Be With Me in Silicon Valley: The Juliette Trilogy (The Princesses of Silicon Valley - Book 3)

by Anita Claire

  The Princess of Silicon Valley – Book 3

  Be With Me in Silicon Valley

  The Juliette Trilogy

  By

  Anita Claire

  Be With Me in Silicon Valley

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination, or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Editing by LisaCerasoli

  Cover design by Robin Ludwig Design Inc., http://www.gobookcoverdesign.com/

  Text copyright © Anita Claire 2014, All rights reserved

  Contents

  Chapter 1 – The Next Week

  Chapter 2 - Work

  Chapter 3 – Hita’s Thing

  Chapter 4 – Catching up with the Princesses

  Chapter 5 - Pizza

  Chapter 6 – Celebration

  Chapter 7 – Date Prep

  Chapter 8 – Dinner

  Chapter 9 – Stay … Just a Little Bit Longer

  Chapter 10 – The Morning After

  Chapter 11 - Swimming

  Chapter 12 – Horse Back Riding

  Chapter 13 – A Matryoshka Doll

  Chapter 14 – Turn up the Heat

  Chapter 15 – Do we Have Time for Dinner?

  Chapter 16 – Cassie … Again

  Chapter 17 – Good Clean Fun

  Chapter 18 - Breakfast

  Chapter 19 – Running at Rancho

  Chapter 20 – Watching Football

  Chapter 21 – Booty Call

  Chapter 22 – Back to Work

  Chapter 23 – Happy Hour

  Chapter 24 – Someone’s Saying Things

  Chapter 25 – Nate Stops By

  Chapter 26 – Skipping Swimming

  Chapter 27 – Cocktail Dress

  Chapter 28 – Party Prep

  Chapter 29 – Dinner at the Bosses House

  Chapter 30 – Hanging Out Together

  Chapter 31 – Girl Friends

  Chapter 32 – Nate’s Place

  Chapter 33 – Dinner with Dad

  Chapter 34 – Zach

  Chapter 35 – The Tech

  Appendix – A - Books in “The Princess of Silicon Valley” series

  Appendix – B- Characters

  Author’s Notes

  Chapter 1 – The Next Week

  When I get home from work, Cassie’s watching Keeping up with the Kardashians. I’m convinced she thinks this show is how normal people behave as opposed to it being a window into depravity.

  “Hey, girlfriend. I haven’t seen you since you took off to help your mom.” I say as I plop myself down on the couch.

  She smiles. “Last minute, Luke decided to fly me to his game. I had so much fun hanging out with the wives and girlfriends.”

  “The guys at work said he was injured.”

  She rolls her eyes, “He looks like road kill after every game. I figure if he can still get it up he can’t be too bad.”

  Laughing at that imagery, I say, “The next time the guys ask me how Luke is, I’ll tell them he’s fine since he can still get it up.”

  Cassie raises her eyebrows. “Do they really ask you about Luke?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “It must be fantasy football or something. I just tell them, you hang at his place, and we never talk about football.”

  “I think this is the closest we’ve ever come to talking about football.”

  “I think this conversation is more about sex.”

  Cassie nods in agreement. “So, more about sex…?” She gives me one of her sexy looks. “Did you get some with your hot man from the other night?”

  Giving her a pouty face, I confess, “He took off to a family Thanksgiving in LA. I’ve only received a couple of texts since.”

  “He sure was into you last Wednesday. I hope there isn’t a girlfriend back in LA.”

  My breathing catches. I never thought about that. Now my paranoia has skyrocketed. Watching about ten minutes of the show, I don’t register any of what’s going on, or maybe not much has gone on. I don’t know.

  As I get up to head to bed, I tell Cassie, “On Saturday night, your hook up, Damien was hanging around in front waiting for you. He really freaked me out. I was out on a date and I thought he was spying on me.”

  Cassie looks nonplused. “I guess he was just hoping to get some more of this.”

  “Cassie, this isn’t funny. Stalkers are creepy guys.”

  She looks annoyed, “Yeah, he was blowing up my phone. I’ll tell him it was a one-time event.”

  “If he keeps blowing up your phone or if you see him following you, call the police.” I tell her as I head off to bed.

  I’m almost to my room when she calls out. “Hey, wait a minute. If Wednesday night’s guy was in LA, who’d you go on a date with on Saturday?”

  I just start laughing as I call back, “You’re not the only one with a busy social life.”

  In the morning after swimming, Zach is waiting for me by the gate. My breath hitches as I smile. I hope my voice sounds casual as I ask, “Hey, how was Thanksgiving with the family?”

  He shrugs then shakes his head.

  “What’s up?” I say as we start walking towards the parking lot. “Your last e-mail was rather cryptic. Is your project still a mess?”

  He shakes his head again. “Juliette, shit, my project blew up. They have me flying to London in a couple of hours.” He sighs, “I have no idea when I’ll be back.”

  “Oh, that sucks.”

  He nods, “I…last Wednesday was fun.”

  I smile, “Yeah, even if my roommate did interrupt us. Again.”

  We reach his car, he leans against it, then smiles, “Yeah, she does have amazing timing.”

  “Hey, keep me posted. Can you send texts? Do you have my e-mail?”

  He nods, and frowns, “Yeah,” then he shrugs. “We’ll get together when I get back.” His dimple lights up as he gives me a sexy smile, “We’ll make sure your roommate doesn’t interrupt.”

  I nod, then wonder if I should do something else. Finally, he bends over and gives me a light kiss on my lips. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Have a good flight.”

  Chapter 2 - Work

  At my desk, after responding to Nate’s flirty text, I check my e-mail. My boss, Roger, is getting in late and wants me to attend his eight a.m. meeting that Flint, our company’s founder runs. Showing up on time I get to watch Flint race in late. He’s followed by Terri, the blond who works for my VP, Sid. She seems intent on talking to him. Without stopping to take a breath, he brushes Terri off and starts the meeting.

  Roger has been tasked to attend this meeting so he can give our sales team status on the nasty bug I’ve been working on. When Flint finally gets to me, his lip curls up in a bit of a smile. I can tell Roger and Mark have already filled him in.

  Smiling I say, “We found the offending code, we’ve architected a fix. It should be out of the release group in the next few days.”

  The sales guys are quiet, except for this really mouthy one. “Really?” He skeptically says. “I can call my customers and tell them that it’s done?”

  Smiling I respond, “Once the release group updates our production servers you can.” There’s a real sense of satisfaction in making this pronouncement. Flint gives me no time to gloat as he continues with the meeting.

  At the end of the meeting, Flint has a c
rowd of people hovering around him. As he’s about to leave, he looks directly at me and says, “Juliette, walk with me.”

  Feeling my heart hit my feet from nerves, I quickly gather my things. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Terri giving me the hairy eyeball. As I try to remind myself to breathe, I think, why is she unhappy? All I can come up with is, at a meeting a couple of weeks ago she repeated my request to look again at the re-entrant library calls so we could find the problem. Maybe she thinks I should be thanking her for finding the solution? I’ll talk to Mark later so I can ask him about the proper work etiquette on situations like this. The last thing I need to create is an enemy.

  Hustling, I meet up with Flint at the door. He’s a fast walker, I find myself trotting to keep up. Flint brushes off some guy with a, “not now, catch me later.” Then he sets his sights on me. “How’d you figure it out?”

  Shit, I never thought of this. My dad is the one who figured it out. But how does an adult tell their upper management that they went to their dad for an answer? About all I can do is deflect by blurting out, “Terri brought it up in the last meeting.”

  Flint abruptly stops, causing me to overshoot; he grabs my arm to steady me as I start to trip. Internally, I cringe. I must look like a klutz; soon he’ll think I’m immature or even worse—a traitor. Dropping his arm from mine, he puts his hand on his hip as he glares down. “Terri doesn’t know the difference between a kernel and a library. There’s no way she came up with that. When I talked to Mark, he said you were the one that was pushing for us to dig deeper at re-entrant library calls. He actually said that on your own time you were going line-by-line through the code.”

  My blood pressure drops to fifty; I think I actually see black spots in front of my eyes. Having no ability for subterfuge, I take a deep breath. Gulping, I hear myself say, “Actually, it was my dad who figured it out. I told him I was put on the team to help nail down the intermittent problem. He asked questions about the behaviors we were experiencing. He said we didn’t look hard enough at the re-entrant libraries. He was guiding me on how to uncover the effected call.”

  Flint squints his eyes and says in disbelief, “your father?”

  Peddling backwards, I fill in, “He’s an engineering PhD with over thirty years in the Valley. I never showed him any of our code. It’s just I always talk to him about what I’m working on, you know, design and strategy.”

  “He figured it out just by hearing about the behaviors?”

  “Well, yeah, he said over the years he’s run into problems like this before.”

  Flint just shakes his head and starts walking. I call after him, “Am I still supposed to be following you?”

  He turns his head back, squints his eyes, and says, “no.”

  Scurrying back to my desk, I wonder if I’m going to get fired, my first day here was spent signing legal papers. It’s against the rules to talk about our software with someone who doesn’t have a non-disclosure.

  ***

  When Silicon Valley businesses tout their modern workspaces, they never discuss the downside. Being in an open office with a bunch of guys is kind of like being the only female on an all guy floor in college. The guys can be really clueless and irritating. As I pass Tom, my own personal letch, I find him staring at me in the creepiest way. Tom never says anything to me. Turning around, I catch him watching me. Glaring at him doesn’t curb this behavior, since I don’t think his eyes ever get higher than my shoulders.

  Ian is also in by now. It’s December. I was hoping the colder weather would force him to wear more clothes. I was wrong. Ian saw me and my roommate Cassie on TV when we were spotlighted at a pro football game. Now he’s smitten with her. He’s always saying inappropriate things and asking questions about Cassie.

  “Hey, Juliette, I have your roommate’s beer poster hanging up in my house. Think she’ll come over to personally sign it?” He asks.

  Shaking my head I respond, “Yeah, Ian, I just can’t see Cassie showing up at your place.” Realizing I should play nice since I have to work with him I follow up with, “If you bring your poster into the office, I’ll take it home and get her to sign it.”

  He frowns, turns around, and goes back to his work. No surprise. He just wants to meet Cassie.

  As I’m about to sit down I get beaned in the head by a Nerf football. Chris, one of the fantasy football guys, says, “Oh…sorry.”

  I pick the football up and throw it back to him saying, “Do I even want to know what you guys are up to?”

  Making myself comfortable, I focus on the simulation I was working on earlier. At some point, Roger calls my name. Heading into his office, he narrows his eyes as he looks at me. All I can think is, “Am I going to be fired?”

  “Your dad figured this out.” He says, sounding like Tony Soprano thanks to his Jersey roots.

  My jaw feels like it weighs two hundred pounds, and my stomach is in a complete knot as I nod, finally spitting out, “yes.”

  Roger continues to pinch his eyebrows together, then he nods, “And you didn’t show him any code, you just discussed the behaviors of the problems we’ve been experiencing?”

  Gulping, I continue to nod and say, “yes.”

  Roger shakes his head in disbelief, while I stand there waiting for the axe. Finally, he says, “you’re dismissed.”

  Is he firing me? He looks at my stricken face in confusion and says, “Don’t you have a simulation you should be working on?”

  I nod.

  He points to my desk and says, “Then get back out there and get working.”

  I feel relieved. I guess I’m not fired.

  After working at my desk for about ten minutes, Buddy, Mark’s German Shepard sneaks over and greets me by flipping my hand as I attempt to type. Buddy loves me. I’ve learned that the easiest way to deal with Buddy is to give her a warm welcome by scratching her nose and behind her ears, slapping her sides, and telling her what a nice dog she is. It’s also a relaxing break since Buddy really likes the attention, and I like dogs. Continuing with my work, I lose track of time until Hita IM’s me: Lunch.

  Hita and I have been friends since our freshman year of college when we were study partners. We cemented our relationship when a group of us attended the school’s Halloween parties as princesses.

  Chapter 3 – Hita’s Thing

  Having worked all day yesterday with Mark to get the code to the release group I missed out on the post-Thanksgiving conversation at lunch. On the way down to the cafeteria I ask Hita, “What did you wind up doing this weekend? I haven’t talked to you since Thursday.”

  Raising her eyebrows and giving me a secret smile she says, “I had a date.”

  “On Thursday you were complaining about no prospects,” I give her an appraising second look, “As in a real date with a real guy?”

  Hita playfully hits my arm. “How dare you insinuate that I don’t go on real dates with real guys.”

  This makes me bark out a good hard laugh. “OK, did he pick you up at your place and pay for the food, or did you just meet him at some gaming event and he followed you around for half the night?”

  Hita laughs, “Real date, real guy, real car.” Then she stops and gives me a flirty smile, “and a real kiss.”

  “WOW, Hita, good for you.” then I lean over and in a conspiratorial soft voice I ask, “Is he a good kisser?”

  She gives me a secret smile then winks.

  “That good.” I reply. “Where’d you meet this guy?” I ask. Then with a chuckle I tease, “Please tell me he wasn’t wearing a super hero costume when you met him.”

  Rolling her eyes she says, “Really? You’re going to go there?” Even so, I’m sure she met him at some geeky event, probably a gaming convention, or some all-night hackathon.

  We part in the dining hall. Hita’s a vegetarian; she has no interest in joining me as I stand in line at the BBQ station since I’m completely hooked on the pulled pork sandwiches. After getting my sandwich and some grilled veggies, I h
ead out to find my friends.

  Hita’s beats me to the lunch table. She’s joined Megan and Jessica. Megan works in our MarCom organization. One of her duties is to procure all our swag—logoed merchandise that’s handed out to employees and customers. Jessica works on the web design team. They both have added design flair to our engineering centric lunch group. As I sit down Hita shoots me a look. “You better stop teasing or you’re not going to get any of my juicy gossip.”

  Jessica pipes in, “Is it considered gossip if you tell other people about yourself?”

  Hita gives Jessica an annoyed look, “Everyone is so interested when Juliette tells us about one of her guys.”

  I bark out a laugh, “Really? You guys give me untold grief about getting my relationships to the next level.”

  Hita starts laughing, “Yeah, that’s true. While I’ve already had a nice kiss.” she says as she lifts up her eyebrows on the word kiss. “At this stage, you’d be all angsty as you try to figure out his name.”

  Megan breaks in, “We’ve heard all about Juliette: her swimmer and doctor. Come on Hita, give us the details. Where’d you meet? Where’d he take you? What’d you guys do?”

  With a satisfied smile, she tells us, “I met him at this thing.”

  Chuckling I say, “When Cassie says ‘thing’ she means some high end event where there are rich guys and celebrities, how come I think your definition of ‘thing’ is different?”

  Hita laughs. “Hey we hung out on Friday and he took me out for dinner and a movie on Saturday.” Focusing all her energy on me, she says, “He picked me up in a real car. We ate real food, and he gave me—” she stops, gets a sassy smile on her face. “And he gave me a real steamy kiss.”

  “What is all this real about? What else can you have besides a real car, food, or kisses?” Megan asks.

  I start cracking up as Hita points her fork at me while giving me the evil eye. Turning to Megan and Jessica, I say, “Hita had a cyber-relationship with her college boyfriend. Their avatars went on virtual dates together. Brandon would pick her up in his cyber car, take her to cyber restaurants, and they’d share cyber kisses.”