ARNAV

"Enough!" Aman ordered, as a matter of fact, I was his boss but he wouldn't stop ordering me like it was vice versa, what was it, my fifth glass so far and he thought I was too drunk to handle myself.

"Oh come on, it's a Saturday night, let me have fun." I rolled my eyes at him, Aman could really be irritating at times, he wouldn't stop glaring at me because I wasn't listening to him so I chose to walk away from him to avoid the angry glares he was throwing at me, I settled down on a couch in the corner as I glared at the beautiful girls dancing a few feet away from me.

As I kept on looking at the huge crowd of people that were happily dancing and enjoying the music that the dj was playing which was quite good, my eyes stopped at this one girl.

She had just walked on the dance floor accompanied by her friend whom I dint care about because my eyes were stuck on her and the gorgeous white dress she had worn that hugged all her curves perfectly. She ran her hand through her hair flipping it on the other side and moved her body in rhythm, damn this girl had some pretty good moves.

She was laughing about something her friend had just whispered into her ears and that laughter was so beautiful, I knew I wasn't ever going to forget it no matter what.

She continued conversing with her friend while they kept on dancing and enjoying it, she would keep turning her hair from left to right, and she wouldn't stop smiling or laughing about everything her friend said to her.

She seemed like a really happy person, as if everything in her life was fairytale perfect, only if things like that did exist though.

I placed my glass on the table and stood up, this girl was absolutely gorgeous and I couldn't stop myself from wanting to talk to her.

I wasn't really sober but I wasn't too drunk either, so I stood where I was and stared at her making up a conversation I was going to have with her in my mind. I wasn't really sure what I was going to say, I couldn't trust the drunk me, at times I had the most cheesy pickup lines to say to the girls when I was drunk.

I planned a perfect conversation in my mind as I continued staring at her, she was being oblivious about the people around her and dancing like she was really enjoying it, she was breathtakingly beautiful. I mean I literally lacked words to explain how beautiful this girl was.

I made my way towards her knowing that no matter what happened, I wanted to talk to this girl, there was something about her that had knocked me off my senses.

I stumbled through the people standing at each and every corner trying to make my way towards her but before I could, I saw her turn around and leave with her friend, I tried to follow her but I was too drunk to even walk properly so by the time I was out of the club, she had disappeared.

"Damn it!" I kicked a soda can that was lying on the floor.

Just when I thought something about a fairytale life, life actually threw a sort of fairytale at me, how was I supposed to find Cinderella when she hadn't even left her glass shoe behind?

I knew absolutely nothing about her, not her name, neither who she was nor where she lived, but one thing I knew for sure was that she was stuck in my mind because all I could see was her, the way she danced, the way she laughed, everything about her was just, so beautiful.

"What are you doing out here? Planning to leave already? Come on it's just midnight." Aman said as he joined me outside.

"I was just... nothing, let's head in." I said as I headed back inside with him, I dint really want to tell him about Cinderella because I knew he was just going to laugh at me like I was stupid or something. So like he said it was just midnight and Aman and I were the kind of people who rarely went out on weekends and if we did we left after everyone else left.

*****

I walked straight to the conference room as soon as I arrived at the office on Monday, I had spent the whole of my Sunday just sleeping because Aman and I stayed out of house until six in the morning and got drunk like crazy so my Sunday passed like it dint exist.

Today I was sober and back to work and Cinderella still was all over my mind, I thought once I was sober I would forget about her like I forgot about a lot of stuff after getting drunk, but I had to admit she wasn't someone I could forget about overnight.

I pulled my chair and settled down, Aman was standing in front of me and the rest of the members present in room. He was ready with his presentation that we were supposed to have regarding the new model we needed to hire.

I was the owner of one of the biggest fashion design companies, how I got to this at the age of twenty eight is a story of another time, as of now we all had gathered to finalize a model for the photoshoot of our new collection that was to be launched in a few weeks, as for me, I preferred taking opinions of my employees for some things, this being one of them.

We all sat together, went through details of a few models and then discussed about the pros and cons and then finalized our model after everyone agreed on a specific one, it had been what we always did, it had become like a tradition of some sort.

"I hope you've got some good ones Aman." I said to him expecting he had a good list of models we could select from, not that I doubted his capabilities, Aman was always perfect with his work, and everything he did was always on point.

"I went through a hundred of them sir and selected only ten that I found to be the best for our launch, so after showing you and everyone else the photographs of the ten models, we can finally come to a decision on who we'll finalize for the project." Aman explained.

"Everyone keep in mind that this new collection we're going to launch has a lot of varieties than our previous collections so we really need a model who can pull all those designs off really well, think, analyze and then come to a decision." I said as I looked at everyone, they all nodded so I looked at Aman.

I nodded at him as he began with the presentation, he showed us the picture of the first model, gave us all the details as we all wrote down the notes.

He changed the slide and the next a few more photographs of a different model popped up, he gave us the details once again and we all listened to him keenly and repeated the same thing, we wrote down our pros and cons.

He changed the slide once more and another photograph popped, I don't even know why I did that but I stood up from my chair immediately as looked at the photograph in front of me in surprise, it wasn't even a surprise, it was a shock.

It was the same girl I had seen at the club on Saturday night, I mean yes I was drunk and I thought I'd forget what she even looked like but a face like that was impossible to forget.

Everyone looked at me for a moment and ignored my reaction, Aman started giving us details pretending not to have noticed that i had stood up suddenly for no reason. As for me, I couldn't stop staring at the photographs in front of me and Aman on the other side was looking at me weirdly obviously wondering why I reacted that way.

"Her name is Khushi, she doesn't really have a surname for reasons no one really knows, everyone knows her as Khushi only, right now she's the top most leading model in the industry, she's perfect, you can see it from all her pictures.

She has modelled for different people, different clothes and she always pulls off everything so perfectly, it's like all the clothes have always been designed just for her." Aman explained as he changed the slides one by one showing us all her photographs in different outfits and poses.

So Cinderella dint leave her glass shoe behind but left her photographs, well the glass shoe was old school, she was the modern Cinderella, she had to be different.

"We're finalizing her." I said as everyone looked at me in surprise, they had to because until today I had never finalized any model on my own, not that I wasn't sure of my decisions but I liked giving everyone a chance to give their point of view, but today I dint want anyone's point of view because I knew this was exactly the girl I wanted to shoot for the collection.

"I know she's good but we haven't even seen the rest, I think you should..." Aman tried to talk but I interrupted him, I really dint want to listen to anything otherwise.

"Aman I am the boss, if I make a decision I want it to be acted upon." I looked at him strictly.

He nodded positively and sat down but I couldn't, I don't know what it was about her that made me behave completely different than I always did.

"The meeting is over, Aman email me her details, I'm going to talk to her about it." I said to Aman as I picked up my phone from the table and headed towards the door to leave.

"I'll email you the details but calling her and talking to her is my job sir, let me do it." Aman said, he was right, I was the boss all I was supposed to do was make orders and here I was, acting all different because of Cinderella.

"Very well, I don't know what you do but make sure she agrees, and don't forget to mail me the details." I said to Aman one last time before I walked out of the conference room and headed to my cabin.

I switched on my laptop and checked my mail the first thing, remember me saying Aman was perfect in his job? I had already received the mail with the details.

I didnt even bother to go through any other details apart from her photographs, I just opened the attached photographs and looked at them one by one keenly, she looked prettier in real than she looked in the photographs, the photographs clearly dint do any justice to her beauty.

"What was that?" Aman asked as he barged into my cabin angrily, he looked at me like he was going to murder me.

"Excuse me." I raised my eyebrow and looked at him, no one ever dared to talk to me in that tone, and the only reason Aman had the guts to talk to me like that was because apart from being my employee he was my friend too.

"I am not only your assistant Arnav, I am also your friend and to be honest I dint like what you did today, this company has been running on rules, rules you made and today you went against those rules yourself.

You've always taken everyone's opinion before making any decision and today you dint care to ask anyone, why was the meeting even held then?" Aman asked still looking at me angrily, well yes I could understand his point but why couldn't he understand that if I wanted to change certain things, I could, it was my company anyway.

"Are you trying to tell me I can't select a model for my own company?" I raised my eyebrow and looked at him, I mean I agree I had some rules but I was the boss, I could do whatever the hell I wanted. I could break any rules for this girl anyway.

"I don't mean it that way, it was just strange for you to behave like this, what is it about her anyway that made you behave this way?" Aman shrugged, seriously he was asking me what was it about her?

I mean look at this girl, she was gorgeous, she was the perfect model, everything about her could make me do things that I never thought I'd do.

"I don't have to explain everything to you Aman, now go do your work, call her and finalize things with her." I looked back to my computer, at the pictures of this beautiful girl, ignoring the looks he was giving me, he stood there for a while expecting me to say something but I dint so he just walked away angrily. He was going to calm down in a while so i dint bother much.