Shoma Narayanan - An Offer She Can't Refuse

She clasped his hand impulsively before she closed the car door, and Darius was left with the feel of soft, smooth skin on his. The subtle fragrance of her perfume hung in the air for a few seconds after she left.

He gave himself a shake before turning away to walk back to his office. This was not the way he’d planned to end their meal. He’d sensed she was on the point of accepting the role when they’d been interrupted and he could not be more frustrated with his lack of success so far. But it wasn’t over—not when he was this close to getting what he wanted.

‘WELCOME TO NIDAS,’ Venkat said, giving Mallika a broad smile. ‘I’m so happy you finally decided to join.’

‘Same here,’ Mallika said cautiously as she shook his outstretched hand.

All the old doubts about changing jobs had come flooding back now that she’d actually done the deed. She’d told Vaishali about the job the day after she’d met Darius, feeling like a complete traitor. But Vaishali had been surprisingly nice about the whole thing. Apparently she had been toying with the idea of taking a sabbatical herself, and she wasn’t sure if Mallika’s flexible working hours would be acceptable to her replacement.

Feeling a bit like a fledgling, shoved out of its nest before it could fly, Mallika had emailed Darius, confirming that she’d be able to join Nidas in a month. He’d been travelling, and someone from his HR team had got in touch to figure out her salary structure and joining date. Darius hadn’t even called her, and Mallika couldn’t help feeling a little upset about it. And now that she was actually part of Nidas and about to start work, she was very nervous.

The sight of Venkat wasn’t exactly inspiring either. Short and squat and rather belligerent-looking, Venkat was as different from her previous boss as possible.

‘We’ve set up an orientation for you with the team,’ he was saying now as he ushered her into his room.

‘Darius told me—’ Mallika began, but Venkat interrupted before she could complete her sentence.

‘Oh, Darius is a busy chap—he won’t be able to take you through everything himself.’ He peered at her owlishly. ‘You do know he’s moving out of the firm, right?’

Mallika drew in a sharp breath. A lot of things were suddenly falling into place. Darius’s insistence that she join as soon as she possibly could. His asking Venkat to set up her induction plan instead of doing it himself. The lengthy meetings with the other directors, ostensibly to help her get to know them before she joined.

A black curl of disappointment started up in the pit of her stomach. He’d had multiple opportunities to tell her and he’d consciously decided not to. It felt like a betrayal, unreasonable though that was. Unconsciously, a large part of her decision to take the job had been based on the assumption that Darius would be around and that she’d be working closely with him.

Serve her right—trusting a man she hardly knew, she thought, squaring her shoulders and doing her best to keep Venkat from noticing how upset she was.

‘He didn’t tell me that he was moving out altogether,’ she said crisply. ‘Though I did get the impression that he’d be cutting off from this part of the business in a month or so.’ She was determined to cover her disappointment with cool professionalism.

‘Even less, if he has his way,’ Venkat said, and an expression of bewildered loss crossed his face for an instant. ‘It was a shock when he told me. We’ve worked together for years—we set up this business together—and out of the blue he tells me he’s quitting. I still don’t understand why he’s doing it.’

Strongly tempted to find out more, Mallika bit down on her questions. It shouldn’t matter to her where Darius was going or why.

‘When you interviewed me you didn’t mention that Darius was leaving the firm,’ she reminded Venkat. ‘Why did you assume I’d know now?’

He had the grace to look embarrassed. ‘I couldn’t tell you before you joined,’ he said. ‘Darius is a pretty big shareholder, and the news of his leaving isn’t public yet. I thought he might have told you since—I got the impression you guys are pretty friendly.’

He took in Mallika’s suddenly stormy expression and changed the subject in a hurry. ‘Now, I thought I’d first introduce you to some of the key people in your team, and then you can start going through our current investment strategies. The team’s brilliant—I’ve been working with them pretty closely for the last few months. I’ve put them on to a few good things as well. Of course now you’re here you’ll be in full control, but you can reach out to me whenever you want.’

As the day went by Mallika found herself feeling more and more confident. Venkat evidently valued her input, and his style of working wasn’t as different from hers as she had feared.

She was packing up for the day when there was a knock on the door of her room. Assuming that it was the overzealous tea boy, who’d been popping up every half an hour, she said, ‘Come in!’ and continued stuffing files into her laptop bag.

It was a few seconds before she realised that the man in the room was about twice as large as the tea boy.

‘Darius!’ she said, her brows coming together in an involuntary frown as she saw him. ‘I was wondering if I’d see you today.’

‘I meant to come over in the morning, but I had one meeting after another. How was your day?’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I think I’m going to like working here.’

‘Did Venkat manage to spend any time with you?’

‘A lot,’ she said drily.

Darius laughed. ‘He believes in throwing people in at the deep end,’ he said. ‘But he’s a great guy to work with. If you’re done for the day d’you want to catch up over coffee? There’s a decent café nearby.’

Mallika hesitated. She really wanted to confront Darius about him leaving, but her upbringing made her shy away from any kind of direct conflict.

Some of her indecision must have shown in her face, because he was beginning to look puzzled.

‘Or some other day if you need to leave,’ he said easily.

Mallika made up her mind.

‘I need to get home, but I have time for a coffee from the machine down the hall,’ she said.

Compromise—that was one thing she’d learnt early in life. And also that attacking issues head-on sometimes made them worse. She got to her feet and Darius followed her down the hall.

‘On second thoughts, I’ll have a soft drink,’ she said, taking a can from the fridge next to the coffee dispenser. ‘You can have that coffee if you want,’ she said, gesturing at the mug Darius had just filled for her.

She picked up a second mug and half filled it with warm water from the machine before putting her unopened can into it.

‘It’s too cold,’ she explained as Darius raised his eyebrows. ‘I’ll leave it in the mug for a bit and then it’ll be just right and I’ll drink it.’

Darius’s lips curved into a smile as he followed Mallika back to her room. She was wearing black trousers, a no-nonsense blue shirt, and extremely sensible shoes. The whole outfit looked as if it had been chosen to downplay her looks, but the most boring clothes in the world couldn’t conceal the narrowness of her waist and the athletic grace of her walk. Quite contrary to the intended effect, the clothes made her more appealing—at least to him.

‘Is Venkat involved in the day-to-day running of the fund?’ she asked, perching herself on the edge of her desk and swinging her legs idly.

‘Not really …’ he said cautiously, and she gave him a quizzical look, ‘Okay, he’s very involved in it—but his area of expertise is sales. You won’t be reporting to him, if that’s your worry—all the directors report straight to the board.’