Falling in Love - A Shivika Romance ✔

32. Separation

Shivaay walked away as if nothing happened. Annika stood there for seconds afterward contemplating if anything did happen or not. Everything seemed usual from outside. Shivaay had certain defined standards for things he looked in an employee. As of now, Annika had no right to defy those standards on a professional level.

She could let it be, right?

***

Shivaay was fuming inside Harsh's old cabin when Annika entered without knocking. He stood alarmed having no other reaction seeing the face of his intruder.

"Um-sorry" Annika mumbled, "I should have knocked."

His features softened a bit seeing her reactions upon entering the cabin. Sure she was good at handling herself by now, but even she had the right to attach old memories to her emotions in this place.

"It's okay. I mean it's your office. You can enter and leave anytime you wish."

"At least don't taunt me like that," Annika pointed out.

"No, no, no, I didn't mean it like that," Shivaay said.

"Are you angry with me?" she asked.

"Why would I be angry? That too with you?" Shivaay asked back.

Annika nodded.

"Then? What makes you angry?" she asked.

"I am not angry," he lied.

Annika smiled a little and walked up to him to free his clenched fist and rub her palm up and down his chest., "This tight jaw, your cat-like eyes, and your flaring nose are telling a different story."

Shivay stood amazed at how the girl could easily read him. The last time any human being read him like that was his mother. That was years ago and after her death, no one could get this close to him. Everyone would run away when he is angry. He looked at her palm on his chest and admired that she was the only person in years to not only realize that he was lying but also staying with him to help deviate the anger.

"Annika, I don't like being crossed," he said as a matter of fact, "and you saw how that cheap man acted in front of me."

She recalled Dev's one line before leaving. If that one line managed to hurt Shivaay's ego that much, she could only wonder what Shivaay would do if he listened to all of Dev's derision that night when she and Dev were drunk.

"First of all, if he is cheap," Annika felt guilty to use the word after seeing Dev's background check report, "then he should not matter to you for you to fume in anger like that."

"I am not angry," he lied again though he knew that she knew and she knew that he knew.

Annika uttered no more words and placed her head on his chest. His arms took time to wrap around her frame so did his heart to calm down.

"Shivaay, I don't know if I have any right to speak against the decisions you make in the professional world. And if I think of it, I feel Papa knew that you could handle me and his business well. Maybe that's why he offered all he had to you. Somewhere I feel obliged to respect his decision. For now, I won't say anything. But you must know, you must know that I don't agree with your decision."

Shivaay's hand left the small of her back. He knew that she had all the says in this business. According to Harsh, Shivaay had Kabeer Industries as long as he had her. To think of it, he would always remain below her when it came to the decisions made in this company. Yet something in him stopped him from clarifying that.

"His paternity had nothing to do with his qualifications, right?" Annika's voice brought him back from his train of thoughts, "He was suitable for this job. Earlier too, I did not quite understand your reasons behind rejecting many of the candidates, but they seemed fair so I had little to say. This one, I can't say the same."