Unraveled (Jersey Girls Book 1) Read online

  Satish had known since he was seven years old that he had a vital role in his family. His father had two objectives in life; a good education for his oldest son, a son he imagined would one day return and take over and grow his textiles business, and solid, advantageous matches for his daughters. Unfortunately, he only had money enough to fund an education for Satish, or dowries for daughters. He chose the education and had instilled in Satish a strong sense of responsibility and family loyalty. It was Satish’s job to study hard, work hard and save money for good matches for his sisters.

  Satish had excelled at boarding school, excelled at Yale, and was now excelling as the youngest officer at Telco. At 35 he was already the Vice President of IT and on the radar of every executive, including the CEO. Satish’s life was work, and he had no time for anything else. Nandita’s emails to him were his only non-work related conversation, which was why it was especially distressing when all they did was make him anxious.

  He would put Nandita’s mail away for now. He would deal with it later. From what he understood from Phil Harley he had a more local problem that needed his attention. Phil had informed him this morning that he had a visit from that unpleasant sales support man Nick Hamner. Apparently Nick, in a particularly severe bout of sycophantism, had promised the new Global VP a new piece of internal software… in 5 weeks. Nick had informed Phil that the timeline wouldn’t be a problem. He told them they could just use the existing software and change all the labels to “Global.” Satish wasn’t sure how someone had reached Nick’s level and be so utterly ignorant. There was no way they could use the same tool - domestic sales was entirely different from global sales. To make matters even worse, he had ensured that the project would fail by promoting his secretary to collect and create the requirements. His latest empty-headed conquests (so the rumor went) had instantly become an entirely useless business analyst. Satish had promised Phil he would visit his office during the scheduled meeting to let the girl know that he was going to ask for her removal from the project.

  He pushed his chair back and picked up the only photo on his desk, two girls in intricately beaded silken saris woven in rich purples and reds. It had been taken at a wedding he had not attended, both were smiling widely. The girl on the left in the picture was probably the most important woman in his life, although they had never met. His glance didn’t even pause on her image but rested on his sister Nandita. He smiled at her fondly and shook his head.

  3

  Claire

  Claire was sitting

  on the edge of an office chair in a windowless cube straining to read the documents upside down in front of her. Maybe she could reach out and turn them around, but she dreaded that Phil Harley guy coming back in here and catching her.

  “Sorry, dude,” she imagined saying, “I was trying to get some clue about what the hell I’m supposed to be doing here!” She stared around at the piles of paper that covered every available surface in this rat’s hole. What was this guy’s problem? Didn’t he have a filing cabinet?

  Claire had rushed down to this office after her disastrous meeting with Nick. On arrival, she got a dismissive “hello,” from a guy who looked like an older, dirtier version of Seth Holmes. Seth had been the biggest, most unpopular nerd in her high school class, yet now he was the owner of a multi-billion dollar software company in Boston. There was a similar story in every high school across the country. For every Seth Holmes, five ex-Homecoming Queens were now working as secretaries and kicking themselves for not being a little more kind.

  “Phil Harley,” he said. One hand scratched the bridge of his nose to which he transferred a big black ink mark, the other was limp and damp in hers, “Are you the business analyst?” He didn’t wait for an answer, “I’ll be right back I just have to go and get the business case details off the printer.”

  He left the office, and Claire perched herself on the chair and got busy trying to read upside-down documents.

  She puzzled out enough of the paper on the desk to learn that even if it were the right way up - she still wouldn’t understand a word of it. There was a loud throat clearing behind her. Guilt made her jump.

  “I was just…” but she stopped in mid-sentence. The cube she sat in had no ceiling and the walls were only shoulder height, but alarmingly she suddenly felt as if she were sitting inside of an empty refrigerator box. This refrigerator box, in addition to being tiny and dark, also had no air. Then she realized she wasn’t breathing. Breathing would probably help. Those shoulder-height walls only came up to the waist of the sexiest man she had ever seen--who was now filling the cube “doorway.” This guy was no Phil Harley.

  As she turned around, she watched a scary stern expression dissolve into something else (was that confusion?). The tall man took a step backward and frowned. She swallowed hard. For a moment she forgot she was at work, forgot she was in promotion hell. She enjoyed that moment - but then she realized she wasn't breathing or talking and should probably be living in a different moment. This one.

  Sexy man recovered and took a step forward extending his hand. “Satish Bhatt. Pleasure to meet you.”

  Oh my God. Drop dead gorgeous, beautifully dressed, and an English accent? She gave him a surreptitious once-over looking for the inevitable faults: a bad haircut, ill-fitting pants, scuffed shoes? Nope. This guy was impeccable and obviously expensive. His shirt was Oxi, Oxi, Oxi white and tucked without a crease to his flat-front gray linen trousers. Claire enjoyed a micro-moment of imagining the flat, hard stomach that would enable that creaselessness but then stopped. That kind of thinking wasn’t appropriate for a work environment. But seriously, this kind of man wasn’t appropriate for a work environment.

  He ran his hand through his jet-black, shoulder-length hair and frowned again. Claire jumped up from her seat to offer her hand and watched amazed as it completely disappeared in his dark, firm grip.

  “You are?”

  “Oh gosh, sorry! I haven’t told you that yet, have I? I’m Claire. I just got promoted today, and I’m a little out of it. Not exactly sure what I’m doing, you know? Of course, I am going to do my best, but I’m thinking I’m going to have a lot to learn. I’m here to meet with Phil. Are you a friend of his?” Shut up Claire! Where were Sally and her Hershey missiles when she needed them?

  Satish brought his hand back to rub the frown from his face. He looked tired and stressed out. Claire fought an insane urge to reach and rub his arm in comfort. It was such a compelling physical reaction that she crossed her arms across her chest to stop herself from doing anything stupid. He still didn’t smile. She looked into his black eyes and felt a little jump in her tummy.

  “I’m Phil’s boss. You work for Nick, then?”

  Then it dawned on Claire with a fast sinking of her stomach. Satish Bhatt. Satish Bhatt! The only thing that Nick had said that she had understood and she had screwed it up already. Don’t talk to Satish Bhatt.

  “Yes. I.. I work for Nick.”

  “Lovely,” he sighed and rubbed his hand across the front of his face again. “Just what I needed.”

  Claire wanted to feel insulted - but all she felt was sorry that she had disappointed him. He looked sad. No, sad wasn’t the word, maybe it was alone. He was lonely. Claire caught her breath and wondered how she could feel tender toward a guy she had just met. Yup, that was it. She felt tender. Her tummy did a little jump again. She was nuts! She wasn’t even allowed to be talking to him, and now she felt tender for a guy that she worked with and was way out of her league. Sally might have a chance but…Hell, he wasn’t her type anyway. Men who looked like this one were always too arrogant for their own good. Although, truthfully, she didn’t get an arrogance vibe from Mr. Satish Bhatt.

  “I’m…I’m sorry for you,” she said. Satish frowned again. She desperately needed Sally and a whole package of Hershey’s kisses. She didn’t mean that she was sorry that she was completely incompetent and forced upon him by Nick. She was sorry for that of course - and even more sorry th
at she even worked for Nick. She realized she had been apologizing for his loneliness. She turned around and sat back down on the chair in front of Phil’s desk.

  Behind her, he coughed, and she heard his quick footsteps as he walked away.

  Oh My God! Had she been rude just then? Was that rude? Did he think she was rude? For some reason, she was having trouble corralling her thoughts enough to figure it out. She raised her hands to her head, intending to squeeze her mind into compliance through her temples and noticed her hands were shaking. Whoa, thought Claire, that was weird. Some stranger had just made her feel dizzy with nervousness. OK, he was good-looking, but Claire had never had any trouble talking to handsome men before. To be honest, she hadn’t been that interested. After her Mom had died when she was sixteen, the only thing she had focused on was her five-year plan. It must be her hangover, she decided. Time for some mid-morning grease to soak up that wine. She would just get through this meeting and then she would head to the cafeteria to hunt something down.

  Phil Harley hovered just behind his cube wall, unseen by Claire. Satish hadn’t noticed him either, he had stormed out and walked right past him. Phil had opened his mouth to say “hello,” but Satish hadn’t even registered that he was there.

  Fascinating, thought Phil. Something unusual had just happened to his fearless leader. Phil had been about to give Satish some news about Claire and this project. News that should make things fun around here. He was sorry he wouldn’t be around to see what happened next.

  4

  Satish

  Satish was irritated, and he wasn’t sure why. This confusion irritated him further. He looked at his watch, 10:15 am, he had 15 minutes before his next meeting. Just enough time to email and straighten out his sister.

  First of all, love is not the most important thing of all. Compatibility, shared values, and friendship are the most important things of all. Who better to select a Partner who meets these requirements than your Parents Nandita? If you marry Naveen, the worst that could happen is that you will spend the rest of your life with a good friend. If you marry Sachin and he meets none of the criteria established by Father and Mother, love may fade. If it fades, you will have nothing to fall back on. Don’t you think Nandita that it will be easier to spend a lifetime being pleasantly surprised by a love that grows naturally from mutual respect, admiration, and friendship than to spend a lifetime trying to keep the fire of infatuation burning? I know you feel as though you love Sachin, but Mother and our Father know what is best for you. You have a responsibility to the family Nandita. Naveen is a great match for you and a good match for the family – his father is Father’s partner. It will be excellent for the business to increase the good will and bond to join the families together. You are young Nandita – listen to your big brother. I miss you and wish I was there to help you.

  He pressed the send button. There. That had put it all back into perspective. He needed to focus on work and taking care of his sister.

  5

  Claire

  In sixth grade, Claire moved to Princeton. Her dad had recently retired from the Navy and moved into a career in strategic consulting for big pharmaceuticals. Kenneth Black was a serious man. In his eyes, life was a series of challenges to be overcome. Bad things happened to good people; bad guys bombed buildings, innocent people got caught up in wars, and mothers died.

  Claire’s mom, Lillian, had been the soft heart of the family’s hard, military shell. She had kept her husband laughing and her daughter giggling, and she’d made every move—of which there were many before Kenneth retired—into an adventure. Within just a few weeks of arrival, every new home had become a riot of color. New curtains, upholstered chair covers, cushions, and knitted blankets had been whipped up upon arrival with Lillian’s trusty sewing machine and a bottomless collection of fabrics. Claire’s dad nurtured that collection, as though it were an extension of his wife, and had brought home yards of gorgeous silks and brocades from exotic locations across the world.

  Only one item had remained the same in every location through every move: Claire’s bedspread. While she was pregnant with Claire, Lillian had spent six of the nine months of her pregnancy creating this piece of magic. Claire had moved it to her mom’s bed during her long, slow decline from breast cancer, and after her death, Claire had folded it, matching each corner carefully and placing tissue between each fold. She had opened the chest containing her mom's fabric collection and tucked it into the bottom stack. One day, she would feel strong enough to use it again.

  Claire was more like her dad. As a painfully shy and serious child, the life of a military brat seemed full of challenges and difficult to navigate. On her first day of sixth grade, however, her life had changed when she’d boarded her first big, yellow school bus. She had climbed the stairs with leaden feet, staring back at her mom who waited, smiling hugely, on the sidewalk. She had spent the morning convincing—or trying to convince—Claire that this was going to be the greatest day of the rest of her life, which had been one of her mom's favorite sayings. Claire had turned into the bus aisle, and a hand had shot out and pulled her into the front row seat. It was Sally, with her cascading, golden hair, natural smile, and buckets of confidence, who had instantly taken the shy but exotic Claire under her wing. Even attending different colleges had not kept them from speaking every day.

  “So, what are you going to do about this situation?” asked Sally.

  “What situation?” Claire snapped herself out of her current train of thought. She had been remembering an olive-skinned hand skimming through midnight-black, glossy hair.

  “This promotion disaster!” Sally started switching things off: computer, printer, lights.

  “It’s not a disaster, Sal—not if I can do it right.”

  “What? I thought we had already agreed that you were going to sabotage this.”

  Claire laughed. “Sal, you mentioned sabotage, not me. I can’t sabotage. I need this job. It’s okay—I think I can do it. I’m sure I can handle Nick, and I think I can do this project if I do some research. I can’t disappoint everyone, can I?”

  “Disappoint who, Claire?” asked Sally. “Your dad thinks every decision you make is genius.”

  It was true. Although her dad had been serious, disciplined, and strict in her youth, he adored her. He truly believed she could do no wrong. “Follow your heart, honey,” he would say. “That is what your mom taught you that I couldn’t have. That’s what she would want for you.”

  “I don’t want to disappoint people—just people—okay? Will you help me?”

  “If you insist, my love, but I need a smoke first. I’ll meet you out front, slowpoke.”

  Claire turned back to her computer and started to shut it down. Before Sally had appeared, she had been staring at the clock on the screen, willing it to turn to 5:00 pm, and willing Nick to not finish his phone call until after she and Sally had escaped for the night. Tonight, they were meeting the Bitch Clique at the Green Knoll, and despite her still-lingering hangover, Claire’s tongue was yearning for the sweet slide of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay. She needed it today.

  After the unnerving and embarrassing encounter with one of the most prominent men in the company, the rest of the meeting with Phil Harley had been a complete disaster. She hadn’t been able to figure out his deal, but between the printer and his cube, he had gotten weirder. He kept looking at her sideways, giving her creepy little grins, and nodding at her while saying, “Uh huh.” Was he hitting on her or trying to tell her he knew she was clueless? All she knew was that it was impossible to figure out her role in this project. Phil had handed her a copy of the business case, so she had been trying all day to get through the complex language filled with acronyms and system names she didn’t understand. She wasn’t even sure she had identified the project she was supposed to be working on.

  Her catalog of growing problems was only exacerbated by the fact that Nick had decided, in spite of her promotion, that she was still his admin. She had
been running around after him all day. He’d even had her run down to the cafeteria to buy him lunch while he was in a meeting, which turned out to be a golf-planning session with two of the male senior managers on his team.

  She would be okay, though—she had to be; she couldn’t bear the thought of making Satish Bhatt any sadder than he already looked. Claire grabbed her purse and turned to leave.

  Nadia, with pinched and feathery, bright red lips, was standing in front of her with one hand wrapped around the straps of her fake Prada handbag and the other gripping the handle of her bulging laptop case on wheels. She was the undisputed godmother of the Bitch Clique—and that wasn’t in the fairy context, but that of the Mafia. She ruled the office admin team, or as Sally and Claire preferred to call it, the Bitch Clique.