, and I nodded because competence is kindness when the circumstances are cruel. She left the room, and I stood there, every muscle humming with frustration and purpose, until my father called.

“Hello,” he said, voice careful, and I said,

“Hey, Dad,” and he told me there was no need to come back today, to stay there and give Vihaan some time, that he had heard about the accident, and I sighed because this was all turning into an opera I had never bought tickets for, and replied that his cousin was here and had said she could handle the presentation, so it was fine if he wasn’t there, and before he could say anything else I hung up, because my father’s hope had a way of making my spine too soft.

Whether I liked it or not, the logistics were kissing the conspiracy: I had tried to book a flight out the moment irritation flipped into resolve, and there had been no direct flights, and every available connection to Delhi was next morning, of course, naturally, inevitably; if Vihaan had arranged to meet me in Delhi, I could have walked away at five and left at six and taught him a neat little lesson about time, but here, stranded between hills and history, I would have to wait, I would have to meet him, I would have to endure his absence and then his presence, and whether he had planned it or simply benefitted from it, it felt like a trap, and I do not forgive traps easily. I could almost hear him — in that polished voice from those interviews — speaking about value and patience while that guy, maybe his assistant, scrambled and his cousin panicked and his resort served nostalgia as anesthetic; if this was chess, he had already cut off my exits, and I despise men who try to win by barricade.

The man who had brought the snacks returned to set up the screen, moving with the competent stealth of someone who keeps rooms alive without asking anyone’s permission, and when he finished, Sejal reentered and gestured to him, and he turned off the lights, and stood to the side like a shadow earning its salary.

Sejal presented the project as well as she could — slides clean, numbers aligned, phrasing careful — but my dissatisfaction began as a string and quickly wound itself into a knot; I asked a series of questions to test assumptions and squeeze risk out of promises, and she blabbered politely on a few, offering hopeful guesses where we needed sharp facts, and stood blank on others, her silence honest, and I appreciated the honesty without forgiving the lack of preparation. It was not her work; she knew only the edges, and the center was not hers to hold, and still I expected more, because my standards do not relax when men meet with accidents.

She knew it, too — the way my smile flattened was a report card — and I rose, ready to leave, ready to call this a day that had failed to meet my basic requirements, when a voice cut in from the dim corner, low and respectful and steady,

“Sorry, ma’am, for interrupting — would you mind giving me a few minutes to explain?” and I turned, and the same grey-shirt man was there, not obsequious, not performative, simply present, and something about his tone was persuasive without being pushy, and if I could waste an hour waiting and then another listening to a presentation that had never belonged to the woman who delivered it, I could certainly donate a handful of minutes to a man who sounded as if he had actually done the work.

“What’s your name?” I asked, because names are both doors and warnings.

“Reyansh,” he replied, and paused, and I waited for a surname that did not arrive. “Just Reyansh, ma’am. I don’t have a last name,” he added with a frankness that made me tilt my head.

“I’m an intern here. I’ve completed my bachelors in business management and my MBA in International Business and Finance.”

I felt my mouth curve without permission — competence wrapped in humility is a very rare perfume — and told him to proceed. He did. And he did well, in a way that made me briefly forget I was angry; he handled the projections with confidence, he explained risk with clarity, he compared vendor capacities like someone who had actually read their contracts, he sketched out contingency pathways without turning the entire plan into a nightmare of fear, and when I asked questions, he answered without dodging, without guessing, without hiding behind jargon or slides, and I liked that, because I am not impressed easily, and this impressed me enough to keep me in my chair.

By the end, when my curiosity had exhausted its list and my skepticism had run out of places to hide, I looked at him, then at Sejal, who seemed shy and relieved and slightly thrilled, and she asked if I was interested in the project, and I smiled and looked back at Reyansh, and found his eyes bright with the kind of enthusiasm that hasn’t yet learned to be cynical.

“I am really impressed, Reyansh, by the way you presented and answered my queries,” I said, my voice warmer than it had been all day because he had earned warmth, and then I delivered the impulse that felt both generous.........