Page 51 of Yes Boss
Her heart pounded as she unclipped it. She unfolded the card. “A kiss from him until you accept one from me.”
The words burned hotter than they should have. Her cheeks flushed. This had gone beyond extravagant gifts into something else entirely. It was too much.
The puppy, clearly done waiting to be admired, launched itself out of the basket. Tiny paws skidded across the smooth surface of Ishani’s desk before it tumbled to the floor with a soft thud.
“Wait!” Ishani gasped, reaching forward.
Too late.
The puppy bolted.
Its little legs moved far faster than they had any right to, collar jingling wildly as it tore across the office. It dove under aworkstation, popped out the other side, and kept going, thrilled with its sudden freedom.
“Catch it!” someone shouted.
Three account executives lunged at once and collided shoulder to shoulder as the puppy swerved at the last second.
A marketing assistant dropped to her knees and crawled under her desk, arms outstretched. The puppy darted neatly between her hands and shot past.
A trash bin tipped over. Papers fluttered to the floor.
The HR director stepped out of her office at the noise, ready to reprimand someone, only to freeze as the cream blur zipped past her heels. Her irritation shifted, against her will, into reluctant amusement.
Ishani kicked off her heels and ran.
The carpet muffled her steps as she followed the excited barking and the wave of laughter trailing behind the escape artist. The puppy zigzagged between cubicles, tail wagging like it had just discovered its life’s purpose.
“It’s heading for the executive conference room!” Kavya yelled.
Ishani’s stomach dropped.
Raghav.
He was in the middle of a high-stakes video conference with international investors. The meeting he’d been preparing for all week. If this puppy barged in…
She sprinted down the corridor just in time to see the small cream body scratching at Raghav’s office door. The door gave slightly. The puppy squeezed through.
“No, no, no,” Ishani muttered, rushing forward and yanking the door open wider to follow it.
She burst into the room just in time to see the puppy make an impressive leap directly onto Raghav’s lap. He sat at his desk facing a large screen, where three serious-looking men in suits stared back, clearly in mid-discussion about something important. The puppy planted its front paws on Raghav’s chest and began enthusiastically licking his face, tail wagging so hard its entire body wiggled.
Ishani froze, horror washing over her. This was catastrophic. The end of her career. Possibly the end of her life.
But then something extraordinary happened.
Raghav Khanna—stern, controlled, intimidating Raghav Khanna—laughed. Not a polite chuckle or a forced social sound, but a genuine, startled laugh that transformed his entire face. His arms came up instinctively to hold the wriggling puppy, preventing it from falling as it continued to lick his chin.
“I appear to have an unexpected visitor,” he told the men on the screen, his voice warm with amusement as he tried to hold the puppy at arm’s length. “Give me a moment, gentlemen.”
The investors were smiling now, their earlier intensity replaced by open amusement.
“Take your time, Raghav,” one of them replied. “We could all use an interruption like that.”
He found Ishani standing there—barefoot, breath slightly uneven, horror written all over her face. Something softer flickered in his expression, his eyes crinkled faintly at the corners.
“I’ll reconnect in thirty minutes,” he said, ending the call with a decisive tap.
For a moment, the only sound in the office was the puppy’s excited panting and the gentle tap of its wagging tail against Raghav’s arm.
