Credits: -Koeli_Appy-
MAY 2015, Brunei (six months ago)
"Such a great place to host a conference."
"I agree. Right by this beautiful beach."
"Yeah, the organiser is certainly clever."
"Oh, you flatter me."
"No! I'm serious. This was a brilliant move on your side. Get the work done and get yourself undone."
Sharon laughed at the apparent admiration her friend was exhibiting. She wasn't wrong though, that had been the intention all along. Everyone in the company had been stressed for the past few months and since the Board Members of all the branches of Corona Enterprises were gathering for an annual conference, why not make it a memorable one?
Why not indeed?
She found herself by the crashing waves, melodramatically staring at the setting sun. She ran her hand over her eyes, sighing as it came over mouth. It was becoming increasingly difficult for her to wander around her workplace with the growing anxiety getting to her. She could hear them whisper as she walked by and she wished nothing but to vanish into thin air. Not that she'd let those mongrels get to her.
They didn't know her.
They didn't know the truth.
It wasn't her fault.
--
He noticed her first during the meeting. The nameplate in front of her read 'India' ; his read 'China'. She seemed familiar to him, a face long forgotten, a childhood memory.
And it came to him all of a sudden. Surely, it couldn't be her, could it?
--
"Well well, if it isn't Miss Assiduous."
"Oh my god! Swayam Shekawat? The back bencher?"
He grinned. Apparently, his back bench tactics hadn't ceased to exist. "Right in the person."
He saw her face light up and within no time her smile transformed into a smirk, her eyes twinkling mischievously. "You do realise assiduous is just fancy for bookworm, right?"
"You do realise I used it/still use it just to call you an ass, right?"
She shook her head, defeated, but he could see the hint of a smile on her face. She hadn't really changed. Still smart, still witty and still beautiful. Only she was even more sexier now, with all the air of a Department Head. Swayam chuckled internally at his behaviour. One look at an ex-classmate and he was already acting like a drooling puppy. Damn.
"You were the ass, not me."
"You were an ass to me, bookie. Remember that horrific month when you were the class monitor? Oh the misery. I had to cry myself to bed at night. Do you hear me? I had to do that."
She scoffed, amused by his fake feel-bad-for-me tone. "I think it had more to do with the boys coming out with your nickname, Rapunzel."
"You can be cute."
"Experience, my dear."
"Oh, I remember."
A bell rang sharply in the conference room.
"Meet you after the meeting?"
"How does The Hut sound?"
"Sounds bad, like your voice."
"Sure."
"Back to work now, bookie. And don't you about me in the room, I'll know."
--
The Hut, as it turned out, was just a drink serving cove on the beach.
He was secretly very pleased to see her; a needed distraction from the wreak he called his life. The last one year had been crazy for him. He had met a girl, fallen in love with her, kissed her on a moonlit bridge and gotten engaged only to find her cheating on him with his cousin. His goddamn cousin! Consequently he had broken his pocket-emptying TV set, fired two of his co-workers and nearly died in a drunk car race. The company facing crisis did no favours, either.
Spending time with his beautiful ex-classmate could easily be the best thing happening to him now.
Maybe, it was.
A calm silence had fallen upon them, with a tinge of tension. She observed him inconspicuously. He had grown beautifully, more handsome than ever. She took a sip of her drink and found her face grow hot as she remembered the fantasy of kissing him under the moonlight. Well, she wasn't the one to blame. He had been some kind of a celebrity back at school. Full of snark, oozing sexiness and charm in every action of his, he was the object of every girl's affection. Though it annoyed her to admit it, even she had not been immune to his charms, till she had seen how big an arse he was.
She shook her head, the sudden wave of nostalgia was making her drowsy.
"I honestly never expected to see you again." Sharon said, her eyes fixed on him.
"I rewrote our fates."
She tipped her head sideways, shooting him a bemused look and he couldn't help the tiny smirk coming up on his face.
"I know. I certainly didn't expect you'd end up being so sexy." She blushed, shaking her head with exaggerated exasperation.
"Small world eh?"
Swayam Shekawat! Throw a paper plane at me one more time, and I'm ratting you out! Goodness, I hope I never see you again.
He grinned in agreement. "Yeah, small world."
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