It was like any regular working day today at AMX corporation. Being a Monday morning most of the employees were having Monday blues. Few were already waiting for their weekend. But the female employees of admin team were bubbling with energy. They all waited in the conference room holding their excitement for the meeting to begin. All of them were impeccably dressed and their makeup was perfect. Their wait came to an end when the door to the conference room opened and the much awaited figure, the Admin head appeared.
The Admin head of AMX corporation was a handsome man of wheatish complexion. He was tall with broad shoulders and thin waist. Though he looked slender, his arms under the sleeves of his white shirt showed clear signs of strong muscles and there was no doubting the presence of strong abs under his chest. He had a broad forehead and a mane of thick silky black hair covering his head. His eyes were like bright grey color orbs. A sharp nose, and rough lips complemented his strong figure. Happily gawking at the chiselled figure, the team greeted him in unison "Good morning Dhruv!"
Dhruv gave a faint smile and nodded in response. He looked at his team of eight, who were all single women. They had all their eyes on him. Before pulling a chair to sit, Dhruv scanned the room to find two empty chairs, rather than picking the chair that was beside Poornima, which was closest to where he stood, he went to the farther end and sat in the chair beside Lisa. Lisa smirked and was on cloud 9.
Sitting at the farther end from Poornima, Dhruv could still smell her scent of damp soil and lemon grass. He did not have anything against her. But he had promised himself to stay away from his mate. She had fair complexion and was of average height. Her almond shaped eyes were the most striking feature of her face. A small nose with supple pink lips, made her look elegant and innocent. The first time he met her, she had no makeup and wore her waist length hair in a braid and completed her office look in trousers and pants. There was beauty hidden in her simplicity he thought. As he extended his hand for hand shake, his mind cried in joy "Mate! Mate!". His heart fluttered and skipped a beat only to later thump loudly in his chest. There was no missing his favourite smell of lemon grass and damp soil. He had a feeling to never let her go. Until then he had only heard others say how exhilarating finding one's mate felt. But he only thought they were exaggerating until he experienced it.
He did not realize that he was shaking hands with her for quite sometime, until Poornima forcefully withdrew her hand. She gave him a confused look making Dhruv regret his actions. From her reaction, he understood that humans did not feel the mate bond the way werewolves felt. A part of him was relieved since he never wanted to acknowledge and mark his mate. But a part of him was disappointed as if it left a gaping hole in his heart. But he decided to ignore this latter part of him who insisted on grabbing hold of his mate and claiming her as his own.
Dhruv addressed his team and explained the new requirements for the food vendor at office. As he continued talking, he could feel everyone drooling over him which made him uncomfortable. He could smell everyone's perfume due to his heightened sense of smell. But he still could distinctly feel her scent which was intoxicating.
Poornima was an exception. She had her head lowered and was busy taking minutes of the meeting. Every now and then Dhruv would peek at the farther end of the conference room only to be disappointed to see that Poornima didn't pay him any attention. Lisa, who was placed beside Dhruv couldn't take her eyes off him though her neck ached while watching the towering figure beside her talking incessantly. She was his biggest admirer who even stalked him as per the rumours.
Once Dhruv was done, "Hand me over the minutes in an hour." He said turning to Poornima who had just raised her head to meet his gaze. She nodded in response. Poornima was friendly by nature but was always on her guard when it came to men. But she found Dhruv to be different in a mysterious way. Ever since she saw him, she was drawn to him. She wanted to look at him, talk to him or seek his attention. When she first met him, she was confused as to what made her shake her hand with him for almost a minute and she suddenly retracted. It was very unlike her. She always considered herself as an epitome of self control. But that day she was disappointed and she pledged to avoid Dhruv as much as possible.
Dhruv, being the head of the Admin department, his office was a room with glass walls. While Dhruv was working on a report on his laptop, there was a knock on this door. "Come in!" he said not taking his eyes off the screen. He was too busy to even register her scent. He waited for sometime to hear someone speak, but noticing the strange silence, he looked up to find Lisa standing at the door, not taking her eyes off him. According to him, Lisa was the most shameless woman he had ever seen. She openly flirted with him ignoring his indirect hints of rejection.
Dhruv cleared his throat and asked, "Lisa! May I know what you are here for?" there was no missing the irritation in his voice. But it was Lisa at the receiving end and she could ignore any length of unpleasantries just to be in the same room as Dhruv. Lisa smiled coquettishly and slowly moving towards Dhruv she handed over the papers and said, "I am here to give you the minutes of the meeting." While handing over the papers her fingers intentionally scraped the back of his hand, irritating him further. "Okay. You may leave." He said. But he remembered Poornima taking the minutes. He wondered why she chose not to come and sent Lisa instead. He wanted to ask Lisa but as he decided against it as he did not want her to linger there even for another second. He dismissed her. But Lisa persisted and said, "I am going to grab some coffee. Will you join?"
"No" came the reply curtly.
"When will you have some free time for coffee?" she asked.
"I don't drink coffee." Came his reply
"But I saw you drink coffee with Arjun. Why are you lying?" she asked.
Before he could snap at her, the door opened and Poornima peeked her head, "May I come in?" Dhruv's expression relaxed to see her. "Lisa! You may go now. I have some important matters to discuss with Poornima." He said.
Lisa left eyeing Poornima suspiciously. "She is a newbie and what could they have anything important to discuss between them?" She thought.
"I have prepared the last week's expense report. It is pending approval from the finance department. We have only 4 days before the quarter end to have it approved. Should I send a reminder mail to the finance team? I did not want this to sound as an escalation. I came here for your opinion." She said.
Dhruv furrowed his eyebrows and rubbed his fingers across his temples. "Why didn't you bring me the minutes of the meeting?" Dhruv asked.
This question was unexpected and Poornima was taken back. In fact it was Lisa who approached Poornima asking for the minutes and said that she would hand over them to Dhruv. Anyone with eyes could understand that Lisa was interested in Dhruv. Though Poornima felt a tinge of jealousy, she did not oppose her and handed over the minutes to Lisa. How was she to explain all this to Dhruv? So she said, "I was busy with last week's reports so I asked Lisa to help me deliver them to you." Without blinking her eyes.
Dhruv was rather angry at her reply. "How could this silly girl send Lisa to me? Is she ignoring me? Does she not see Lisa as her rival in love?" but he hid his fury and said in a serious tone,
"You are expected to do your work by yourself and not delegate it to others lazily. Now regarding the pending expense report, schedule a meeting with head of finance department, Arjun. The finance department wouldn't delay the approval until there is something wrong with your report. From now on, you are supposed to get your reports reviewed with me in person before you share them with other teams."
After he finished his monologue impulsively, he saw her cast her head down and reply "Okay." Before leaving.