The way I used to live✔

chapter 3✔

Continuation...

Arjun's family didn't have many relatives except for a maternal grandfather. His father didn't have any siblings, neither did his mother. Both were single children to their parents. Hence, Arjun's parent's cousins were the only relatives they had left.

His paternal grandparents and maternal grandmother died when he was very young. So, he didn't have much knowledge about them, but he was very close to his maternal grandfather.

The old man always supported Arjun in every decision of his and pampered both his grandchildren a lot.

He was the only person who stood beside Arjun, acting as a support system during the last rites of his father.

Also, when Raghunath decided to break off the engagement, his grandfather didn't get angry, instead, he laughed at the vile man's face.

He even told Raghunath that it was better than the latter initiated the cancellation, otherwise, he would have been glad to do the same.

He proclaimed that Anusha and her family didn't deserve a gem like Arjun and threw an open challenge to them that he would make them regret their decision.

All the while, Arjun just remained a silent spectator because not even once did he imagine that his worst fear would come true, that too this soon.

After the father-daughter duo left their home, Arjun immediately boarded himself in his room.

His grandfather got vexed with his behavior and made the servants break open the door of his room because of the unavailability of the spare key.

Furthermore, he ordered Arjun to freshen up in an authoritative tone which Arjun couldn't refute.

Once Arjun returned after following the orders of his grandfather, the latter made Arjun sit beside him and without beating around the bush, he spoke his heart out.

"Be a man. Be a person who is looked up to, not the person who is looked down upon. Your life isn't over yet. You will have to face much more difficult situations than this one. If you can't even face this, how will you withstand any storm in the future? When someone walks out of your life, it doesn't mean that you don't deserve them, it's just that they don't deserve you. You will get an amazing person who will understand your pain by just looking into your eyes and sharing your hardships, success, joy, pain... everything along with you. Failure is never an ending. Even in the future, when you face a downfall, it won't mean that you are a complete failure but is the beginning of a wonderful journey to success. It just means you are capable of handling situations life throws at you. They will push you to the path of success that you need to care for yourself. Remember these words forever. Be ready to face tomorrow's storm."

These were the words that his grandfather had told him that became deeply engraved in his heart.

Just like his grandfather had predicted, he was called to attend a board meeting of their company.

When his grandfather heard about this, he just smiled at Arjun encouragingly and told him, "This is the storm, go and face it. Even if you have to bow your head today, we won't accept defeat. We got so much time in the future, we will pay back kindness with more kindness and animosity with much more animosity. Go, young man. Irrespective of the things that would happen there, just return with a smile on your face."

Arjun nodded confidently on hearing that.

At the board meeting, everyone was against nominating Arjun as an acting CEO as he had zero knowledge and experience about the business. Even Arjun himself was against the idea of him being a CEO. So, he agreed to their decision.

As everyone was discussing whom to nominate, Raghunath interrupted them stating that he didn't want Arjun to continue as a board member of the company.

Everyone was astonished upon hearing him say that so bluntly. When everyone asked him to justify his statement, he passed all of them a file that contained the imperative figures of the cash flows of recent projects handled by Mr. Sarath.

There was a huge difference between the actual and estimated budget. To be precise, those projects didn't gain any profit.

Instead, the projects were a complete failure and incurred huge losses that could impact the functioning and goodwill of the company.

So, Raghunath asked Arjun to either compensate for the losses or hand over his entire shares, including those that his family had inherited from his father according to the will that the late Mr. Sarath had written.

Every board member agreed to the proposition as they had no other choice. Taking the company's funds to compensate for the losses was a big no-no in the situation as the shares of the company had already plummeted due to the sudden death of the former CEO.

Had Arjun chosen the second option, Raghunath would have asked him to pay the nominal value of the shares instead of the market value and in return, Arjun would not need to worry about the losses as the former would compensate for the losses with that difference in amount.

Both would be win-win situations for Raghunath.

Arjun couldn't choose the first option either as they didn't have enough liquid cash in their hands at the moment, and the losses to compensate ran in crores.

For him to make up for the loss, he would have needed to sell their mansion. He did not want to do that as it was filled with his father's memories.

Moreover, that mansion was his father's dream house. Hence, he couldn't part with it. Not only him, but even his mother and sister also wouldn't be able to part with it.

He wasn't a cruel and selfish person to snatch the last remnants of his father's presence from them.

Thanks for reading.

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