An Offer She Can't Refuse

Mallika nodded. ‘That’s it. I can’t tell you the details, but …’

‘I don’t need to know the details,’ Darius said. ‘But if you tell me what exactly it is that your current company is doing to help you maybe I can see if we can work something out.’

Darius could smell victory, and he wasn’t about to let this one go.

‘I don’t have fixed hours,’ she said in a rush. ‘Some days I reach work at eight, and some days I go in only in the afternoon. And I do site visits on my own when it’s convenient to me. Sometimes I work from home, and there are days when I’m not able to work at all.’

She ground to a halt, her eyes wide and a little apprehensive. Clearly whatever was happening on the personal front was very important to her. He wondered what it was. The kind of flexibility she needed was normally required only if an employee had to care for a sick child or an elderly parent. Mallika wasn’t married, and from what she’d said her younger brother sounded responsible. A parent, then, he decided.

The unwelcome thought that she might be going through a messy divorce came to mind, but he pushed it away. A divorce might need her to take time off work, but it wouldn’t need her to work from home. It was far more likely that one of her parents needed to be cared for.

He thought for a while. ‘We might be able to let you do the same,’ he said slowly. ‘Can I work this out and get back to you?’

‘But when I asked Venkat he said you don’t have a flexible working policy!’ she said.

‘It hasn’t been formally approved yet,’ Darius said. ‘We’re still working on it. Yours could be a test case.’

Their food had arrived, and Mallika took a bite of her spaghetti before answering. ‘You know,’ she said conversationally, ‘the job market’s really bad nowadays.’

‘It is,’ Darius agreed, frowning a little.

‘And bonuses are dropping and people are getting fired every day.’

‘Yes.’

‘So you could probably hire anyone you wanted, right? With just as much experience and no complicated conditions. Why are you still trying to convince me to take the job?’

When it came to work, Mallika was sharp and to the point. She was intelligent—obviously she was, or Venkat wouldn’t have considered hiring her. But Darius found himself wondering why exactly he was trying so hard to convince her. He’d never tried to recruit an unwilling candidate before—he’d never had to. And while she was definitely his first choice for the job, there were at least two others who could do the job equally well.

Had this just become about winning? Or perhaps he hadn’t been thinking clearly since taking her hand in that coffee shop several days ago. What was going on?

‘Venkat’s interviewed pretty much everyone in the industry,’ he said. ‘You’re the best fit for the role.’

‘But the second best might end up doing a better job,’ she said. ‘He or she’d be more inclined to take the offer to begin with.’

‘It’s not just about technical skills,’ Darius said. ‘We think you’d adjust well to the organisation’s culture. And we also need to improve the firm’s diversity ratio, now that we’re likely to get some foreign investment into the company. That’s one of the things investors are likely to look at. There are a lot of women at junior levels, but very few at middle or senior management. There weren’t too many CVs that fitted the bill and belonged to women—and other than you none of them made a decent showing at interview.’

‘But I’m sure you have male candidates who’re suitable,’ she said, her brow wrinkling. ‘Surely this diversity thing isn’t so important that you’ve not interviewed men at all?’

‘Venkat’s interviewed quite a few,’ Darius said. ‘Apparently you did better than them as well. Diversity’s not more important than talent—it’s just that now we’ve found you we don’t want to let you go.’

His gaze was direct and unwavering, and Mallika felt herself melting under it. The attraction she’d felt the first time she’d met him was back in full force—if he told her that he wanted her to join a cult that ate nuts and lived in trees she’d probably consider it seriously. Shifting jobs was a no-brainer in comparison—especially when he was guaranteeing a higher salary and no change to her timings.

She was about to tell him that she’d join when a shadow fell across their table.

‘Darius!’ a delighted male voice said. ‘It’s been years, my boy—how are you?’

The speaker was a stalwart-looking man in his early forties, who beamed all over his face as he clapped Darius on his shoulder. The blow would have pitched a weaker man face-down into his grilled vegetables, but Darius hardly winced.

‘Gautam,’ he said, standing up and taking the man’s hand in a firm grip. ‘Long while … I didn’t know you were back in Mumbai.’

‘Just here for a visit. And …? You’re married and everything now? Is this the new Mrs Mistry?’

He looked as if he was about to clap Mallika on the shoulder as well, and Darius intervened hastily.

‘No, Mallika is … a friend.’

‘Aha! A Miss Mystery, then, not a Mrs Mistry—is that right?’ Clearly delighted at his own wit, Gautam smiled even more broadly. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then. Catch you online later—I’m in Mumbai for a week more … we should try and meet.’

‘Yes, I’ll look forward to that.’

Darius waited till the man had moved away before sitting down, shaking his head.

‘It’s fate,’ he said solemnly. ‘Last time it was your boss—this time it was Gautam. We can’t meet without running into someone we know.’

Mallika chuckled. ‘He seemed a cheerful guy. He reminds me of a story I read as a kid—there was a man who smiled so wide that the smile met at the back of his face and the top of his head fell off.’

‘That’s such an awful story,’ Darius said. ‘Were you a bloodthirsty kind of kid?’

‘I was a bit of a tomboy,’ she said, confirming Darius’s first opinion of her. ‘Not bloodthirsty, though.’

She frowned at her plate as she chased the last strand of spaghetti around it. Finally managing to nab it, she raised her fork to her mouth. The spaghetti promptly slithered off and landed on her lap.

‘And that’s why my good clothes never last,’ she said, giving the mark on her sari a resigned look as she picked up the pasta and deposited it back on her plate. ‘I’m as clumsy as a hippopotamus.’

Anything less hippopotamus-like would be hard to find, Darius thought as he watched her dab ineffectually at the stain with a starched table napkin. Her curly hair fell forward to obscure her face, and her pallu slipped off her slim shoulder to reveal a low-cut blouse and more than a hint of cleavage.

Darius averted his eyes hastily—looking down a girl’s blouse was something he should have outgrown in high school. The one glimpse he’d got, however, was enough to make him shift uncomfortably in his chair. Really, Darius was so off-kilter he could hardly understand the effect she was having on him.

‘Here, let me help with that,’ he said, after Mallika had dropped the napkin twice and narrowly missed tipping her plate over. He got up and, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket, wet the corner in a glass of water and came to her side of the table to attend to the sari.

Mallika went very still. He wasn’t touching her—he was holding the stained section of sari away from her body and efficiently getting rid of the stain with the damp handkerchief. But he was close enough for her to inhale the scent of clean male skin and she had to fold her hands tightly in her lap to stop herself from involuntarily reaching out and touching him.

‘Thanks,’ she said stiltedly once he was done.

‘You’re welcome.’ Darius inclined his head slightly as he went back to his side of the table. ‘Dessert?’

‘I should choose something that matches the sari,’ she said ruefully as she recovered her poise. ‘I love chocolate, but I’m not sure I dare!’

‘Blueberry cheesecake?’ he asked, his eyes dancing with amusement again. ‘Or should we live life dangerously and order the sizzling brownie with ice cream?’

‘The brownie, I think …’ she started to say, but just then her phone rang, and her face went tense as she looked at the display. ‘I’m sorry—I’ll need to take this call,’ she said.

‘Haan mausiji,’ he heard her say, and then, ‘Ji. Ji. Nahin, I had some work so I had to go out. Calm down … don’t panic. I can get home in ten minutes—fifteen at the most, depending on the traffic.’

Her face was a picture of guilt and worry as she closed the call, and his heart went out to her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I need to go. It was a lovely lunch, and thank you so much for putting up with me. I’m really sorry about rushing off again …’