# Chapter 4
The words sliced through the office atmosphere like a blade through silk. "Aarohi, come with me."
Rithvik Veerayut's voice carried that peculiar quality that made everyone else fade into background noise—low, measured, with an edge that suggested consequences for hesitation. Aarohi's heart didn't just skip; it performed an entire gymnastics routine against her ribcage. The fluorescent lights above seemed to flicker, though she knew it was just her vision adjusting to the sudden rush of adrenaline.
Time moved like honey. She watched his mouth form the words, noticed how his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly after speaking, how his fingers—long, elegant, adorned with a single silver ring—drummed once against his thigh before going still. The office had transformed into a tableau, twenty-three pairs of eyes frozen mid-blink, coffee cups suspended halfway to lips, keyboards abandoned mid-sentence.
Aarohi's chair creaked as she shifted, the sound unnaturally loud in the vacuum of silence. Her palms had gone damp, and she pressed them against her skirt, hoping the tremor in her hands wasn't visible. The air felt thick, charged with the kind of electricity that precedes a thunderstorm.
*Move,* her brain commanded, but her body seemed to have forgotten the basic mechanics of standing. She could feel Rhea's concerned gaze burning into her left shoulder, could practically hear the collective held breath of her colleagues. Someone's phone buzzed—a jarring intrusion that made several people jump.
Finally, muscle memory kicked in. She rose slowly, deliberately, her notebook clutched against her chest like armor. The leather cover was worn smooth from countless meetings, its familiar texture grounding her in the moment. As she walked toward him, her heels clicked against the polished floor—a metronome marking her march toward the unknown.
Rithvik waited with the patience of a predator. His dark eyes tracked her movement with an intensity that made her skin prickle with awareness. There was something almost feline about his stillness, the way he held himself with coiled energy barely contained beneath his impeccably tailored suit. The charcoal fabric caught the light as he breathed, and she found herself noticing ridiculous details—the way his collar sat perfectly against his throat, how his cufflinks caught the morning sun streaming through the windows.
"God, he's beautiful," she thought, then immediately cursed herself for the inappropriate observation. Beautiful wasn't the right word. Dangerous, perhaps. Magnetic. The kind of face that belonged on ancient coins or carved into marble—all sharp angles and classical proportions, with eyes that seemed to hold secrets worth killing for.
She reached him, standing close enough to catch the subtle scent of his cologne—something expensive and understated, with notes of bergamot and cedar that made her want to breathe deeper. Instead, she held her breath, afraid that any sound might shatter whatever spell held the office in its grip.
Without a word, he turned and walked toward his office. The movement was fluid, economical, each step purposeful. Aarohi followed, hyperaware of the distance between them—three feet, maybe four. Close enough to see the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his hair curled just slightly at the nape of his neck where it met his collar.
Behind them, she heard the office slowly come back to life. Rhea's whispered warning floated after them: "Aarohi... be careful. He's not like the others. He's... different. Cold. Heartless."
*Heartless.* The word echoed in her mind as she watched him walk. Yet something about the set of his shoulders, the measured cadence of his steps, suggested otherwise. There was something controlled about his coldness, as if it were a choice rather than a natural state.
His office doors loomed ahead—frosted glass panels that reflected their approaching figures like ghosts. As they drew closer, Aarohi caught sight of herself in the reflection and was startled by her own appearance. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes brighter than usual, her lips slightly parted as if she'd been running. She looked like a woman on the verge of something—though what, she couldn't say.
The doors closed behind them with a whisper of expensive hydraulics, sealing them into Rithvik's domain. The space took her breath away. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a panoramic view of the city, the morning light casting long shadows across the minimalist furniture. Everything was clean lines and neutral tones, from the sleek desk that could have doubled as a modern art installation to the leather chairs that probably cost more than her monthly salary.
But it was cold. Beautifully, expensively cold.
Rithvik moved to the window, his hands clasped behind his back. From this angle, she could see his reflection in the glass—the sharp line of his profile, the way his dark hair fell across his forehead. He stood perfectly still, but she sensed the restless energy beneath the surface, like a cat watching birds through a window.
The silence stretched between them, taut as a wire. Aarohi found herself studying the line of his shoulders, the way his jacket fit across his back, the slight rise and fall of his breathing. Her own breath felt shallow, inadequate. She pressed her notebook tighter against her chest, using it as an anchor to keep from floating away on the tide of her racing thoughts.
*What is wrong with me?* she wondered. She was a professional, a grown woman who had navigated difficult bosses before. But something about Rithvik Veerayut short-circuited her usual composure. Maybe it was the stories she'd heard—the whispered tales of his ruthlessness, his legendary control, the way he could destroy careers with a single word. Or maybe it was something else entirely, something that had nothing to do with his reputation and everything to do with the way he moved through space like he owned it.
"Sit."
The command came without warning, his voice cutting through her spiraling thoughts. She jumped slightly, heat flooding her cheeks at her own reaction. Moving to the chair across from his desk, she tried to settle herself gracefully, but her legs felt unsteady. The leather was butter-soft beneath her, probably Italian, probably worth more than her car.
When Rithvik finally turned to face her, the full force of his attention hit her like a physical blow. His eyes were darker than she'd realized—not just brown, but deep mahogany with flecks of gold that caught the light. They were intelligent eyes, calculating, but there was something else there too. Something that made her pulse quicken and her mouth go dry.
"You're Aarohi, right?" His voice held the same measured cadence as before, but this close, she could hear the texture of it—slightly rough, as if he'd been up too late or had spent too much time in silence.
"Yes." The word came out smaller than she intended, barely more than a whisper. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Yes, sir."
Something flickered in his expression at the honorific—surprise, maybe, or approval. It was gone so quickly she might have imagined it. He studied her face as if memorizing it, his gaze traveling from her eyes to her lips and back again. The scrutiny made her feel exposed, as if he could see straight through her carefully constructed professional facade to the chaos underneath.
"You're here to work. Not to make friends, not to socialize." Each word fell like a stone into still water, creating ripples of meaning. "I don't tolerate distractions."
The words stung, but not in the way she expected. Instead of feeling dismissed, she felt... challenged. There was something in his tone that suggested this wasn't just a general warning—it was personal. Specific. As if he'd already identified her as a particular type of threat.
"I understand," she managed, surprised by the steadiness in her own voice.
He didn't acknowledge her response, instead moving to his desk with that same controlled grace. As he sat, his jacket fell open slightly, revealing a glimpse of his shirt beneath—crisp white cotton that contrasted sharply with his olive skin. His hands, as he placed them flat on the desk surface, were exactly as she'd noticed before: long-fingered, elegant, with calluses that suggested he did more than just push papers.
"You're not like the others." The observation hung in the air between them, neither compliment nor criticism. His eyes narrowed slightly, and she had the unsettling feeling that he was conducting some kind of test she hadn't realized she was taking. "You're not here to just fill a position. I want results. And I don't care how you get them."
The words sent a thrill through her that she didn't quite understand. There was something intoxicating about his certainty, his absolute confidence in his own authority. But more than that, there was the suggestion that he saw something in her—something that set her apart from everyone else.
"Understood," she said, and this time her voice carried more conviction.
For a moment, they simply looked at each other. The air between them seemed to shimmer with unspoken communication—a conversation conducted entirely in glances and micro-expressions. His eyes were unreadable, but she sensed he was weighing her response, measuring it against some internal standard she couldn't guess at.
The silence stretched until it became almost unbearable. Aarohi's heart was beating so hard she was certain he could hear it. Her fingers tightened on her notebook, and she became acutely aware of every sensation: the leather chair against her back, the cool air from the ventilation system raising goosebumps on her arms, the way her skirt had ridden up slightly when she sat down.
"You can go now."
The dismissal was as abrupt as everything else about him. Aarohi stood, her legs unsteady beneath her. She felt dismissed and strangely bereft, as if she'd been expecting something more—though what, she couldn't say. She moved toward the door, each step feeling like a small defeat.
But as her hand touched the handle, something made her pause. Call it instinct, call it curiosity, call it the same reckless impulse that had led her to take this job in the first place. She turned back, meeting his gaze across the expanse of his office.
For just a moment—a heartbeat, a breath—his mask slipped. She saw something flicker in his eyes, something that might have been surprise or approval or something else entirely. It was gone before she could analyze it, replaced by his usual inscrutability.
"Don't make a habit of lingering."
The words should have been a rebuke, but there was something almost playful in his tone. Not quite a smile, but the ghost of one. It hit her like a physical blow, that tiny glimpse of the man beneath the executive armor.
She fled.
---
Back at her desk, Aarohi collapsed into her chair as if she'd run a marathon. Her hands were shaking—actually shaking—and she pressed them flat against her thighs to still them. Around her, the office hummed with curious energy. She could feel the weight of her colleagues' stares, hear the whispered conversations that stopped abruptly when she looked up.
"How did it go?" Rhea appeared at her elbow, concern written across her face.
"Fine," Aarohi managed, though her voice sounded strange even to her own ears. "It was... fine."
But it hadn't been fine. It had been something else entirely—something that made her skin feel too tight and her thoughts scatter like leaves in a windstorm. She touched her throat unconsciously, remembering the way his eyes had tracked the movement when she'd swallowed.
*What just happened?*
She couldn't shake the feeling that she'd just stepped into something far more complicated than a simple job. Every instinct told her to be careful, to maintain her distance, to treat Rithvik Veerayut like the dangerous man everyone said he was.
But there was another voice, quieter but more insistent, that whispered something else entirely. It reminded her of the way he'd looked at her in that last moment, the almost-smile that had transformed his face from merely handsome to devastatingly beautiful. It reminded her that beneath all that controlled coldness, she'd glimpsed something else—something that made her pulse race and her breath catch.
She was in trouble. The kind of trouble that started with curiosity and ended with consequences she couldn't yet imagine.
And despite every reasonable thought in her head, despite every warning she'd received, despite the voice of caution that screamed at her to run—she couldn't wait to see what happened next.