Monday morning blue were really a thing. Meher opened one eyes and the harsh sunlight made her groan.
The sound of soft laughter made her sit up on her bed. She opened her eyes to see Arham looking at her shaking his head, laughing.
"Don't laugh." Meher whined.
"You need to get up and get ready, it's 8 am already." Arham said walking towards her while buttoning his cuff.
"8 ?" Meher said alarmed.
"Yes." Ahram replied and laid a small kiss on her forehead.
"Oh my god I'm late." She said throwing herself off the bed. "We have an appointment with you at 10:30 for showing the final designs today." Meher said running into the bathroom.
Arham followed her in.
Meher pulled out the T-shirt and pushed down the pyjamas she wore and stepped into the shower.
"If you want I can reschedule the meeting, don't stress."
"Arham ! Turn around." Meher yelled. "And no I don't want to take advantage of my husband being my boss, remember we don't mix personal and professional life." She said.
"If you say so." He said walking towards Meher with a sly smile on his face. "But what if the boss is late because he's too busy taking shower with his wife and they take things further from-."
"No." Meher said splashing water at him. "Go away now." She let out a laugh.
"Fine, come down quickly I'm hungry." He said taking one last eyeful of her before making his way to the ground floor.
Meher took a quick shower and slipped into a light pink cotton kurta and matching pants, she quickly lined her eyes with kohl and braided her hair before picking up her bag and phone.
Meher join Arham for a quick breakfast, she has thirty minutes with her reach office. Meher got up from her chair and picked her bag.
"Finish your breakfast, I have to leave or I'll be late." She said turning around.
"You haven't eaten properly Meher." Arham's voice made her stop.
"I'll have an early lunch."
"Okay." He said getting up from the chair and walked towards her. "Best of luck, impress your boss." He said with a small smirk and pressed his lips gently on hers.
"I'm getting late." Meher said pulling away from the kiss. "Allah hafiz." She said running out of the house leaving behind Arham who smiled as he finished his breakfast.
•••
Meher reached her office with still five minutes to spare.
She pushed open the glass door of the beta room and saw the chaos which was in front of her.
"Oh thank god you are here." Eira said pulling Meher into a bone crushing hug.
"Eira, can't breath." Meher squealed.
"Ops sorry." She said releasing Meher. "Help me with the last minute touches. Seher is busy with other work and I have nobody to help me, Arsal has taken Zara away to help him and I -."
"Okay okay, let's go." Meher cut Eira's rant.
"Thanks. And you look gorgeous today." Eira said pulling her towards her counter.
Meher and Eira worked for an hour, cutting, tucking, stitching the ends.
The sound of the glass door open made them look up from their work at Seher who walked towards them.
"Is the work done ?" She asked.
"Yes, sewing in the last button." Eira replied and handed Meher the needle and thread.
Meher placed the button on the fabric and passed the long needle through it.
"Fine team beta, we'll head with out sample outfits upstairs now and Mr Butt will-."
"Ouch." Meher yelped as the needle pricked her. Meher retracted her hand and put the bleeding finger in her mouth.
"Are you okay Meher ?" Seher asked concerned.
"Yes, sorry I interrupted." She said getting back to stitching the button.
"It's alright. So we'll take these up and let Mr Butt look at them before giving it a thumbs up. Carry your sketches too." She said before heading out.
Meher broke the remaining thread and pushed the needle on the sponge. "Finally it's done, all our hard work will earn us a pat on the back today."
"Or a big fat bonus." Eira chipped in.
"Or that." Meher said letting out a chuckle.
All of them collected the bags contains the outfits and sketches and entered the elevator to ride to the 11th floor.
"My heart is in my mouth." Fahim said.
"Mine too." Zara added.
"It will be alright guys, we have worked hard." Eira tried to pacify the group.
The ding of the elevator made everyone jump, clearly they were not ready to step out.
"Get out of the elevator idiots." Seher hissed as she stood outside watching them stand like statutes inside the metal box.
One after the other all of them exited and stood outside the conference room, Meher had found herself in front of the very same room on her first day of work.
"Good morning Ms. Seher, the board and sir are waiting for you inside." Arham's PA, Ms Zafar said with a kind smile.
"Thank you Alisha." Seher said and walked into the glass room followed by the beta team.
Meher held the sketches off all the designs of her team while others had bags containing the garments.
"Shall we begin." Said the bald man she met the first day who had insulted her along with his boss.
Her boss, her husband, he had changed so much since the first day she met him, the first time she saw him was as her husband, who brought her from Hyderabad to Lahore without uttering a single word and had left his sleeping newly wed bride in the car alone.
Meher shook her head to get rid of her thoughts and to prevent her mind from wandering around the thoughts of her husband.
The meeting had already begun, all of them had taken a seat on the chairs lined along the wall of the conference room, Eira who was given the responsibility to explain the design and fabric of the garment and to show the photographs of the models who had worn their creations.
Nearly an hour later, after a few changes were taken note of, the meeting came to an end.
"Good work team." Seher said as she turned around her chair on the table to look behind at the five sitting in anticipation.
"You have done a good job." Arham said looking at them. "After the little changes discussed today are done you can send the designs for production." He said.
"Thank you sir." Eira replied enthusiastically and Arham gave her a nod.
A knock on the door drew attention. The glass door opened and Ms Zafar stepped in.
"Sir, the investors are here to sign the contract." She said.
"We are done with this meeting please send the investors inside in 5 minutes." He replied and Ms Zafar nodded.
All of them had got up to get out of the room and celebrate their success, finally after weeks of hard work and sleepless nights later, they had done it.
"You Ms." Arham said pointing at Meher. "You got these in right ?" He pointed at the file containing the sketches.
Meher looked at him and nodded.
"Please keep them inside my desk, in my cabin." He said getting up from her seat and walking towards her with the file in his hand. Meher looked at him with stoic expressions.
He handed her the file and whispered.
"Well done."
"Thank you." Meher replied back with a smile. "And best of luck with the signing." She said before turning around and followed her friends out of the room leaving a smiling Arham behind.
•••
"We did it." Zara squealed and flung herself on Meher. "Oh my god we did it." She said laughing.
"We did Zara."
"You are the best partner ever, please join the company, take up on Ms Seher's offer and get a job here, you and I make a wonderful team."
"I didn't know Meher was going to be a competition for me." Arsal muttered under his breath making Eira and Fahim laugh and Meher go red.
"Competition for ?" Zara asked innocently.
"Come sister dear, today I shall tell you." Eira said swinging her arm around Zara's neck and dragging her along towards the lift.
"No Eira no." Arsal yelled and followed them leaving behind Fahim and Meher who laughed at their friend's plight.
"You guy wait for me down in the office I'll keep this file and join you." Meher said holding up the white file.
"Okay, come soon, we're partying." Fahim said with a smile.
"10 minutes tops." She said and Fahim nodded walking towards the chaotic group standing by the elevator.
Meher turned around and walked towards the reception where Ms Zafar sat along with the receptionist.
"Ms Zafar right ?" Meher said giving the two ladies a smile.
"Yes."
"I'm Meher, Mr. Butt asked me to keep this in his office." She said showing the white folder.
"Uh I'm sorry I can't go keep it since I have to be present outside incase sir calls for anything I -."
"No, I wasn't asking you to,sorry." Meher said. "I don't know where his office is." She continued, a faint blush rose on her cheeks.
"Oh, okay." Alisha Zafar let out a small chuckle. "It's the large door at the end of this corridor, it's the only door there in fact."
"Alright thank you." Meher said and walked in the pointed direction. She spotted the single large glass door with thick wooden frame at the end and pushed the door open.
The large spacious room greeted her, the glass wall overlooked the busy streets of Lahore, flooding the room with light, the beige painted walls and the mahogany wood furniture screamed money and taste.
Meher walked towards the large desk and saw his laptop placed in the middle along with a bunch of files and printed papers.
Meher placed her hand on the handle of the first wooden drawer of his desk and pulled it, but it remained shut, after giving it a few tugs and gaining no positive result she gave up on it, and thought maybe it was locked. So she tried her luck with the second drawer of the desk.
As soon as the drawer pulled open she saw the picture frame inside the drawer a smile graced her lips. She picked the photo frame and examined it closely, it looked a few years old, Arham looked younger and so did Hooriya, Arham had his hand draped across Hooriya's shoulder and he smiled into the camera whereas Hooriya has been captured looking at Arham giving him a smile.
Meher smiled looking at the two important people in her life, she pulled the cardboard stand out from behind the frame and placed the frame on Arham's desk, photos were meant to be kept out and cherished , they weren't meant to be shut and locked in drawers. Meher picked the file to place it in the drawer when the sheets of paper kept below the frame in the drawer caught her eyes.
Unlike rest of the documents in the room this one was printed in Nastaliq script (it's a modified version of Arabic used to write Urdu, like Devanagari is the script to write hindi).
Meher picked up the paper, her heart thudded, she should invade Arham's private space, it was breech of privacy she knew, but something in her wanted to read the papers, so she did.
It was a Nikah Nama, marriage papers of Arham Umair Butt and Hooriya Hasan Ajmal.
AN: So...
It's out, ab kya hoga ?
Wrote this yesterday and had early morning surgery postings and just got free so couldn't update earlier sorry.
So a reader to told me I need to up my vote goal since the targets I sets were easily achieved.
Hence, 260 for the next
Give me time will 7th Feb for the next update, surgery ward sucks the light and life out of you please be patient (the pun)
Stay safe
lots of love
xoxo