Everybody in Raichand Industries knew 3 rules:
1. Never be late to Mr. Arjun’s meeting.
2. Never question his decisions.
3. Never, ever, make him repeat himself.
I broke all 3 in my first week.
I’m Nisha. 26. Hired as his personal assistant because “you have a sharp tongue and we need someone who won’t say yes to everything.” His words, not mine.
Arjun Raichand wasn’t just a CEO. He was a storm in a Tom Ford suit. Cold, precise, married to his company. The tabloids said he didn’t have a heart. After working 14 hours a day with him, I believed them.
Until Thursday.
3 AM. I was still in office, finishing a deck he trashed at 6 PM. The door opened. He walked in with two coffees and looked... human. Tired.
“Why are you still here?” he asked.
“Because someone told me my work was ‘unacceptable garbage’ and I have pride,” I shot back.
He didn’t fire me. He sat down, pushed one coffee toward me, and said, “Show me.”
We reworked the entire pitch. At 5 AM, he looked at the final slide and said the words I never expected: “This... is brilliant.”
Then he saw my resignation letter on my desk. I’d written it after he yelled at me in front of the whole board.
He picked it up, read it, and kept it. Didn’t tear it. Didn’t sign it. Just said, “Not accepted.”
From that day, things shifted. He started asking “Did you eat?” instead of “Is it done?”
I started leaving post-its on his files: “Sleep is not for the weak, boss.”
He started keeping them.
The office gossips had a field day when he cancelled a Dubai merger meeting because I had fever. When he showed up at my tiny apartment with soup and called it “ensuring company assets remain functional.”
Six months later, I found my resignation letter in his drawer. Framed.
Below it, he’d written: “Best decision I never approved.”
People think CEOs fall for models and actresses.
Arjun Raichand fell for the only girl who told him he was wrong. To his face. Twice a day.
And I fell for the man who learned that ‘boss’ and ‘heartless’ don’t have to mean the same thing.
To be continued....
