I don’t care.
She matters more.
CHAPTER 24
ADITI
Radha’s voice is unusually chirpy this morning. She’s already halfway through her chai when I enter the pantry, her eyes lighting up when she sees me, and I can tell she’s been waiting to talk. She pats the stool beside her like I’m supposed to sit and absorb whatever she’s burning to tell me.
“You missed all the drama yesterday,” she begins with the kind of glee that makes me pause mid-step.
My throat’s dry, but I walk over. “Drama?”
“Hmm.” She nods with exaggerated slowness, savoring every second like she’s eating warmgulab jamunin winter. “Our very own CEO held a meeting at 3 PM sharp. Called every single person who attended the intern party.”
I freeze for a second, fingers tightening around the tea packet I’d just picked up. “Why?”
She shrugs, even though her grin says she knows exactly why. “He said he wanted clarity. But you know what? It wasn’t about clarity. It was about you.”
I blink. “Me?” Oh. Is that why people have been staring at me since I entered this building?
Radha leans closer. “He made Tushar stand up and repeat what he said to you. In front of everyone.”
My chest goes still.
“Obviously, the guy stammered like a broken Bluetooth speaker. And Sir was pissed, Aditi. Not the yelling kind, the scary calm kind. You know how he gets when he’s mad but measured?” She shivers dramatically. “He didn’t defend you, not really. He just... made it clear that no one talks like that and gets away with it. That this company has standards. That you earned your place here, and no one—no one—gets to belittle that.”
My stomach twists, not from discomfort but from something quieter, heavier. A strange kind of gratitude tinged with guilt. He didn’t do it to save me. Because I didn’t need saving. He did it because he saw me. He understood it affected me.
Radha is still talking, eyes dreamy now. “He said something like, ‘If your ego can’t handle a no, the problem isn't her. It's you.” She sighs dreamily. “Uff. If I ever get insulted, I want him doing the talking.”
I laugh under my breath, but it doesn’t quite reach my eyes. It catches her attention.
She watches me for a second, then adds, “Are you okay?”
I nod. “Yeah. I should... I should get back to work.”
But I don’t.
I find myself outside his office twenty minutes later, hand raised to knock before I even know what I’ll say. I should walk away. Leave it. But I don’t like debt, even the unspoken kind. And maybe... maybe a part of me just wants to see his face.
When I step inside, he looks up from his laptop. He doesn’t stand. Doesn’t smile. Just watches. That unreadable face again. But there’s something—some flicker in his eyes. A tightness in his jaw that loosens when he sees me, then tightens again when I stay standing instead of walking closer.
“I heard about the meeting,” I say, tone neutral.
He nods once but doesn’t say anything, as if I am reporting a weather forecast for him.
“I just wanted to say... thank you. Not for defending me. For calling out what needed to be called out. That’s rare.”
His expression doesn’t change, but something shifts in the silence between us. I sense it. A heaviness. He waits for more—he always does—but I don’t give it.
Instead, I glance around his office like it matters. “I’ll get the case report on your desk before noon.”
And I turn.
But as I reach the door, I pause. Just for a second. I don’t look back, but I feel it—the way the energy in the room changes. Like something inside him fell. Just a little.
He never shows emotion, not in the way others do. But I’ve come to read him, somehow. That quiet drop in the air wasn’t imagined. He might have expected me to be dramatic about it; hell, even I would have expected myself to be dramatic, but here we are. I don’t turn back. Because I need to remember why I came here in the first place.
