3. THE ENCOUNTER

PRESENT DAY

“Are you crazy? You turned him down? I pull out all the stops to get this done. I thought you both will be compatible. He pretty much fell for you as soon as he saw you. And you turned him down!” Quinn’s hands are spread in the air while she stood on her best friend’s bed. “Every girl at my office drools over him.”

      “I think I am not every girl at your office.”  Ayla replied plainly while bending her body to tie her shoe lace. She is all set to go for a run, before Quinn barged into her house unannounced.

     “You are like 24 and you are still single, Ayla. You are not enjoying your life to fullest. You are like a typical girl from typical novels. This......" She continued all her theories on leading a life.    

      Last night, Quinn set her up with a friend of her. He is cute, handsome, and smart and all the things a girl wants. But Ayla found zero interest in his "good" jokes. It is like a part of her is missing. There's some hole, something empty, some kind of sorrow. No guy with cute dimple, no hot man with abs, no handsome officer, no super cool playboy could fill it. She always ends up with a kiss and with no further progress.

     Watching her friend not reacting to her agitation, Quinn jumped off the bed. Taking her face into her delicate fingers, Quinn whispered," It's been six years. You have to forget it."

     Ayla jerked back abruptly. "This has nothing to do with it. In fact, there's nothing to forget." She snapped. In fact, she forgets everything except the one thing that erased her memories, her accident. Ayla has not realized it until now, it has been six years.

      "Then it's Blake. You didn't get over him yet? This is why you are not letting other guys come near you. Isn’t it, Ayla?"

       Ayla sucked her lips moistening them while exhaling a little gas.  "Yok, janam. (no, dear). He and I, we are over. We are good friends now."       

      "Then why are you like this?" Quinn started to shoot the questions at her again.

     "Maybe I didn't find the right guy."    

     "For me, anyone with a big cock is the right guy. What is your meaning of a right guy?" Quinn asks while she climbed the bed again. She showed the place next to her to Ayla, tapping on that mattress asking her to lie beside her. The gesture means that she is not going to argue but going to have a girls chat. Ayla smiled as she removed her shoes and crawled onto the bed to Quinn’s side.

     “Tell me who your right guy is?” Quinn retorted.

     The word right guy yields the image of Jayden Knight at the lobby before in her mind. It is not intentional. She doesn’t even know that she could think of him like that. Maybe, he is just so perfect that she tends to feel like that. She mentally slapped herself at the thought.

    “I don’t know.” She breathes resting her head on Quinn’s shoulder. 

                                *                                             *                                          *

        The old office is now gleaming with new staff, new name i.e., Knight & Gray, new works, new words on old papers. Things have been changing swiftly. Every time, Ayla enters the lobby, she would take her own little time to appreciate the words carved out of wood on the wall, the new company’s name. Nothing is so perfect in her life than this office and her work. She always expected Jayden Knight to walk down their floor and give his employees some boosting. He never did and eventually, she has settled to the fact that she needs to climb more in order to reach him. “One day,” she always whispers to herself. She is so sure that one day, she will work with that demigod, her demigod.

    It is on one of the long days where she has to fill in for her only friend at the office, Vanessa, she spent an extra hour.  After the sun set, she finally got up to get her a cup of coffee on another floor. She got every speck of energy she lost soon after the first sip. Smiling to herself as she is going to be badass at work again, she strolled across the canteen where no one is present. She pulled out her phone to check a message.

    Her jaw dropped when she read that. Thinking that it is a dream, she moved forward and crashed into something hard. A faint masculine smell took a stroll around her nose that she finds out that something is someone. The coffee in her hand is spilled over that person’s grey shirt before her. Her head almost reaches his chest where a pink bruise is forming, because of the hot coffee Ayla has just spilled.

   He has no fabric beneath the piece of shirt and top buttons are opened that the white skin will got a burnt for sure, “Oh shit. I am so sorry. I am really sorry. I didn’t see you coming. I am really…” She stutters as she ran back to get some tissues. She never knows that she could run that fast. She picked a tissue and immediately picked another two and ran to that person whose face she didn’t dare to look at.

     She started to wipe the stains and handled his skin smoothly while repeating her apologies. All her words stuck at her throat when the person held her wrist firmly. She looks at the strong arm that gripped her. She raised her head slowly to the person, she is so sure, that will be fuming because of what she did.

     A gasp escaped her mouth when she looked at his face, she froze in her place and at the same time, her dumb body lost the balance that she almost fell back. It is his tight grip that supported her. He didn’t pull her forward, but held her still.

    For Ayla, it is the moment of fear and fascination. The man she worships is in front of her looking at her intently, but his visage spoke nothing. It’s like all his emotions are absorbed by some kind of sponge from his face. She could not read him.

    His pair of blue eyes did enough magic to get lost in them; his lips are thin in the color of peach followed by a perfect jaw line. His hair is not perfect like last time. The overwork look is displayed by those messy strands.

    “Um..I…I am so sorry, Mr. Knight. Blimezdim. I mean..” It is clearly a stutter. As soon as he heard her say that, he released her hand from his grip and walked away briskly while curling the hand with which he held her tightly into a fist. She wanted to apologize earnestly and say something that should be credible. But she stayed mute as if someone glued her lips. She couldn’t move. It is like she is under some kind of shock.

     “Shit! You are an idiot,Ayla.”

                           *                                                  *                                             *

        Jayden leaned to glass window of his office watching the other skyscrapers that surrounded his new workplace. The light from the city looks more beautiful as they are refracted from the droplets on the glass. The soft drizzles always soothe his soul. But, now, even though, he looks calm and composed, he is not at ease. His heart is jumping; he doesn’t know whether it is because of watching her, hearing her voice after all these years or it is the hate of having her back into his life. One thing he is so sure about is, hate. The coffee stains are quite visible on his expensive shirt.   

         She has the audacity to look at him in the eye and use that word, which sounded enough to pierce his chest once again. Why is this so easy for her to stay normal and so composed as if he is a stranger, as if she doesn’t know him at all, as if nothing happened between them?

       "I take it as a new model." He heard Mason who entered his office without a knock.    

        "What?"  

       "Your shirt."   

       Jayden inhaled deeply and turned to him," Do you know that she works here?"   

      "Who?"   

      "You know who." Mason is between the state of shock and excitement when he looked at his friend and replied," I never knew."    

     Stella, Jayden's secretary joined them with a file in her hand. "Do you want anything else, Jayden?"                   

      "Nope." Jayden replied taking the file.    

      "I need bourbon. And...." Jayden cut him off by ordering Stella to leave. They both spent fifteen minutes studying the employee's file.     

    "She is from Imperial College. She excels in her grades. She did her internship here. And now she is working here, for us. But we know nothing." Mason exclaimed reading the file for 20th time.

   “She didn’t work for us until we bought the firm she has been working at.” Jayden corrected him.

   “So, you are saying that we went to her. She didn’t come to us. Why is she still silent then? How do you come to know about her?"    

    "She spilled coffee on my shirt."     

    "If you are going to give me shocks like this, you gotta tell me first. I'll be prepared."    

     They both took their own time to process what they found out. After a long silence which is merely painful for Mason and really comfortable for Jayden, Jayden sighed letting the long breath he held until now out.        

     "Did she say anything?"        

    "No. She was nervous. When she saw me, she froze."         

    "How is she?"Mason questioned.     

     Clumsy just like how she was seven years ago. Nervous, innocent, beautiful, beyond beautiful, just like his old Ayla, the one he loved with all his heart. Those words refused to come out of Jayden’s mouth, instead he answered, "I don't know. She might be just like how you saw in that party."

      “What are you going to do about it?” Mason questioned. Jayden stayed quiet as he, himself doesn’t have an answer for that.

     They both don't understand what she wants. If she wants anything she would have met them already. But she didn't. If Jayden didn't take a tour in the floor below his office, he wouldn't have met her. His thoughts were lost thinking of the best possible reasons for her to be here. And helplessly, a part of him is measuring the probability of them meeting again.