Pieces of a Cracked Mirror [An OS series]

Brotherhood

Pallavi yawned tiredly and looked at her watch. It showed nine pm in the night. She had to go home. Sharda Aai had given her a dozen missed calls by now. She was in for an hour long lecture followed by another hour long pampering session. She sighed and looked at her so called boss who had finally been administered a light painkiller which mercifully made him out like the light and all of them were spared of his incessant grumbling.

Pallavi frowned again while she brushed Raghav's hair off his forehead fondly. She was still confused at the absence of any family at the hospital. It had been a rather obnoxiously loud accident. Fortunately she had been there with him at that time. They had their weekly meeting today. Since the day Raghav Rao had become the owner of Deshmukh Saree Emporium, Pallavi Deshmukh had never had an uninteresting day. At first his constant meddling and associated messes used to annoy her but now she kind of looked forward to them. She had started peeling the myriad and numerous layers of this fascinating man whose words and his eyes carried emotions so oxymoronic that it was damnably attractive to her.

He has become somewhat of a friend to her by now. They had agreed to discuss her business any one day in the week at some place of Pallavi's choice. And so their weekly meetings which comprised more of bickering and retelling of their days activities than actual business related stuff had seen convening places like chaat stalls, chai taprees and small local café shops. It was a chai tapri today and they had just about finished with their usual exchange of taunts and silly challenges and were about to reach his car when Raghav had thrown her at the side of the road jumping behind her to cover her from the back as his car exploded.

According to his gasping rambles as she frantically called an ambulance and Farhaad it most likely was a ploy to kill him by his recent business rival Sameer Pillai. Later in the hospital she had enjoyed one of the rare sights of seeing Raghav get efficiently dressed down by his supposed secretary and confidante Farhaad. It was hilarious to see the Don of Hyderabad fumble to find excuses while his secretary raged at him for an hour at most before he locked him down to the bed so that the hapless doctors could work on their rebellious patient.

From all she had gathered in Farhaad's raving Raghav had not heeded to his warnings about making an enemy out of Pillai and to have gone alone without any bodyguard after he had explicitly told him not to. Farhaad knew Pillai would try something heinous very soon and had been involved in keeping an eyes on him while tripling security for his eccentric boss who apparently had the self preservation instincts of a gnat.

She had laughed so much at that.

Imagine Raghav Rao splat on someone's windshield like a gnat!

anyways, the curious thing was she hadn't expected Raghav to actually acknowledge his secretary like that.. or even that Farhaad actually had the nerves to rage on his own boss like he was a wronged and concerned best friend.

It was weird. This relationship he shared with his employer and forgive Pallavi Deshmukh for being such a curious kitty but in her own defence she wanted to know everything about this wonderfully contradicting man. It seemed the enigma surrounding him was thickening with the closer she tried to peep into him.

As she was lost in thought Farhaad entered the room with two cups of coffee. He nudged her lightly and she jerked back into reality and noticed with no small amount of embarrassment that her hand had still been resting on Raghav's surprisingly soft hair. What the hell happens to her sometimes?

She took the cup gratefully and looked around in nervousness. Farhaad let her drink in silence and waited for her to regain her composure before speaking.

"Thank you Pallaviji for staying back.."

"Uhh.. it's completely okay. I wouldn't have been so cruel to let you deal with Mr. Ghamandi Rao alone."