Unstoppable
Lisa-Marie Cabrelli
Galahad Press
For Emily – My Unstoppable Heroine
Contents
1. Dumped?
2. Reckoning Time
3. Maureen’s Fan
4. Bitches Are Back
5. Oh, Satish
6. Here Comes Sally
7. Meet Misty
8. Squad
9. #RelationshipGoals
10. The Angel
11. Dinner At Eight
12. Chicken
13. Here Comes Mo
14. An Invitation
15. Uh Oh
16. Mo’s Gonna Go
17. Better In the Bahamas
18. Lovely Day for a Drive
19. The Lauren Belle
20. Trouble in Paradise
21. Out of Depth
22. Past Life
23. Mo
24. Who’s That Girl?
25. The Note
26. Apology Accepted
27. Arawak Cay
28. The Boat Guy
29. Step-Uncle
30. TMI
31. Playing With Fire
32. Mysterious
33. Just Maureen
34. Hijacked
35. Paradise
36. Not a Nice Guy
37. Let the Fun Begin
38. White Knight
39. Consequences
40. Bad Influence
41. Water’s Edge
42. This
43. Joy
44. Storm is Brewing
45. I’ll Wait
46. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
47. An Escape
48. Whisked Away
49. Blockade
50. Running Away
51. Lauren Belle
52. Drastic Times Call For…
53. Let’s Make a Deal
54. At Last
55. Going Down
56. Closer
57. Oh, Nandita
58. Boys Are Back in Town
59. Goodbye, Lauren Belle
60. Water’s Edge
61. The Lit Chicks
62. Nandita - Bad News
63. Nandita – The Green Mile
64. Claire – The Stalker
Also by Lisa-Marie Cabrelli
Acknowledgments
About the Author
1
Dumped?
“You’re breaking up with me?” Maureen put the drink passed to her by Phil only moments before gently on the table.
Phil sat sideways on the lounge chair next to her, resting his elbows and forearms on his knees. His face flushed. “Well, were we actually an item?” he asked hopefully.
Oh no, she was not letting him off the hook that easily. “Were we actually an item, Phil? Seriously?” She turned in her neighboring lounge chair, mirrored his stance, and stared at him hard. “I have been coming here nearly every day after work for like two months.” She picked up her drink, ignored the bendy straw, and took a big gulp, making the ice clink. “I have stayed over here the last two Fridays. For God’s sake, Phil, I hosted your last luau!”
That had been a horrible day.
She looked past his head at the tacky surroundings and sighed in dismay. They sat under a porch overhang draped in lights—not the pretty, subtle, white fairy lights she adored, but gigantic, garish, colorful bulbs. In every corner, there was a big metal tub with “Joe’s Feed Store” or “Budweiser” or some other commercial platitude stamped across the front. On the weekends, the tubs were packed with ice and Coors Light.
The view out to the pool could have been quite lovely, as Phil’s garden was lush and obviously well-tended, but the three monstrous grass tiki huts with fluorescent beer signs were a jolt to the senses. If she didn’t already know the pool was a sparkling clear blue, since she'd cleaned it plenty of times, she wouldn’t have been able to tell; every inch of its surface was covered in toys, from a floating basketball net to a blue plastic whale and even a blow-up doll.
Phil was a thirty-year-old bachelor. He had always been a bachelor, but he was also kind and a good conversationalist. Even if he wasn’t traditionally handsome, she had to admit that, once you got to know him, he had kind of a scruffy charm.
“You’re right, Maureen. I’m sorry,” Phil said, hanging his head sheepishly. “I’m sorry to do this to you, I am, but… I don’t know." He picked at the lint on the lounge cushion, avoiding her eyes. "I don’t think I’m the boyfriend type. I feel like I haven’t been working enough during the week, and you know I don’t want to let Satish down. Also, I miss the guys. I mean, I skipped poker last week. I know you didn’t ask me to, but I felt bad, since you were already here and I had forgotten to tell you.”
Maureen had a mean thought: this entire situation was Satish’s fault. She was glad she hadn’t said it out loud—it would have given Phil plenty of reason to break up with her.
They both worked for the same company, Telco. Satish was their boss, and to be honest, if he didn’t work at Telco, Maureen wasn’t sure she would still be around. There had been some trouble with an evil, misogynistic, manipulative employee, Nick, a few months ago. It was Satish who had gathered the evidence to get the guy fired and save Maureen’s job.
The fact that she was even dating Phil was all Satish’s fault. He had dragged in his trusty sidekick to help him with the Nick situation and Maureen had been impressed with Phil’s loyalty and his willingness to help others. In fact, she had so much gratitude for him that, when he expressed interest in her, she’d kind of felt obligated to stick around.
And look where she was now. She was sitting in a plastic lounger with a red slushy drink, trying to figure out how she could possibly go wrong with a messy, homely, mama’s boy like Phil.
“It’s hard to listen to you complain about work, too,” Phil continued. “I mean, Satish is doing his best to find you a position that is a match for you, but you have to remember you are new to the department and you have to pay your dues.”
Now Maureen was worried. Was she complaining about work? Did it seem like she was complaining? She jumped in to explain. “I’m sorry if it sounded like I was complaining, Phil. Honestly, I am. But I have only told you how I feel about work, so I hope you haven’t told anyone else. You know I’m bored—I have nothing to do.” She felt a little flustered. Did she seem ungrateful? She looked down at her fingers and blushed—a habit she was trying to control. “I’m sorry if it came out sounding ungrateful.”
Phil must have sensed a quick exit from this conversation because he stood and picked up her drink. “Well, to be honest, Maureen, it does seem a little ungrateful after everything Satish has done for you. I know you don’t mean it, but I would rather not be around the negativity. You’re a sweet kid, though, so hopefully we can still pal around at work." He paused for a second and then added, "You know you are always invited to the luaus.”
The luaus. Oh, thank God she wouldn’t have to miss the luaus. “Okay, Phil, thanks,” Maureen whispered as she gathered her things. “I’ll see you around.”
2
Reckoning Time
Okay, Phil, thanks? I’ll see you around?
Maureen pounded on her steering wheel, furious with herself. Seriously? It was times like these that she knew she had more than earned her nickname of Mousy Maureen. She never spoke out, never stood up for herself, and why was she always apologizing? Well, she decided, things were going to change. After all, you couldn’t get dumped by the most ineligible bachelor in the company and not realize it was time for a reckoning.
Her friend, Sally, had teased h
er endlessly about Phil, and she’d been right: she wasn’t with Phil because she chose him, but because she thought he had chosen her. She had stuck with him for all these months, even suffering through one of his mindless, drunken, embarrassing luaus in an effort to convince herself, and everyone else, that they were a real couple. Well, she’d had enough. She pulled around the corner, out of sight from Phil’s house, and dialed her best friend, Claire. She needed a pep talk.
“Remind me again why I was dating Phil?” Maureen asked as soon as she heard Claire’s voice.
“Why you were dating Phil?” Claire replied, “Uh-oh.”
“Yeah, uh-oh! Even worse, I just thanked him for breaking up with me!”
“Oh, Maureen.” She could hear Claire trying to suppress a laugh, so she tried to see the funny side. It just made her feel like crying.
“Why am I such a mouse, Claire? Why can’t I be a strong, confident woman like you or Sally?”
“Trust me, Maureen, you are strong,” Claire said. “Listen, I wouldn’t even be where I am today without your strength. Saving us from that horrible Nick situation was all down to you. Unfortunately, you give all your strength to other people and don’t save enough for yourself." She paused. "What happened with Phil?”
Maureen could hear the sewing machine buzzing in the background and realized she had caught Claire during a work session. Thanks to her incredible talent, her friend was the owner and creator of the most fabulous boutique in Hoboken. Once she got into her creativity zone, it was hard to tear her attention away from whatever beautiful fabric she had under her needle. It was a miracle she had even answered her phone.
Claire was wrong, though: her success was not all down to Maureen. They had teamed up to fight the sexual predator, Nick, and she had leaned on Claire equally during the “Nick the Dick” scandal. Now she was her closest confidant.
Maureen hadn’t had many friends growing up. Shyness combined with a big, fat brain that caused any words out of her mouth to make her sound like a know-it-all, were not character traits admired in the halls of Hell called Middle School. No one had given her much of a chance to come out of her shell, and in a small school where people stuck around, your reputation traveled with you from year to year.
She had been Mousy Maureen since the fifth grade. Nothing had changed much in college. She had gone to an all-girls school, so she’d felt a little freer out from under the glare and judgment of hormonal teenage boys, but she’d still retained her wallflower tendencies. While around Claire and Sally though, she felt confident and accepted. It was only in their presence that she felt free to be herself: Mousy Maureen with a sprinkle of wit, spark, and snark.
She rolled down her window, trying to let in some of the dull August breeze. “Ugh. Basically, Phil said he preferred being a bachelor. He also said I complain too much about work. Do I complain too much about work?”
“I don’t think so, but then again, I hardly listen when you start talking about work, anyway. I get enough of that from Satish.”
Claire was Satish’s girlfriend—no, fiancée. Maureen smiled as she thought about her favorite couple. They were almost impossible to be around—not in the “why don’t they get a room,” sickening kind of way, but in the “why can’t I have that” kind of way. They adored each other and everyone knew it, although Satish was still trying to figure out the emotions in public part. He was and had always been a reserved, introspective guy; it was fun watching him struggle between his natural habit of keeping his emotions buttoned up and his discovery that some feelings make you just want to scream to the world.
“Well, he said I talk about work too much and that I am negative, but I’m just so bored, Claire.” Maureen was getting hot, so she shoved her arm out the window and tried to wave some of the air into the car. “That day we settled with Telco and I got my promotion and all that cash, I was more excited about the job than I was about the money. So far, though, it has been a total dud. Maybe that is all I talk about. Maybe I’m boring and maybe that’s why Phil broke up with me.”
“You’re not boring, Maureen, and something will happen with your job—I know it will. Could it be that they are just trying to find you the right thing? Why don’t you demand an assignment from Satish?”
“Demand, Claire? I can’t demand anything from Satish—he’s my boss!” Maureen gave up and started the car, so she could turn on the air-conditioning. So much for being discreet.
“Satish is your boss, but he is also your friend. He would understand how you feel. Maybe he doesn’t always catch on to subtle cues, but if you come right out and tell him you are bored and demand something interesting to do, he will have to pay attention to you. Don’t be Mousy Maureen, be Magnificent Mo!”
Maureen laughed out loud—mostly with nervousness. "What do you mean, Magnificent Mo?"
Claire sighed, and she heard the clack of the machine coming to a stop. "It's all there for you, Maureen. You have everything you need to get everything you want. You just need to be more confident. If you think of yourself as Magnificent Mo, a braver version of yourself, maybe that would help." The machine started up again. "I don't know, maybe that's bad advice. I just hate to see you so frustrated."
Maureen was silent as she considered Claire's words. Her current situation couldn't get much worse. Now that she had no relationship, she might as well focus on her career. Confronting Satish was terrifying, but maybe not such a bad idea. Could she do it? Could she be Magnificent Mo?
"You're right. What's he going to do, fire me?"
He could, squeaked a little mousy voice inside of her. She squelched it. She would do it. She would go to Satish’s office first thing tomorrow morning and demand (oh, how that word made her wince) a better position.
3
Maureen’s Fan
Satish had come in early for this last chance meeting with Ron. Claire had been a little upset about missing their morning coffee chat when he left her in bed this morning, and he hated upsetting her, but today was do or die. He wanted Maureen on this project; she had been working hard on the minor assignments he passed to her while waiting for this project to start, but he could sense her frustration. Before Claire, he wouldn’t have noticed Maureen’s dissatisfaction, too focused on the work, but learning how to tune in to Claire’s generous and rampant emotions had awakened him to the feelings of others in a new way. Engaging with the world had become so much more compelling.
He had been waiting for the right project for Maureen for some time: a high-visibility opportunity with which she could prove her skills and commitment and impress those who questioned her judgment and reputation. Nick Hamner deserved every indignity that he had suffered—no one knew that better than Satish—but the mere mention of sexual harassment caused many of the men in the company to dash in the other direction and Maureen was tainted. Plus, there was the fact that she had chosen to be involved with Nick in the first place.
Satish’s opinion was that all of this had nothing whatsoever to do with business or Maureen’s clearly exceptional abilities as an analyst, but the gossip mill kept rumors spinning until something new and raunchier came along. Much to Maureen's disadvantage, it had been a quiet summer.
There was a knock on his office door and Ron came in. Ron Lakin was a Telco old-guard, suspicious of every employee who hadn’t worked for the company for more than twenty years and especially leery of these ambitious women who wanted to take over the office. Those were his negative character traits. His positive traits were, well, to be honest, Satish wasn’t aware of any positive. The man had one more negative trait that Satish was using to his advantage, though: Ron was hugely ambitious.
“Good morning, Ron. You are looking well.” That was a lie: he looked on the edge of a heart attack.
“Don’t bullshit me, Satish,” he mumbled as he lumbered over to the rolling chair in front of Satish’s desk and squeezed himself between the metal arms. “My doctor says I need to cut back on the red meat, but what's life without steak and b
aby-back ribs? Laugh with the sinners, instead of dying with the saints, right?” Satish nodded, although he had no idea what Ron was talking about.
“Did you have the opportunity to review the sample work I sent you” he asked. He noticed the stack of rolled papers in Ron’s left hand and hoped the visible creases meant he had taken the time to review them.
“Well, she is smart, Satish, I’ll give you that. I mean, billing is an incredibly complex system, yet she grasped the mechanics easily and relayed the requirements in simple terms, so even you IT guys would understand it.” Satish bristled at the backhanded compliment, but let him finish without interruption. “The billing guys can be tough, though, and her job would be to hound them until I get the reports I need in the format I need them in. A lot of them were Nick’s drinking buddies and they don’t look too kindly on one of their own getting caught. They will be especially tough on her. Are you sure she’s emotionally stable? I mean, after that Nick stuff and all.”
Unstoppable: A Sweet Romance (Jersey Girls Book 2) Page 1