Page 9 of Yes Boss
Raghav pressed the intercom. “Outcome?”
“They’ve agreed to the original timeline,” she said. “I’ve scheduled a follow-up with you next Tuesday to review the first milestone.”
Raghav nodded once and turned back to his screen.
Three days later, Raghav tested her again. A board presentation due the following morning with data that wouldn’t be available until after six.
“It needs to be sharp,” he said. “Twenty slides. I’ll review it tomorrow morning.”
Most people would have asked for samples. Formats. Preferences.
Ishani simply asked, “Printed copies for the board, or digital only?”
He blinked. It was the right question—the only relevant question. “Both. Twelve printed copies, full color.”
That evening, Ishani worked past nine.
Through the glass, Raghav watched her. The floor had emptied, the lights dimmed into their night setting. She stayed focused, moving between screens, pausing now and then to note something in the small notebook beside her keyboard.
The next morning, the presentation was waiting on his desk when he arrived.
Twenty slides. Cleanly arranged. The charts and graphs made complicated financial details easy to understand. The narrative was clear—problems, solutions, and outlining what to do next.
During the board meeting, no one needed to ask any questions. Raghav kept looking at Ishani, who was sitting next to him, focused on her notes. The data was clear and easy to follow. Halfway through, an impulse rose—sharp and unexpected—to acknowledge her work aloud.
The thought unsettled him.
He let it pass.
By the end of the third week, Raghav had run through most of the tests he typically used to evaluate new assistants. Ishani had passed each one without apparent effort. So he created new ones.
Ansh, catching on to this pattern, joined in.
“Ishani,” Ansh said one afternoon, stopping at her desk with a thick stack of folders. “These need to be checked against last quarter. Flag discrepancies. Add explanations. Boss needs it by three.”
It was nearly noon. The kind of task that usually came with a request for more time. Ishani glanced at the files, then at the calendar on her screen.
“Three o’clock,” she repeated, taking the stack.
At two fifty-eight, she knocked on Raghav’s door.
The analysis was thorough. She’d not only identified the discrepancies but had looked for the causes and prepared bullet-point explanations for each—saving him hours of questions with the department heads.
“Is there anything else you need, Boss?” she asked, her expression calm. No hint of the rush she must have experienced to complete the task.
Raghav’s gaze lingered.
It should have stayed on the work—the clarity of her analysis, the way she delivered results without explanation or expectation. That alone should have been enough.
It wasn’t.
He became aware of her in smaller, unwelcome details. The clean line where her hair was pulled back from her face. The brief glint of gold at her ears when she shifted. How composed she looked standing there, as if pressure never touched her unless she allowed it to.
What unsettled him wasn’t noticing.
It was how naturally his focus kept returning—from the work, to her, and back again—until the distinction blurred.
A flicker of heat traced up his spine, unexpected and sharply out of place.
