33 It can't be her

It was a busy Monday for Raymond. He had back to back plan meetings and organization re-structuring meetings. On top of that, he had to fit in the special interview request for the so-called intern. Her interview was scheduled at 2:00 p.m. and since he was attending meetings till lunchtime, he didn't have the opportunity to go through her resume.

Chloe, who was Delphi's HR head, had already printed two copies of the candidate's resume and had placed it on his desk. After coming back from the meeting Raymond picked up the resume and started going through it.

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The moment he saw the candidate's name on the resume his eyes popped wide open in shock.

'Akira Peyton'

Masters in Graphic design

University of Cincinnati

It can't be. Raymond was shocked and went into denial. He grabbed the second copy of the resume just to confirm if the name was same and he was not hallucinating. Unfortunately, it was still the same - Akira Peyton. He couldn't believe his luck. It couldn't be her. He tried to console himself by thinking that probably it was just another person with the same name.

His mind was racing back and forth remembering the pleasant company that he had last week in the flight. Her face, her smile, her tears, her talks everything was deeply imprinted in his mind. They had hardly talked a couple of sentences max, but her innocent face was building a web and was drawing him inside. Her tender touch when she had applied the ointment, her happy smile after finding out that the chocolates were complementary, her teary eyes filled with hundreds of emotions shook him deeply.

The image of her boarding pass flashed in his head which he still possessed in the top drawer of his side table. The next moment he remembered the episode where he tore her letter out of anger. The image of her trapped in the arms of a random person at Tony's started flashing in his head and he started becoming restless again. He was shocked to see himself getting so much affected just by seeing her name.

He gasped for air.

"Probably I am overthinking", Raymond thought.

He drank a glass of cold water and tried to shrug off all the thoughts of her.

But unfortunately, he couldn't.

The anticipation was killing him. Initially, he had thought of having a quick bite before starting the interview but now he was sitting in the room, all dazed. He felt that the hands of his clock had started moving at a slower rate.

Even though he was hurt after seeing her with another guy his heart was still restless and wanted to meet her and have a glimpse of her as soon as possible. He was not able to understand what was wrong with him. He felt like she had made him drink some magic potion and now he was totally under her control.

He started pacing inside his room. He was unable to keep his head steady. So he picked up another project file thinking that he could distract his mind by checking the financial estimations, but his heart had some other plans. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't focus on the numbers, which was so unlike him.

For so many days he had the urge to check her profile on Facebook but he had somehow restrained himself. But something got into him and he opened this laptop and searched for people on Facebook with name Akira Peyton. There were a couple of suggestions but there was only one Akira Peyton from the University of Cincinnati and when he saw her picture his brows were knitted.

It was her. Definitely her.

The cloud of doubts which he had started vanishing away. He became even more restless after getting the surety that it was her. His heart was entering the happy zone because deep down he always wanted to meet her. he always felt that there was something which was left incomplete. but his mind instructed him otherwise.

Now he knew who the other guy was who was embracing her at the karaoke station. It was Vikram. The whole connection became crystal clear. After having a break up with her boyfriend somehow she had managed to trap Vikram. In the business world, everybody knew that Vikram had a hard exterior which was difficult to breach but somehow she had manage to do it. This girl was definitely something.

"Maybe she is really good at trapping guys. Vikram was probably just a money vending machine for her whom she was using to elevate her career as well." thought Raymond and looked at his watch. It was 1:55 pm.

He took a deep breath to relax himself.

"She might have used Vikram but she will not be able to play with me", thought Raymond and called up Chloe to inform her that he was ready for the interview.