Intertwined Fates -- An IPKKND FanFic

What's in a name?

"Sir, I'm in love with Anjali Ma'am."

Arnav stared at Aman in disbelief. "Aman? Please make me an appointment with an ear doctor. I think I'm mishearing things."

"No, Sir, I think you heard correctly."

"So you really did just confess your love for my Di?"

"Yes, Sir."

"How...what?" Arnav shot to his feet, Aman following suit in alarm. "Sit back down." Arnav said roughly. "I want an honest answer. When did this happen?"

"I'm not sure. On my second day at ASR, I watched as she handled that sexist representative from Star Constructions. Initially he said he would only meet with you, but by the end of the meeting, she had him eating out of her hand. Then a month later, she took the initiative to fund the renovation for that old hospital from Lucknow. Over and over, she kept on showing how smart and kind she was and before I knew it, my feelings for her had changed from admiration to something deeper.

"I even asked my parents to take my proposal to your house but they refused because of our age difference. While I was in the process of convincing them, my father passed away and my mother had a stroke. I couldn't think of myself when I had to deal with the responsibilities that all of a sudden fell on me. I grew busy in getting my two younger sisters married and arranging my mother's treatment and by the time I felt like things were stable enough for me to think of my own marriage, Anjali Ma'am had married Mr. Jha.

"Recently, I'd begun to hope again but..."

"But?" Arnav asked, even as he wondered what was more shocking: Aman's feelings or that he had hidden them so well.

"But when we were in Paris, Anjali Ma'am figured out what I felt for her. She hasn't spoken to me about anything other than work ever since and she looks at me like I'm a stranger. It's clear that she doesn't return my feelings and my presence is making her uncomfortable. I can live without her in my life, but I can't live knowing that I'm hurting her in any way, Sir. That's why I think I should leave.

"The best time for this would be after the wedding, unless you want to fire me right now."

Arnav shook his head. "I need to think about all this. Go...go do whatever you do."

****

Khushi stood up from her seat and stretched. She'd been glued to the spot all morning, taking phone calls and sorting through her case files. At the end of the week, she'd have a meeting with her firm partners and they'd decide what cases she'd finish before she left and what cases would be passed on to other lawyers.

She was pretty much done with her office work for today; the rest of her work could be done at home. She did have some documents to submit to court, which she could do after lunch. Since I'm heading that way anyway, maybe I can have lunch with Payal?

Reaching for her phone, she blinked at the insane number of messages that Manorama had sent their WhatsApp group. Deciding to read them on the bus, she shot a quick text to Payal, gathered her belongings and headed out.

Manorama had added Aman Chawdhry and the events planner to the group, sent them a few options for invitation cards and then a doodle poll, asking that they made their decision by tonight. In addition, she'd asked for Khushi's email because she wanted to create a Google Sheets in order to organize the guest list. Finally, she'd sent them the location of the wedding hall.

Khushi was pleasantly surprised. She didn't know many middle-aged women that were this tech savvy. Buaji still used a flip phone.

Today the group had decided to order in so Khushi joined them in a conference room. As they chatted about the invitation card options, Khushi noticed that Arnav seemed distracted. "What's wrong with you?"