MISUNDERSTOOD - an Arylie Story

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Aryan was sitting in his office, busy on his laptop.

He kept glancing at his watch, he knew Imlie would be at the office in half an hour once college ended.

He wanted her to take up more challenging assignments. At the same time, he wanted to give her more exposure to conducting interviews before that.

The one Bollywood interview that she had conducted, had proven to be a boon for BT and he was indeed proud of that. But she needed more grounding experience in the field, he decided.

He checked with the Editor on the different tasks to be assigned to the interns—he looked up at his watch again, still time left. He discussed some interviews that the paper could take up in the coming week. Then he got busy with an important call.

Just then, Imlie entered the office. She was greeted with a smile by the Editor and was handed her tasks for the day.

She was also informed that she had to take up an interview of popular socialite, Tia Mehra—who was known to have controversial takes and was difficult to approach.

Being tricky, and if dealt with the right strings, this interview could increase the revenue of the paper drastically.

She knew this task was specifically handed to her to test her ability and she smiled inwardly.

Looking graciously at the Editor, she assured him that she would get on with the prep work to get ready for the interview in the next week.

Just then, she found a hand on her shoulder.

Pia Sharma.

This girl for some reason had always hated Imlie since the beginning when she found out they were interns together.

Imlie didn't think much about it—but she couldn't ignore the vengeful look Pia gave her whenever she received praise for her work or, during her promotion.

To be fair, that was the reaction of many in the office.

Pia, however, always came off with the taunts about her "closeness" with the boss.

Imlie mostly ignored it as she had done with most of the other employees, one of them being her ex, but now, being officially married to the "boss", automatically meant in their minds the rumours to be true to some extent.

So Imlie didn't argue with her taunts.

Pia spoke now, in a very dry tone.

"So it seems I have been assigned to your team for the interview next week. I'm SO happy that you'll be conducting it, the amount of things I can learn by just sitting at your side whilst you hoard this opportunity would be brilliant."

Imlie looked at her with a sigh, not missing the sarcasm in her tone.

"Pia, I want us to work together to get the prep work going, starting from the research. Think of it like this: at the end of the day, if this goes well, it is a profit for the company, which includes you and me. Right?" Imlie spoke calmly.

Pia gave a short laugh.

"Look Imlie, no offense, but you will ALWAYS have profit at the end of the day..."

While saying this, she took a small glance at Aryan's office and turned back to Imlie, leaving her there with a frustrated look.