Locked in love

Chapter 1

Ruhi Shrivastav stepped out the Uber cab and hurried frantically towards the posh building's parking area where the lifts were situated.She glanced at her watch and  bit her lower lip.She was late by twenty freaking minutes and the meeting with her boss  was scheduled at exactly ten minutes from now.She wouldn't have the time to go in, take a breath and  grab a cup of her usual dose of caffeine, all credits to the unusual power cut earlier that morning.

In the lift,Ruhi's eyes caught her reflection on the steel walls around her that looked pristine like a mirror.  Her full lips looked fuller, and the lipstick looked redder.She had bought it only last week from the Mac store and it had cost her a fortune.The LED lights in the store clearly didn't bring out its actual shade and now it looked totally different. Her flawless,peachy skin hardly needed any make up , her only indulgence being an eyeliner , a lipstick and occasionally a dab of concealer when she got dark circles.She rummaged through her handbag for another shade, something nude,something that would be more appropriate. She found none! Never mind, what's in a lipstick anyways,she thought to herself.

But there an another concern that briefly plagued her mind.While flipping across  her wardrobe in a bid to find a dress  in the morning,she stumbled upon the navy blue pencil skirt and  off white sleeveless shirt.Something she had never intended to wear, ever because it was a painful reminder of her ex boyfriend,Vicky Banerjee, who had gifted it to her on her 24th birthday.She was sceptical ,but the expensive and luxurious fabric looked tempting.She had worn it once before when she they had still been a couple and vividly remembered how it had flaunted her feminine attributes perfectly.Be more practical and stop being a sentimental fool,she had told herself and put it on. Little did she know about what was in store for her later that day!

Ruhi worked in a famous advertising agency  called Collin Advertising in Bangalore.  Essentially a Britain based company , Collin Advertising had recently expanded its reach to Asia primarily India and Hongkong.The Indian  head office was  in Mumbai and branches span across a couple of other metros of India like Chennai and Bangalore.Ruhi, an  illustrator cum graphic designer was a salient member of the creative team of the company  and that included some stalwarts of the advertising field like Piyush Malhotra,the creative head, creative director Prashanth Nair ,art director Meera Sanghvi , a set of supremely successful copy writers so on and so forth.

As she got out of the lift into the sleek and trendy thirteenth floor office space,a sudden burst of joy filled her, that she felt every time she set her foot there.She was happy where she was and proud of herself that she had made it to where she was without any godfather in the field.When she joined Collin advertising one and a half years ago for a brief two month long internship program,she was absolutely clueless that one of the senior graphic designers,an elderly gentleman would take a liking for her innovative ideas and recommend her name to the HR team to get her on board.She had been ecstatic that day,thanking her stars for the wonderful opportunity that came along her way.Since that day,she had been working with an undying passion to reach greater heights.

Right now,the office wore a rather deserted look, with most of the cabins being empty,thanks to the raging corona pandemic.Most of them were working from home and usually came to the office only  for the occasional meetings.Today was one such day for Ruhi.

"Where's your mask?" Tara ,her colleague and close friend snapped at her. Tara was the social media manager of the agency and had been working there for the past one year. A petit lady in her late twenties,Tara was everyone's favourite. Married and divorced at an early age due to incompatibility,one have would expected her to be wary of people around her,but she was one of the most approachable , funny and friendly.

"Left home in a hurry. Power cut early in the morning!" Ruhi grimaced, while she sank down on her chair and opened her laptop. Her mobile beeped.It was a message from her boss, Mr Piyush Malhotra asking her to meet him after 45 minutes.Her boss was a busy man and usually shuttled between various branches.