“You are here?” Raina huffed as she waded into the lady's, with her eyes popping out of their sockets.
“Yeah! What happened?” Khushi looked at her and hoped it was not one of those emergencies, which boss created artificially. She knew that Mr. Avadhani had this flair for checking his staff out once in a while, by putting them into strange rigors of tackling issues that were best left for time, and the Finance Department to handle.

“What happened?” Raina was breathing so hard, that Khushi was sure that if she didn't rush back to her workstation, she might deliver a premature baby.
“Ok. I am going and you just take your time” she squeezed her shoulder and walked up the stairs and realized the hitherto boisterous floor that solely constituted the Corporal‟s back bone-it‟s secretarial pool, was absolutely quiet.

Did Mr. Avadhani really get that heart attack which they all thought he would definitely one of the days? She thought, as she walked past Sachin, one of the Executive Assistant‟s and he just stared at her with his mouth half open. Khushi politely smiled at him asked him, “Is there a problem?” Sachin smiled weakly and said, “Who knows!”

“What do you mean?” She asked him frowning.
“Well! This is the first time that something like this has happened! So we are not sure.” He said looking at the others.
Khushi shrugged and opened the door of her cabin that had her and two more assistants in it, but stopped dead in her tracks, as the cabin wasn't empty. Lounging on her desk with his left leg dangling off it, was Mr. Gorgeous whom she met in the morning and did not get the time to ask Raina about his name. Sitting in front of him was an elderly man, who turned and smiled at her saying, “Come we had been waiting for you.”
She frowned and stepped back saying, “For what? I already said I don‟t need any medical attention.”

She remembered that Neha alerted her, a few minutes ago, about the doc‟s visit and she coolly asked her to convey the same to the doc.
The man who was sitting on the desk said, “I told you Ms. that a doc would be checking you up at ten. Didn‟t Neha alert you?”

The anger in his voice made her jerk up her chin. She never liked being talked to in that tone.
“And I told you sir that I don‟t need any help.” She growled.
He got down and sauntered across to her, and that‟s when she realized he was still in the same attire and was on barefoot and he looked just as good. Any other man would have looked unclean and indecent but this man was different! Charm seemed to be his middle name! She smarted as he stood in front of her and said, “Doc! Right hand...almost third degree burns if I am not wrong...”

Khushi closed her eyes. He was right. The coffee was very hot and she got very badly burnt. Skin was peeling off it and she did not let anyone know by winding the free end of her sari stylishly on to it.
“I am alright” she said to herself and realized she had said it out loud.

“You bet you are!” The man said as he suddenly extended his hand and caught her left arm as she winced in pain, and brought it out and swore when he saw the sari wound on it and pulled it free and exclaimed, “Holy@#$%!”
She shut her eyes tightly to ward off pain. He looked at her and then at the doctor who had joined them by then, and took her to the desk where he quickly started dressing her wound.

She averted her face, as pain stabbed through as the doctor removed the burnt skin with the peeler and poured some solution on it, which burnt like hell.
Khushi bore the pain. She was now an expert in it. It was like a challenge to bear more and more of it. She smiled to herself as tears stung her eyes out of reflex, and she opened her eyes and looked into a pair of blue eyes that were staring at her with a look of incredulity in them.