Chapter Five: Ayub

Ayub had been sitting in the conference room for twenty minutes. Not because he was nervous. He just didn't like the unknown.

He'd received access to the team files early that morning and had gone through every task list, active project, and flagged message he could get his hands on. It helped. He wasn't walking into the fire blind. Just... underdressed for the heat.

The staff began filtering in slowly, bringing the usual shuffle of coffee cups, half-muttered greetings, and the awkward tension of a new face in the room.

He nodded where appropriate. Said good morning when spoken to. Kept his head down and his posture open—neutral, approachable, forgettable. His specialty.

A few curious glances were thrown his way. One of them belonged to a woman he vaguely remembered from quarterly meetings. Dark curls, sharp nails, and a string of gentle, persistent smiles she'd been dropping his way for over a year now. She slid into the seat beside him.

"You're with us now?" she asked, pleasant and pointed.

He cleared his throat. "That's the word."

"Well," she said, crossing her legs and leaning in just enough, "welcome to the lion's den."

He offered a polite smile. "Appreciate it."

More small talk followed. She was friendly. Too friendly. But Ayub kept it light—asking about internal workflows, who managed approvals, what the coffee situation was like. Nothing personal. He didn't have the bandwidth for anything personal.

Because then she walked in.

Lamija entered like she owned the room—and to be fair, she did. Her stride was fluid, measured. Confident without trying. She smiled in greeting, nodded at her team, …and when her eyes landed on him—just him—she winked.

It was quick. Maybe too quick. Deliberate, but deniable. Ayub sat straighter, suddenly unsure if he'd imagined the whole thing.

This position was going to be the death of him.

She was playing with him. He could see it in the glint of her expression. It took all of his concentration to remember to blink.

Imran had warned him: "Seriously. Blink. You look like you're waiting to be executed and it scares the interns."

She moved around the room easily, falling into conversations with different team members, laughing softly at something the finance lead said, nodding at a designer's update, adjusting the thermostat without asking.

She was in it. Natural. Effortless. Everyone leaned slightly toward her without realizing it. He could feel it. She was a magnet, and the team was happily caught in her pull.

Then she turned to the group, smile still in place.

"Before we get into the updates," she said, "I want to officially introduce Ayub. Most of you know him—if not directly, then by reputation. He's stepping into Kenan's role, effective this week."

There were murmured greetings, a few nods, and one quiet joke that floated down the table.

"Kenan played too close to the sun," someone whispered. A few smirks followed.

A second voice added, "Or maybe the daughter."

Laughter rippled softly across the room. Ayub said nothing.

Lamija smiled like she hadn't heard, then dove into the meeting like she was pulling everyone underwater with her. She pulled up a shared screen, walking the team through timelines, deliverables, points of friction. Ayub listened, occasionally offering input—he didn't mean to. But when one of the analysts stumbled through an allocation error, Ayub stepped in with a workaround.

Lamija's eyes flicked toward him. Impressed.

He didn't imagine it.

And when it happened again—when the conversation stalled over distribution delays and he quietly rerouted the logic—her lips curled into a half-smile before she spoke again.

She was impressed. He could tell.

And that made it worse.

The more the team spoke, the more he watched them—watched her. They adored her. Not just respected, not just feared. They followed. The kind of loyalty that couldn't be bought. He didn't blame them. She made you want to be better, sharper, faster. She didn't ask for control—she just had it.

He had always known she was brilliant. But watching her lead—calm, decisive, magnetic—stirred something in him that was deeper than awe and harder to shake.

Midway through a scheduling discussion, a conflict popped up between two vendors flagged in the timeline. It was minor, but Ayub noticed a redundancy in the order dates and leaned slightly forward.

"Shouldn't we delay the supplier invoice on the backend by four days?" he said, quiet but direct. "It won't hit their capacity limit until the next delivery window. We can tighten cash flow and avoid paying early."

The room paused.

Lamija glanced over at him.

A beat.

Then she smiled—small and approving. "You're right. Good catch."

She turned back to the team like it was nothing, adjusting the board with two quick notes.

But Ayub sat there like someone had handed him a lit match and dared him not to feel the heat.

The conversation moved on. But then—ten minutes later—she circled back to the topic and added, "Ayub flagged a timing issue earlier that's going to save us a few days. Let's adjust across both vendor timelines to match."

She hadn't needed to say his name.

But she had.

The room nodded along. The analyst beside her scribbled notes. Jasmina smiled at him like he'd passed a secret test.

Ayub didn't smile back.

Because that flicker of professional satisfaction unraveled something far more dangerous: possibility.

This. This was what he'd imagined—working in tandem. Not chasing something personal, not even chasing her—just working beside her. Matching her rhythm. Speaking her language.

Finally, she moved to assignments.

"Ayub," she said, eyes flicking back to him, "you'll be working with Jasmina this week—primarily ops handoff and vendor communication. You'll have full access to legacy files by noon."

Jasmina—the woman beside him—beamed.

Not the role he'd been slotted for.

Not even close.

The message was clear. Whether she meant to send it or not.

The position—the one he was meant to fill under her directly—went to someone else. A tall guy across the table. She gave him the heavier load, the direct client comms. Her lane.

Ayub sat with a calm face and a stomach full of battery acid.

She wrapped up the meeting with a few final notes, efficient as ever. Then, just as people began to rise from their chairs, she looked up.

"Emir," she said, her tone easy, "can you stay behind for a minute? I want to go over the rollout schedule."

Ayub didn't move.

Didn't blink.

Something twisted low in his chest.

Emir gave a nod, already halfway out of his seat. Lamija offered him a smile—warm, professional. Familiar.

Ayub gathered his things slowly. Deliberately. Not because he needed the time, but because something about the moment made his fingers clumsy.

She hadn't looked at him again. Not once.

Jasmina brushed his arm as she stood beside him. "Looks like it's you and me this week," she said, too brightly.

He walked out like it didn't matter.

Like that wink hadn't meant anything.

Like the smile—the one he was sure was meant for him—hadn't been handed to someone else minutes later.

It was stupid. Irrational.

He'd asked for space. Begged for it.

But that moment—that shift in her face, that redirection of her focus—was supposed to be his.

The jealousy hit harder than he expected.

And worse—it didn't scare him.

Because this was what she did to him.

Made him question his logic. Doubt what he'd seen. Want something he had no right wanting.

Maybe she was playing with him.

Or maybe he was going crazy.

But it was already starting again.