The Promise Read Online Free PDF Page A

an illicit affair with? she wondered briefly.

    'Name, please?'
    'Shambhavi Sen and Tutul Jain,' Tutul replied.
    'I'm sorry-there's just one name registered with usShambhavi Sen.'
    'So, what do we need to do to get her in?' Shambhavi asked, pointing towards Tutul. She was alarmed; she would not be able to handle it without Tutul's help.
    'I'm afraid you would need to get another appointment,' the assistant said, with a fake-apologetic expression on his face.
    'And how soon can we get that?'
    'Well, I'm not sure how much you know about the way Mr Datta operates, but he does not agree to many personal meetings.'
    'But we-' Tutul began, but Shambhavi stopped her.
    'It's okay,' she whispered in her ear. 'We don't have much hope anyway. Let me see if I can convince him, but I don't think he is going to be that flexible.' She turned to the assistant, 'When can I go in?'
    He spoke over the intercom briefly and showed her the way to his boss's office. As soon as she got inside the office and the assistant closed the door behind him, Shambhavi got confused. She was standing right in front of a man-a well-built one, slightly older to her in age and with a glum look on his face. She turned to look at the door she'd come in from and then back at the man.
    'Ms Shambhavi Sen?' the man asked.
    'Yes,' she smiled nervously. She had no reason to be nervous around a man she did not even know, but for some weird reason, she was. She wished Tutul was inside with her. 'Hi. You must be ... Mr Datta's ... son?'

    'Technically, yes.'
    'Oh, hello. It's a pleasure to meet you. Umm ... Where is your father? I have a meeting with him.'
    'He died when I was seventeen,' the man replied curtly.
    'What? I mean-I'm sorry ... for your loss.' She was shaking in her shoes. How had Tutul missed to fill her in about Mr Datta Senior's death and Mr Datta junior's succession?
    'Don't be. It was a long time ago. Been twelve years.'
    'Umm ... okay. So, I should discuss my proposal with ... you, right?' she asked.
    'Yes. Sit.'
    She looked around and sat down on one of the royal looking sofas placed across from where Mr Datta sat down. There was no revolving armchair and no teak desk with a glass top. The room looked like a king's living space, with green and silver curtains, complementing the silver carpet and bottle green furniture. She felt like she had entered a time machine and come right through to the eighteenth century, into a king's manor.
    But she had no time to gawk at her surroundings, starryeyed. She looked at the man sitting in front of her and wondered if he always spoke so sternly and shortly. She calculated him to be twenty-nine years old. And if he was seventeen when his father died, then Mr Datta Senior could have been something around forty years old. That's an early death. She thought that maybe that's why Mr Datta Junior had reconsidered meeting her when he got to know about her own father's medical condition. But it still did not make sense- he did not seem to be the kind of marshmallow-ish person she had pictured. There was something off. All the small snippets of information she had gathered did not fit together to form a big, clear picture. She would have to wait for a while and ask Tutul about it when she got out.

    'So?' Mr Datta asked.
    Shambhavi put her business mode on. 'I have a clientowners of a mansion here at Indore, which we want to convert into a bed-and-breakfast. I need to get customized furniture for them. I have done my research-I know the quality, cost, kind of goods your company manufactures. And I am interested in offering you the sole contract for the interiors of the mansion in question. I will be giving you details about the kind of furnishing I have in mind and consider your suggestions, if any. If this was any other company, I would simply have talked to the employees working under you to get this done. But I have been told that at DE, you build the first sample of every design yourself and it is put into manufacturing