Maanvi Shah
The conference room was too cold for summer, like most VC firms that mistook temperature control for control in general. Rhea Mehta crossed her legs, stilettos clicking lightly as she adjusted her seat, eyes steady on the projected slide deck. “You’re up,” she said, voice clipped, betraying no emotion.
Across the glossy table stood a lanky young man in jeans and a faded hoodie—unapologetically casual in a room full of silk blouses and cufflinks. He stepped forward, opened his laptop, and clicked the remote.
“My name is Arjun Iyer,” he began, his voice a blend of caffeine and confidence, “and this is Epoch—the platform that’s going to kill calendar apps forever.”
A few raised eyebrows. A scoff from the man next to Rhea, CFO of one of their portfolio companies. But she said nothing, her eyes fixed on the boy with the uncombed hair and tired eyes.
“You’re twenty-four?” someone asked, with that sharp corporate smile that meant: you’re cute, but we don’t buy it.
“Yes,” Arjun replied, without blinking. “And I’ve already turned down an offer from Google.”
“Of course you have,” Rhea murmured, just loud enough.
He caught it. Glanced at her. Their eyes locked—briefly. Her kohl-lined eyes were unreadable. His? A flicker of recognition. A dare.
The pitch rolled on: machine learning, behavioral prediction, automated scheduling down to daily mood patterns. He talked like someone who’d thought about this for years. Rhea checked the time, not out of boredom, but calculation. The kid was sharp. Too sharp.
When it was over, the room was quiet. Polite applause. Polite decline. One by one, the investors folded their notebooks and left.
Except Rhea.
“You ever been told you’re arrogant?” she asked.
“Only every week,” he said, sliding his laptop shut.
“Good. Because you’ll need it. But you’re also green.”
“And you’re going to offer me something anyway?”
She tilted her head. “Maybe. Coffee first.”
He blinked. “Now?”
“No. Tomorrow. 9:30 a.m. Café Alchemy, Bandra. Come alone.” She stood, collecting her iPad like she hadn’t just disrupted protocol. “And if you’re late, the offer disappears.”
She walked out, leaving the scent of vanilla, ambition, and a thousand unspoken things in the air.
The next morning, he was already seated at the café when she arrived—surprisingly punctual for a man who coded till 4 a.m. She wore a pale-blue shirt, sleeves rolled, no makeup except for bold red lipstick.
“You came,” he said.
“You thought I wouldn’t?”
“I thought you’d send an assistant.”
“I don’t delegate curiosity.” She ordered an espresso, no sugar. “So tell me, Arjun. Why now?”
He hesitated. “Because I’m tired of being smart for other people. I want to build something that’s mine.”
“And how do I know you won’t implode in six months?”
“You don’t. But I know you invest in risk when it feels real.”
She smiled—not a warm one, but something close to respect. He noticed she wasn’t wearing a ring. Not that it mattered.
They talked for over an hour—about product, funding, market size. And then silence. The kind that sits between people who have said too much and not enough.
“You always this intense?” he asked finally.
“Only on weekdays.”
“Is today a weekday?”
“That depends. Is this business or something else?”
She looked at him, really looked. Eight years apart. Entirely different worlds. And yet—there was something in the way he didn’t flinch when she stared, didn’t shrink when she challenged.
“Let’s keep it business. For now,” she said, standing. She pulled a crisp card from her bag and placed it on the table.
Rhea Mehta
Partner, Polaris Ventures
Private Line.
As she walked away, he watched her go—not with lust, not yet, but with interest. With the acute awareness that she was about to become a constant variable in his life.
Later that evening, as she returned to her sleek apartment overlooking the sea, she found herself checking her phone twice. No message.
Good.
Dangerous, but good.
Because even now, she wasn’t sure what equation they had begun solving.
And what the cost would be once the variables stopped behaving.
By the time Arjun stepped into Polaris Ventures’ glass-and-steel office the following week, the deal memo was already drafted.
He didn’t read it line by line. Not because he didn’t care, but because he trusted himself to handle chaos—and he suspected Rhea was chaos personified.
“Sign it, or don’t,” she said, arms folded. “But if you do, we start building tomorrow. No ego, no detours, no disappearing acts. I don’t do drama.”
He clicked the pen once. Twice. Then signed.
Her eyebrow arched, just slightly. “Brave move.”
“Or stupid.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
They stood at the edge of a new world—she, polished in her navy blazer and low bun; he, untucked and grinning like a kid at a science fair.
From that point on, everything accelerated.
Polaris gave Epoch a small office space in Lower Parel—glass doors, whiteboards, one overworked AC unit. Within three days, Arjun had set up his dual monitors, a black beanbag, and a playlist of jazz-lofi that annoyed everyone except himself.
Rhea visited the space every few days. Always unexpected. Always in control.
“Why is there a Nerf gun on the floor?”
“To shoot bugs in the code,” he deadpanned.
“That’s mature.”
“You invested in a 24-year-old, not a monk.”
She suppressed a smirk. “Fair.”
What fascinated her—more than the product—was how his mind moved. It wasn’t just code. It was intuition. He read inefficiencies the way she read people. That, and his ability to argue with her without ever raising his voice.
One evening, she found him sitting cross-legged on the office floor, scribbling wireframes on a giant white sheet.
“You missed our 5 p.m. call with the UX team,” she said.
“I didn’t forget,” he said, still drawing. “I just realized it was pointless. They’re thinking inside the app store. I’m thinking outside it.”
“And did you consider letting me know?”
“Did you want me to lie and say their work was great?”
“I wanted you to behave like a co-founder, not a goddamn teenager with a vendetta.”
He finally looked up. “And I want you to behave like an investor, not a bossy school principal.”
The silence after that was electric.
Then, slowly, she sat down beside him, heels discarded. Their knees almost touched.
“Fine,” she said. “Show me what you’re thinking.”
He did. For the next twenty minutes, their heads leaned over the same page. Her perfume was too expensive for this room. His breath smelled like Red Bull. Somehow, they didn’t mind.
After a while, he asked, “What made you say yes to me?”
She looked up. “Because you remind me of myself.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s a warning.”
That night, he walked her to the elevator, silence growing softer between them.
Just before the doors closed, he said, “You look less terrifying when you smile, you know.”
She didn’t smile. But she didn’t stop him, either.
The elevator closed.
She leaned against the mirrored wall, heart beating faster than it should.
Back in the office, Arjun stared at the whiteboard. He didn’t believe in fate. But he did believe in equations.
And something told him—this one wasn’t going to be linear.
Two months in, the app was functional enough to demo. Epoch wasn’t sleek yet—it was glitchy, unstable, still occasionally crashing when synced with Outlook—but the engine underneath was solid. Arjun had built a monster of a predictive scheduler that adapted to user behavior and moods based on typing speed, app usage, and even Spotify playlists.
When they showcased it to a closed panel of advisors, Rhea stood silently in the back, arms folded. Let him have this. Let him win.
“You’re tracking mood via song choice?” someone asked, skeptically.
Arjun nodded. “If you listen to Arctic Monkeys three times a week but switch to Chopin on Thursdays, your Friday meetings probably need to start late. People don’t realize how patterns shape burnout. We just read them.”
Rhea felt her jaw tighten—not from doubt, but pride. A dangerous kind. The kind that wasn’t in any risk-return sheet.
After the room cleared, she walked over, heels clicking. “You did good.”
“You mean well,” he teased.
“I mean good, Arjun. Better than well. Don’t ruin it.”
He gave her that half-smile that always came too easily, as if her words didn’t carry edges. “Dinner?” he asked, offhand.
She blinked. “You’re asking me out after a pitch?”
“I’m asking you to eat carbs so you don’t kill me tomorrow.”
Against her better judgment, she said yes.
They ended up at a small Korean place hidden behind a bookstore in Fort. Low lights, stone bowls steaming, no one around to recognize her. She liked that. Too much.
“Why don’t you wear a watch?” she asked.
He looked surprised. “Why would I? My phone’s smarter.”
“But not always in the room.”
He shrugged. “Maybe I don’t want to be on time for everything.”
“That explains a lot.”
“And you? Why always lipstick but never earrings?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Because I don’t like things that dangle.”
His eyes flickered to hers. The air thickened, just for a second.
They talked through soup and shared dumplings. He told her about dropping out of Stanford after one semester, how his father didn’t speak to him for six months. She told him about her first startup investment, a bloodbath of betrayal, how she learned to read a term sheet the way others read breakup texts.
By the time they walked out, it had started raining.
He didn’t offer his hoodie. She didn’t expect him to.
Instead, they stood under a narrow awning, the city blurring around them.
“You know this is a bad idea, right?” she said.
“What is?”
“Whatever this is becoming.”
He leaned against the wall beside her, hands in his pockets. “You’re assuming it has to become anything.”
“And you’re assuming I’ll let it.”
He looked at her then—not with cockiness, but something sharper. Real interest.
“Tell me to stop,” he said.
She didn’t.
But she also didn’t move.
That night, she didn’t sleep well. She kept replaying his face, the way he’d waited, but hadn’t pushed. That restraint did more damage than desire.
In his apartment, cluttered with energy drinks and wires, Arjun couldn’t stop coding. But the lines blurred. Rhea’s voice. Rhea’s perfume. Rhea’s quiet gaze that made him forget his own age.
Whatever equation they’d started—it was officially nonlinear now. And both of them knew how dangerous that could be.
The next morning, Rhea arrived at the office earlier than usual, coffee in hand, eyes guarded. Arjun was already there, seated cross-legged on the beanbag, hair unbrushed, deep in code. He didn’t look up.
“Didn’t expect you this early,” he said without missing a keystroke.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she replied.
He paused, then turned to her, gaze unreadable. “Me neither.”
She dropped her bag on the table with more force than necessary. “Let’s talk about features. The AI’s predictions are solid, but the interface still looks like it was built during the Myspace era.”
He grinned. “You just dated yourself.”
She threw a pencil at him. He caught it mid-air.
“Fine,” he said, standing. “You want sleek? You get sleek. But only if you stop pretending we didn’t almost kiss last night.”
Her breath hitched. Just slightly.
“Focus, Arjun.”
“I am.” He stepped closer. “Just maybe not on code right now.”
She took a step back. Not because she was afraid—but because she wasn’t. That terrified her more.
“This thing between us,” she began, voice low, “it can’t happen. You know that.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But I’m still not going anywhere.”
They spent the next eight hours working. No flirtation. No glances. Just sprints of silence and bursts of innovation. It was maddening. It was electric.
By late evening, Rhea leaned back in her chair, rubbing her temples.
“You need a break,” he said.
“I need a win.”
“You’ll get one. Just not today.”
She looked up at him. “You’re awfully sure of the future for someone who barely plans tomorrow.”
“Maybe that’s why I see it better.”
She didn’t respond. Just stared at him for a long second before turning back to her screen.
The next few days were a blur. Meetings, mockups, user tests. Rhea took lead on a potential Series A discussion. Arjun found a bug in their sync algorithm that had gone unnoticed for weeks. They didn’t touch. They barely talked beyond work. But everything was charged—too charged.
Then came the investor dinner.
It was hosted by Polaris at a rooftop restaurant in Worli. Suits, champagne, laughter that didn’t reach the eyes. Arjun showed up in a navy-blue shirt, no tie, sleeves rolled up. Rhea wore a black silk sari with a halter blouse. He didn’t know whether to applaud or lose his mind.
“You clean up okay,” she said when she saw him.
“You’re trying to kill me,” he replied.
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
Over dinner, they sat two seats apart. He made a joke about enterprise onboarding that had a room full of fifty-somethings chuckling. She watched him with something dangerously close to affection.
Later, as guests thinned and Bombay’s skyline glittered behind them, he found her alone near the balcony.
“You looked like you belonged here tonight,” she said softly.
“I didn’t feel like it. Not until I saw you.”
“You’re playing with fire, Arjun.”
“So are you.”
She turned to him, closer now. “Do you even know what I’d have to lose?”
He didn’t answer. Just reached out and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
She didn’t stop him.
But then—
Her phone buzzed. She glanced at it, expression hardening.
“Board call. I need to take this.”
He nodded, stepping back.
And just like that, the moment shattered.
But neither of them knew—this break would only widen.
And when it did, it wouldn’t be clean.
The board call stretched over forty minutes. Rhea paced the balcony, voice calm but clipped, fielding questions about burn rate, exit strategy, and founder maturity—ironic, considering the founder in question was inside, making jokes about APIs and mint chocolate chip.
When she returned, Arjun was gone. Only a half-finished glass of wine remained on the table, his laptop bag slung over the back of a chair.
Good, she thought. Boundaries were easier when distance cooperated.
The next morning, they didn’t speak.
They didn’t speak the morning after that either.
But the work didn’t stop.
Epoch’s beta launch was two weeks away. Rhea was preparing for a closed preview with enterprise clients. Arjun was pushing updates like a man possessed. They worked side by side but avoided each other with surgical precision. Every conversation was transactional.
Until Thursday.
She stormed into the office at 2:00 p.m., heels echoing sharply.
“You removed the analytics dashboard from the new build?”
He didn’t look up. “It was cluttering user flow.”
“We need it for the enterprise demo.”
“No. You need it for the enterprise demo. Users don’t give a damn.”
“Users don’t write million-dollar cheques.”
He slammed his laptop shut. “Maybe if we stopped building for people with cheque books and started building for people with actual problems, we’d—”
“—fail faster?” she interrupted.
The silence between them rang loud.
She crossed her arms. “You’re getting reckless.”
“You’re getting scared.”
They stared at each other.
Neither blinked.
“Is this how it’s going to be?” she asked finally.
“Only if you keep pretending you’re not invested in more than the cap table.”
“Don’t,” she warned.
“Why not? We almost kissed. You show up in my code and my dreams. But god forbid we say it out loud.”
“You’re twenty-four.”
“And you’re terrified that I see you more clearly than anyone your age ever has.”
She flinched. That was too accurate. Too close.
He stood. Walked up to her.
“I’m not trying to ruin you, Rhea. I’m just trying to be real.”
She didn’t move.
“Then be real somewhere else,” she said quietly.
He hesitated. Then nodded. “Fine.”
He walked out.
She didn’t stop him.
That night, Rhea sat on her balcony, glass of wine untouched. Her phone buzzed—a message from her mother asking about Diwali plans. She ignored it.
She thought of Arjun. Of the way his voice dropped when he was sincere. The way he looked at her like she was a whole person, not a position.
She’d built walls for years. Boardrooms, deals, and billion-rupee cap tables. But this boy—this man—was slipping through the cracks.
In a studio across town, Arjun stared at his screen. Code blurred. Nothing worked.
She was right. He was reckless. But she was lying to herself if she thought this was just about business.
And somewhere deep inside both of them, the equation shifted again.
No variables made sense.
But neither of them could walk away completely.
Not yet.
Two days passed. No messages. No calls. The silence was like a third co-founder—present, brooding, disruptive.
On the morning of the demo, Rhea arrived at the venue alone. Taj Lands End. Mahogany panels. Private lounge. A dozen enterprise clients in starched shirts and bored expressions. She sipped black coffee and kept checking the entrance.
He was late.
Of course he was.
Five minutes before the pitch slot, he walked in. No apology. Just that same annoying calm, like the world bent for him when it needed to.
He wore a charcoal jacket for once. Hair slightly damp. Sleepless eyes.
“Nice of you to show up,” she said under her breath.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” he replied, then added, “Even if the person who used to believe in me doesn’t anymore.”
She didn’t respond.
They walked into the pitch room together, perfectly in sync but utterly broken beneath the surface.
The presentation began.
Arjun handled the live demo. Rhea took over the business case. Their rhythm returned like muscle memory. Questions came, objections rose, they deflected in tandem like they’d rehearsed for weeks.
When it ended, applause. Not overwhelming, but interested. A few nods. One follow-up meeting confirmed on the spot.
Outside, Rhea exhaled. “We survived.”
“We impressed.”
She turned to him. “You’re good, Arjun. But you’re not invincible. If this deal goes through, you’ll have ten new eyes on your every move.”
“I only care about one pair.”
Her expression faltered.
“You can’t keep saying things like that,” she whispered.
“Then tell me to stop and mean it.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
He stepped closer. “You want me gone? Say it.”
Still nothing.
His voice softened. “Rhea… what are we doing?”
She swallowed hard. “We’re building something that needs to exist. That’s it.”
“Liar.”
Before she could reply, her phone rang. It was Rajat—her ex. The one who still called when lonely.
She silenced the phone. But Arjun had seen the name.
“You’re still talking to him?”
“None of your business.”
“It is if I’m the one losing sleep over you.”
The words hung heavy.
“Don’t,” she said again.
“You keep saying that like it’s a spell. Like you don’t want it just as badly.”
“I’m your investor.”
“And I’m your reality check.”
She turned away. “We’re not having this conversation here.”
“Then where?”
No answer.
Later that night, Arjun received an email:
Subject: Red Lines
Arjun,
We’re aligned on the product. Let’s stay aligned on the rest.
Keep it professional.
—R
He stared at the screen for a long time.
Then opened a new file.
A blank slate.
New code.
New rules.
He was going to build the most intuitive AI assistant in the market. One that understood people better than they understood themselves.
And he wasn’t doing it for her anymore.
He was doing it in spite of her.
Two weeks passed.
Epoch’s beta numbers were strong. Users responded well to the personalized nudges, the seamless rescheduling, the guilt-free “focus zones” that felt more like therapy than tech. Feedback poured in. Praise from product forums. A feature in Inc42.
Rhea forwarded it to Arjun. No message. Just the link.
He replied with a thumbs-up emoji.
It stung more than silence.
At the office, they shared a space but not much else. Meetings were clipped. Timelines discussed without eye contact. Their war wasn’t loud—it was silent, surgical, like two surgeons refusing to admit who dropped the scalpel first.
Then came the investor meet-up. A cocktail night hosted by Polaris, disguised as networking but really a soft valuation dance. Rhea stood near the bar in a bottle-green saree, speaking to a fintech founder.
Arjun arrived late. No jacket. Just a dark shirt, sleeves rolled, hair pushed back messily. His confidence had grown sharper—no longer boyish. A quiet, dangerous kind.
She saw him across the room. So did everyone else.
He didn’t walk to her. Not at first. He spoke to two junior analysts, then with someone from Sequoia. The room gravitated toward him.
She hated that she noticed.
Finally, he walked over. “You look… efficient,” he said with a crooked grin.
“And you look like you haven’t slept.”
“Beta testing will do that.”
“You mean your ego will.”
He chuckled softly. “Still think about that night?”
She sipped her drink. “Which one?”
“The one where you almost let go of everything you built—for something uncertain.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Arjun. I’ve let go of more important things than you.”
“Then why haven’t you let go of me?”
There was no one else in that moment. The noise faded. The chatter, the jazz quartet, the Mumbai skyline behind them—all background.
“You’re a liability,” she whispered.
“And you’re addicted to risk.”
“You’re dangerous.”
“So are you.”
He stepped closer. Just slightly. Enough to tilt the axis of the world between them.
“You think I’m a mistake,” he said, voice low. “But I think I’m your first honest decision in years.”
She looked at him. Really looked. All fire, all ego, all raw talent and emotional chaos.
Then—
A voice interrupted. “Rhea, there you are!”
Her board chair, smiling, unaware of the storm he’d just walked into.
Rhea stepped back. Composed herself.
“We were just discussing demo metrics,” she said smoothly.
Arjun didn’t correct her. Just nodded, cold again. “Pleasure, sir.”
And then he left.
Later that night, she got a message.
Arjun: “I’m not a variable in your risk portfolio. I’m a constant. Even if you won’t name it.”
She didn’t reply.
But her fingers hovered over the keyboard far too long.
And in some ways, that was a reply.
The message haunted her.
She tried to shake it off, diving deep into numbers and term sheets, scheduling new pitch meetings, and fielding acquisition feelers from a SaaS giant in Singapore. But no matter how loud the day got, Arjun’s words echoed in the margins—I’m a constant.
A week later, she called for a product review at the office. Just the two of them. No team, no analysts.
He walked in five minutes late, deliberately. His eyes didn’t linger. No casual smirks. No jokes. Just pure, clinical detachment.
“Let’s begin,” she said, trying not to flinch.
They reviewed metrics, drop-off points, possible partnerships with productivity tools. The meeting lasted an hour, maybe less. But it stretched like elastic, tense and silent between words.
When she closed her laptop, he stood to leave.
“Wait,” she said.
He stopped. Turned.
“I wasn’t fair to you.”
He said nothing.
“You were right. I was afraid. Still am.”
“And that changes…?”
“Nothing,” she admitted. “But I needed to say it.”
His jaw tightened. “You don’t get to say it and walk away, Rhea. You don’t get closure and control in the same sentence.”
“I didn’t come for closure. I came for clarity.”
“Too late.”
She rose. “We can’t work like this, Arjun. Not in silence. Not in fire.”
He walked closer, voice steady but low. “Then tell me, on record, you feel nothing.”
She looked at him—those sleep-deprived eyes, the scar on his knuckle from the time he punched a vending machine, the stupid line of his smirk that haunted her sleep.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“And I can’t pretend anymore,” he said.
They stood inches apart. Every breath between them thick with restraint.
But then the door clicked open. A junior dev peeked in.
“Sorry—I thought this room was free.”
Rhea straightened immediately. “We’re done.”
The developer left, awkward and confused.
Arjun stared at her one last time. “We were never just work, Rhea. We were never just logic.”
She didn’t answer.
He left without looking back.
That night, she poured herself a drink and stared at her reflection in the dark window of her apartment. Mumbai glimmered beneath her, endless and anonymous.
Her phone buzzed. A calendar alert—one Arjun had set weeks ago.
“Monthly check-in: Are we still human?”
She closed her eyes.
This wasn’t just a glitch in her plan. This was a rewrite of her entire code.
But the question was—was she willing to crash the system for it?
The next morning, Rhea did something she hadn’t done in years.
She skipped her meetings.
No calls. No emails. She put on sneakers and sunglasses, left her phone at home, and wandered through the streets of Colaba like she used to in her twenties—when ambition still felt like oxygen, not a cage.
She ended up at the sea. Watching waves crash against stone. Watching strangers move through their own unsolvable equations.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t allow herself that. But her shoulders loosened. And her breath—finally—slowed.
At the same time, across town, Arjun stared at his laptop, but the screen blurred. He was halfway through rewriting Epoch’s next update. His brain functioned. His fingers moved. But his heart? Absent.
There was a hole where the tension used to live.
And sometimes, silence hurts more than rejection.
He shut his laptop. Walked out.
By evening, they both ended up at the same place. Not planned. Just fate being reckless.
Café Alchemy.
Where it had all begun.
She saw him first. In a hoodie again, headphones slung around his neck. He looked up—startled—but didn’t flinch.
“Seriously?” she said, voice barely hiding disbelief.
“I could ask you the same.”
“You’re predictable.”
“You’re magnetic.”
They sat down. No menu. No performance. Just two people too tired to lie.
He spoke first. “I’m leaving Polaris.”
Her chest tightened.
“I’ll keep the product. I’ll buy back the shares. You can exit clean.”
“And if I don’t want a clean exit?”
“You told me to keep it professional. I’m doing just that.”
“Is that what you want, Arjun? Professional distance? Me as a line item on a cap table?”
“No,” he said. Quietly. Honestly. “But it’s better than pretending you don’t want more and punishing me for showing up.”
“You think I’m punishing you?”
“You’re punishing yourself.”
Silence. A long one.
“Fine,” she said finally. “Then here it is. I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s insane. It’s inappropriate. It’s inconvenient. But it’s real.”
His lips parted.
She continued, breath shaking. “And I hate that you make me feel things I thought I’d buried under P&Ls and funding decks.”
He reached across the table. Took her hand. Slowly. As if testing the laws of gravity.
“You don’t have to say anything else,” he said.
“But I want to.”
“No,” he said, smiling faintly. “You just have to let it be. For once.”
Their fingers laced.
No cameras. No board. No pitch deck.
Just two humans.
Sitting inside a glitch.
Maybe not logical.
But finally honest.
Two months later, Epoch officially launched.
Not as a product tailored for boardrooms and enterprise clients—but as something deeply personal. An app designed to humanize time, not control it. To protect moments, not just schedule them.
And people noticed.
Reviews rolled in. Not from executives, but artists. Students. Single moms. People who said, “This app makes me feel seen.”
Rhea watched the numbers climb from her balcony. Arjun was sitting beside her, barefoot, coding with one hand, sipping ginger tea with the other.
“You know,” he said, “this is the first time I’ve built something that doesn’t scare me.”
“You should be scared,” she said. “You’ve built a product that people are going to expect emotion from. That’s dangerous.”
He looked at her. “So are you.”
She smirked.
The board had been resistant at first. A soft, “empathetic” product wasn’t what they’d signed up for. But the metrics were undeniable. Usage was stickier than any scheduling tool on the market.
And Rhea?
She fought for it.
Not just for the company.
For him.
She stayed on as advisor, not lead. It was her choice. Her line in the sand.
Because the truth was—every equation needs balance. She had learned to subtract herself from control to add value in presence.
One rainy night in October, they returned to Café Alchemy again. Like muscle memory.
He pulled a small notebook from his bag. Sketched a line.
A horizontal axis. A vertical one.
He wrote:
R = Risk
A = Arjun
R + A = ?
She rolled her eyes. “You’re such a nerd.”
“Math is romantic.”
“Love isn’t linear.”
“Exactly,” he said. “That’s why it works.”
She took the pen. Scribbled her own variable.
R = Rhea
A = Always
He looked at her. Smiled.
The waitress came with their order. Dumplings. Just like the first night.
Outside, the monsoon roared. Inside, their silence was softer now.
Measured not in tension—
—but in trust.
And finally,
the equation balanced itself.
End
