26. Who is he?

When there are 500 different things to do in your life, it’s easy to ignore the mistakes and move on with your life. But when you are locked in a house with nothing else to do, all you can think of are the mistakes you made.

And I made a HUGE one. Ranking right below the last mistake I made just two days ago when I kissed Aarav, of which I would not speak.

It was a hot summer day and as his acting personal assistant, Aarav had entrusted me with a few confidential documents that had to be sent to a specific set of people. And while I sent the files to those people, I kept them open for everybody in the office to use.

A day had passed since.

And I was horrified.

I had to rectify it, pronto. Biting hard on my lower lip, I set to work. Their office software wasn’t complicated, but you still had to learn how to use it. Especially the details. Like the fact that all files shared are open-to-all by default. A detail Aarav had conveniently missed mentioning.

I would kill him.

The source of my annoyance was sitting right across from him, discussing something with his team over call. I changed the privacy settings, hoping to God nobody else except for the one employee who had reached out to tell me that the settings should be changed has seen it. Please God, have some mercy.

On me.

On Aarav, I would have none.

The moment he shut the call, his dark brown eyes turned towards me and my eyes glowered. Containing my anger, I said as sweetly as possible, “Do you remember the files you had asked me to send yesterday?”

“Yes. What about it?”, he asked smoothly.

“Well, they might have reached everybody in your office”, I paused and then shouted, “BECAUSE YOU FORGOT MENTIONING YOUR COMPANY’S RIDICULOUS FILE-SHARING POLICY. Is there no such thing as privacy?”

“What?”

“Privacy… you know”

“What policy are you talking about?”

“The one where all the files you share are open-for-all the organization to view. I personally think it’s a ridiculous policy, but what do I know? You are the one running the…”, I stopped when I saw the look on his face.

His eyebrows scrunched with confusion and an almost scared look settled on his face. Slowly, his features changed, and he frowned, his teeth grinding hard.

“How did you find out about this?”, he asked. His voice filled with rage.

“Somebody named Deepak contacted me, as in ‘you’, since I was using your email address and suggested I change it because he read the document and thought it might be best to keep it confidential”

“Call that guy”, he barked, clenching his fists, and started pacing in the room.

“I don’t have his number. I can write him an email though”, I replied meekly. I would have liked to question his tone, but now it didn’t seem like the right time. I stashed it inside for future use.

Ignoring me completely, he called somebody.

“What is this new file-sharing change I am hearing of?”, he asked, and his words were dripping with venom.

The person on the other line said something and Aarav clenched his fists tighter.

“Fix it, now!”, he hung up the phone and stared right at me. His dark brown eyes were almost black now and I could feel the rage hitting me in waves. But there was an unmissable protectiveness in them too, for what, I wasn’t sure.

I walked near him and took his large hand in mine, running my thumb over the back of his fist. “What happened?”, I asked, my voice a soft whisper.

He didn’t answer, just kept staring at me.

“What happened?”, I pressed, moving closer to his body.

“We don’t have any policy to share all files with everyone. Or at least, we shouldn’t”, he breathed out, his fists relaxing a little.

“Then how did it happen?”

“Apparently, somebody hacked into our system and changed the configurations on all the senior executives. It’s such a small change that anybody could miss it. Whoever is doing is in the office, otherwise, it isn’t possible. And now that all the transactions will be happening online, the threat is bigger”

“But they can find the hacker, right?”

“Yes. And they have. But the hacker isn’t using his own system to hack. We’ve noticed breaches from three different departments, and the IT is trying to find the culprit”

I nodded along, when a thought occurred to me, “What if the culprit is from the IT department? They are probably the only ones who have access to all the systems and can hack pretty easily”

“That’s true. The person I called overlooks all security details for me, externally, and is going to find out who it is”

“Okay, good”, I answered and only then realized how close I was to him. My thumb was still running lazy circles on the back of his hand, and I could smell the sweet masculine scent of him, with a hint of soap and spice.

Looking up, I met his dark brown eyes. Worry was still etched on his features and so I whispered, “I’m sure your guy will take care of everything. It’ll be okay”

“I know”

“Why do still look so worried then?”

“Because I am anxious about what might happen next. And the documents he might already have in his possession”, he answered and wrapped his hand over the thumb that was still circling.

His hand was warm, and a weird sort of electricity rushed through my body. It was subtle and yet powerful, before I could reflect any more on the touch my brain processed his words and I immediately asked, “He? What do you mean ‘he’? Do you suspect somebody?”

Dropping my hand, he moved back to his seat and started working.

“Hey, I asked you a question”, I followed behind, my hands on my hips.

“As your superior, I hold the right to either answer or ignore that question”

“But… I demand an answer”

“I reject your demand”, he answered curtly and started typing on his keyboard.

Huffing, I moved past him and towards the shelf on the far left corner of the office. Waiting for him to notice, I grabbed the wire connecting to the wi-fi router and..

"Riya, no", he admonished.

"Aarav, yes, tell me who he is and I'll not pull the wire"

"Riya...", he started standing up from his seat.

"Sit your ass down. Just tell me who he is or I'll pull the plug and probably destroy it too"

"You'll suffer more than me", he reasoned.

"I have data", I stuck out my tongue.

He snorted, trying to suppress his chuckle. Then gave up altogether and started laughing, "You are so cute"