Framing my resignation letter should’ve been the weirdest thing Arjun Raichand ever did.
It wasn’t.
After the office found out he visited me with soup, the whispers started. “She slept her way to the top.” “He’s just bored.” “Give it a month.”
I was ready to quit. For real this time. No letter, just walk out.
I told him that in the elevator. Just us, 42 floors to the ground.
“I’m resigning, Arjun. This is getting messy.”
He didn’t stop the elevator. Didn’t argue. He just pressed the emergency stop between floors 30 and 29.
“Messy,” he said, stepping closer. “My whole life was clean, Nisha. Spreadsheets. Mergers. Empty penthouse. Then you came in late, yelled at me, and made it messy.”
“Your board thinks I’m a distraction,” I said.
“Good,” he answered. “I’ve been focused for 10 years. I’m tired. I want to be distracted.”
For the first time, Arjun Raichand looked nervous. Not angry, not cold. Just… human.
“I don’t do relationships,” he said. “I do contracts. I do deals. But I can’t write a clause for how you make me feel when you roll your eyes at me.”
“So what now?” I asked. “We keep this secret? Office romance, HR nightmare?”
He took my resignation letter from his wallet. He’d been carrying it.
“No more secrets,” he said, and tore it in half. “And no more resignations.”
The next morning, the entire company got an email.
Subject: *Company Policy Update*
From: Arjun Raichand
_Effective immediately, Raichand Industries recognizes that exceptional talent deserves exceptional exceptions.
PS: The HR department has been informed that the CEO is officially, hopelessly, off the market.
To Ms. Nisha Verma: Stop writing resignation letters. You’re terrible at it._
The board lost their minds. The tabloids had a field day.
And I had a CEO who finally learned the one merger he couldn’t control was the one with his own heart.
The Ice King melted.
And I was the one holding the match.
To be continued......
