AYAAN POV

Morning in Geneva came sharp and unfriendly, the kind of daylight that didn’t soften anything.

The temporary boardroom was already active when I walked in. Laptops open. Files spread out. People speaking in low voices like they were afraid the walls might report back.

They should have been.

I took my seat at the head of the table and dropped my tablet down with a dull click.

“Start,” I said. “And don’t waste my time with decorative nonsense.”

Raghav straightened immediately. “We’ve narrowed the shortlist down to three firms.”

“One.”

He blinked. “Sir?”

“One firm,” I repeated. “If there’s a best fit, then why am I hearing about three?”

A short silence followed.

Smart men knew when not to argue.

He tapped the screen. The title came up.

SHÁVIK STUDIO PRIVATE LIMITED

I frowned, though only slightly.

Luxury image consulting. Strategic branding. A firm that operated with enough discretion to irritate people like me.

“This,” Devansh added, “handled the Nordic Economic Forum visuals last year. And the East Asia Trade Summit.”

I skimmed through the slides with clinical detachment, but the name lingered. Not familiarity. Curiosity.

“Who runs it?” I asked.

A brief pause.

“The CEO prefers anonymity,” Devansh replied. “Most dealings happen through representatives.”

That answer did not improve my mood.

Invisible authority always made me suspicious.

Either the person was too arrogant to show up, or too careful to be caught.

Sometimes both.

“Set up the meeting,” I said. “Today.”

No one questioned it.

They knew I didn’t like delays. And I liked excuses even less.

SHANVIKA POV

Across the city, in a quiet wing of a secured hotel, I adjusted the cuff of my blazer and glanced at my reflection. Not to admire, to assess. Hair tied, makeup minimal, eyes sharp, breathing steady. Calm. Calculated.

This wasn’t SHÁVIK STUDIO’s meeting. This was government duty, concluded barely an hour ago.

Now I stepped into my other world. I was already reviewing the final briefing when my assistant walked in with the tablet.

“Ma’am. Singhania Global Consortium. Mr. Singhania is attending in person.”

“Of course he is.”

The moment my assistant said his name, I already knew how I’d feel about the meeting.

Annoyed.

Not because I feared him. Because men like that always assumed the room bent where they walked.

I had approved the project days ago. Personally. He didn’t know that yet, and he wouldn’t unless I allowed it.

I set the file down, adjusted the cuff of my blazer, and checked my reflection once — not to admire it, only to confirm it was exact. Hair tied back. Makeup minimal. Expression controlled.

Perfect.

I didn’t need the file in front of me to know what kind of man he was.

The company had grown sharply under his leadership. In business circles, people spoke about the difference with obvious respect. His father had built the foundation. Ayaan Singhania had turned it into something larger, cleaner, more brutal in scale.

That much everyone knew.

What people didn’t always say aloud was that he was not the sort of CEO who waited to be handed control. He took it. And once he had it, the company became harder, stronger, louder without actually becoming noisy.

That part mattered.

It meant he was not careless.

I adjusted my blazer, looked once at my reflection, and closed the folder.

“Let’s go.”

The name Singhania had weight.

Not enough to move me.

But enough to make this meeting worth paying attention to.

AYAAN POV

When the doors opened, the room changed.

I looked up.

It was her.

The same woman from Geneva.

The one who hadn’t softened for anyone. The one who had shut down a delegate like he was an inconvenience she’d already outgrown.

My jaw tightened.

Of all the possible fucking people in the world.

Raghav stood. “Mr. Singhania, this is the lead consultant assigned from SHÁVIK STUDIO.”

I didn’t look at him.

I kept my eyes on her.

“You,” I said before I could stop myself.

She held my gaze, expression level. “Apparently.”

No surprise. No embarrassment. No sign that my recognition had impressed her in the slightest.

I should have found that irritating.

I did.

I leaned back slowly. “That’s convenient.”

“If you believe in coincidence, yes.”

Her tone was even. Too even.

It made me want to know whether she always spoke like that or whether she was making an exception for me.

I suspected the latter.

“Sit,” I said, nodding toward the chair opposite mine.

She glanced at it once, then back at me. “You give orders quickly.”

“And you ignore them just as fast.”

“That depends on whether they’re useful.”

A few people in the room went still.

Good.

I liked when people remembered I was not here to play nice.

I looked at her properly then.

Sharp eyes. Controlled posture. No fidgeting. No eagerness to be liked.

She had the kind of stillness that usually meant either confidence or danger.

I was leaning toward both.

Her file was opened on the table by then, and I glanced toward it, then back to her face.

“Your studio handles branding,” I said. “I want specifics.”

“You’ll get them.”

“I don’t like waiting.”

“I noticed.”

That was new.

Most people tried to hide irritation in front of me.

She didn’t.

Interesting.

Too interesting.

SHANVIKA POV

His company had the polished strength of something that had been built, damaged, and rebuilt again under someone ruthless enough to make the second version stronger than the first.

That kind of business always carried a certain kind of man with it.

Ayaan looked exactly like one.

Not in the cheap, fashionable way people tried to imagine powerful men. In the colder way. The kind that didn’t need to raise his voice to own the room.

Still, I wasn’t here to admire him.

I was here to do my work.

I opened the tablet and began the presentation.

“We don’t fix your image by making it softer,” I said. “That would be a waste of time. Singhania Global Consortium doesn’t need softness. It needs discipline.”

His gaze stayed on me.

Unmoving.

Good.

“Your visibility is uneven,” I continued. “Strong in the places that matter least, too exposed in the places that should have been tighter. You don’t have a branding problem. You have a control problem.”

A faint shift passed through the room.

I saw it.

So did he.

One of his team members glanced down at the notes as if the page might protect him.

Ayaan’s jaw flexed once.

I kept going.

“We don’t sell decoration. We shape perception. Which means if you want your company to appear controlled, we make it look like control is the only thing it has ever known.”

His eyes narrowed a fraction.

“Confident,” he said.

“No,” I replied. “Accurate.”

That earned a pause.

Not from me. From him.

I could tell he was deciding whether he liked being corrected in front of his people.

He didn’t.

Good.

“Who trained you?” he asked.

I didn’t react. “Experience.”

“Convenient answer.”

“It’s the only one you’re getting.”

I saw a small, almost invisible shift in his expression. Not approval. Not amusement.

Recognition.

He understood that I wasn’t trying to win him over.

That was probably the first thing about me he disliked.

Which was useful.

AYAAN POV

She spoke like a scalpel.

Clean. Precise. No wasted motion.

Every recommendation sounded like it had been cut down to what mattered and nothing more.

That should have been enough to make me listen without complaint.

Instead, it made me want to challenge her just to see if the calm held.

It did.

Which was irritating.

“Your studio is known for staying out of the public eye,” I said. “Yet here you are.”

She didn’t miss a beat. “You invited the firm.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know exactly what you meant.”

The corner of my mouth tightened.

She was not going to make this easy.

I could respect that.

I could also dislike it.

Both were true.

Raghav cleared his throat slightly and shifted the presentation forward, but neither of us looked away.

This was no longer about the project.

Not really.

It was about the fact that she refused to treat me like a man who could be managed by charm or pressure.

I wasn’t used to that.

And I didn’t enjoy it.

Still, when the final page of the proposal slid into view, I had already reached my conclusion.

“This is acceptable,” I said.

Her expression didn’t change.

“Acceptable,” she repeated.

I kept my face unreadable. “Don’t get dramatic.”

For the first time, something like a faint edge touched her expression.

Not a smile.

Something sharper.

“I wasn’t aware I needed your approval to remain unimpressed.”

A few people looked down.

I stared at her.

She stared back.

And there it was again — that irritating sense that neither of us intended to lose this exchange.

I set my pen down slowly.

“The project is yours,” I said.

She inclined her head once, just enough to acknowledge the decision without making it feel like gratitude.

“Framework in twenty-four hours,” she said.

“Don’t miss the deadline.”

“I don’t miss deadlines.”

“Everyone says that.”

“Then you’ve been working with the wrong people.”

That almost made one of my team members choke on a laugh.

I didn’t.

I was too busy trying not to react to the fact that she’d just made the room feel smaller.

And not in a bad way.

That irritated me most of all.

SHANVIKA POV

He was not easy to ignore.

That was the problem.

Not because he was charming. Not because he was warm. Because he wasn’t.

He was controlled enough to make people nervous and sharp enough to notice when someone wasn’t reacting the way he expected.

That made him dangerous.

Not to me.

Not yet.

But dangerous enough to stay alert around.

I left the boardroom without rushing, keeping my expression calm until the door closed behind me.

Only then did I exhale once.

He would be a problem.

A difficult one.

The kind that made work harder than necessary simply because his personality refused to sit quietly in the background.

I didn’t like that.

And I liked even less that I already knew I’d remember him longer than I wanted to.

AYAAN POV

I watched her leave.

Not because I needed to.

Because my eyes stayed there anyway.

That was inconvenient.

Raghav spoke beside me, but I heard him only halfway. My attention was still on the closed door.

“She’s very sharp,” he said.

“She is.”

“Better than expected?”

I looked forward again. “That’s not the problem.”

Raghav didn’t ask what was.

Smart man.

I opened the tablet, shut it again, and leaned back in my chair.

The meeting was over.

The irritation wasn’t.

That was going to be a problem.

And for reasons I didn’t yet want to name, I had the distinct feeling this woman would not be the kind of problem that went away on its own.

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