Emma gets a fresh Indian-American twist from award-winning author Sonali Dev in her heartwarmingly irresistible Jane Austen inspired rom com series.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from the first chapter of Sonali Dev’s The Emma Project, which is out now!
No one can call Vansh Raje’s life anything but charmed. Handsome—Vogue has declared him California’s hottest single—and rich enough to spend all his time on missions to make the world a better place. Add to that a doting family and a contagiously sunny disposition and Vansh has made it halfway through his twenties without ever facing anything to throw him off his admittedly spectacular game.
A couple years from turning forty, Knightlina (Naina) Kohli has just gotten out of a ten-year-long fake relationship with Vansh’s brother and wants only one thing from her life…fine, two things. One, to have nothing to do with the unfairly blessed Raje family ever again. Two, to bring economic independence to millions of women in South Asia through her microfinance foundation and prove her father wrong about, well, everything.
Just when Naina’s dream is about to come to fruition, Vansh Raje shows up with his misguided Emma Project… And suddenly she’s fighting him for funding and wondering if a friends-with-benefits arrangement that’s as toe-curlingly hot as it is fun is worth risking her life’s work for.
Vansh Raje wasn’t hypocritical enough to see his life as anything but charmed. Handsome: Vogue had declared him the most gorgeous of his siblings, and even he wouldn’t argue populist opinions about beauty with Vogue. Smart: Not book-brilliant like his siblings, but cleverer than all of them put together, as his grandmother always assured everyone, and who would argue with a grandmother about the intelligence of her grandchildren? Rich: that, of course, was the most tangible of labels, so no reinforcements of proof were necessary.
Add to that a loving—fine, make that doting—family, and a contagiously sunny disposition that was his greatest asset, and Vansh had made it halfway into his twenties without ever facing anything to throw him off his admittedly spectacular game.
“Well, don’t you look all pleased with yourself, Baby Prince,” Naina Kohli said. She had known Vansh his whole life and had the only voice on earth that had this particular impact on him. A potent combination of reprimand and amusement that made Vansh want to wipe his face like a toddler caught eating dirt, while also making him feel like no one else ate dirt quite as impressively as he did.
“And don’t you look resplendent, Knightlina,” he said, raising his glass of celebratory bubbly at her.
A flash of anger slipped past her guarded brown eyes. She hated her given name—enough to have legally changed it at eighteen. Vansh was the only person on earth who got away with using it anymore. And he only used it when that tone of hers made the otherwise nonexistent orneriness bubble up inside him. Then she smiled and did a quick half turn showcasing her charcoal gray silk pantsuit.
“Not bad for the spurned ex, ha?” she offered.
“Not at all bad for the spurned fake ex,” he countered.
She shrugged as though she cared not a bit for anything, least of all that distinction. They drank to that, and took in the night sky reflected in the pool on Vansh’s parents’ estate. Naina had chanced upon him here after Vansh had made his way to the private alcove behind the pool house to get away from the thousand-odd guests celebrating his brother’s historic election win.
Yash, Vansh’s oldest sibling, had just won California’s gubernatorial race in one of the closest elections in recent history, also known as a bloodbath. Or that’s how it had felt in that last week of campaigning when Yash’s opponent had dropped the gloves and every modicum of decency and gone after Yash as a liar, a cheat, and when nothing else worked, as a foreign-funded, idol-worshipping philanderer.
The only reason Yash had been able to pull off the win was because he’d convinced the people of California that he could make law and order work without compromising social justice. Yash had brought the leaders of the Black justice movement and the police union leaders to the negotiating table. A meeting Vansh had pulled together for Yash, thank you very much, because Vansh had been friends with the leader of the union from his Peace Corps days.
“Do you think they have something a little stronger? Or a lot stronger?” Naina asked, her always self-possessed voice slipping slightly as her eyes widened with disbelief.
Vansh followed her gaze to the couple who rounded the corner into the private alcove. It struck Vansh that Naina had probably also been looking for some privacy when she’d found her way here. Which was obviously precisely what his brother and his girlfriend were looking for as they came into view, hands all over each other, making out like horny teenagers, entirely unaware of Vansh and Naina tucked away out of their line of sight.
Desperate sounds of arousal escaped from them as they tugged at each other’s clothes and hair.
Vansh almost cleared his throat—he probably should have—but he was frozen at the sight of this new version of Yash’s. India said something, and laughter shivered through the two of them in a way so intimate Vansh stepped in front of Naina to protect her from it.
It had been barely a few months since Yash had, very publicly, left Naina for India Dashwood just weeks before the election, effectively risking his lifelong dream of becoming the governor of California to be with India instead of Naina. A fact that Naina seemed to be reliving with every cell in her being given how hard she was trying to appear nonchalant.
With another possessive moan, Yash pushed India into the wall and she arched her body against his. This uninhibited, reckless Yash couldn’t possibly be the tightlaced brother Vansh had grown up in the shadow of.
Taking care not to look at Naina, Vansh cleared his throat loudly enough to break through whatever pheromone-fueled idiocy had gripped the newly elected governor at this very well-attended party.
Yash and India jumped apart with all the force befitting two usually uptight people caught in the act of quasi-fornicating in public.
Pushing India behind him, Yash spun around to find Vansh trying to channel their mother and glare without glaring. If Naina had not been standing next to him, Vansh would have been rolling with laughter. This was the sort of thing comedic writers spent hours workshopping. Vansh had spent four months, years ago, working with a friend on his sitcom. It had sounded like much more fun than it had turned out to be, and they’d never come up with a situation nearly this ludicrous.
“Naina.” India was the first to break the mortified silence. Flaming cheeks notwithstanding, her voice was calm and filled with warmth. This was not a surprise. India had the sort of Buddha vibe Vansh had seen monks in Dharamshala aspire to with little success. “Vansh. I hope you’re both having a good time,” she added, doubling down on the yogic vibe.
That made Yash press a cough-laugh into his fist. God, was this really his brother?
India threw what could only be called the fondest glare at Yash, who seemed to be tearing up with the effort of containing his mirth. To be perfectly honest, if Vansh met his brother’s eyes they would both burst into laughter.
“Oh, we’re having a great time,” Naina said, with every bit of the elegant drollness Vansh associated with her.
“Although not nearly as much fun as we interrupted,” Vansh said before he could stop himself and gave up on holding his laughter back. “What the hell, Yash? This is literally a political party thrown by your political party.”
“We just needed a moment,” India said, her blush deepening. “It’s been a lot.”
Yash sobered and slid a protective arm around her. “The worst of the circus is over,” he said, his statesman shoulders widening with purpose. “Campaigns are the worst part. Now the press will shift its focus to my work. They’ll leave you alone. I’ll make sure of it.”
The relief on India’s face was palpable.
Naina’s body stiffened infinitesimally. She covered it up with more of that determined breeziness and smiled kindly at India.
Before anyone could say more, another intertwined couple turned the corner into the private alcove that was turning out not to be so private after all.
“I’ve been waiting for you to use your gavel all evening, Your Honor.”
God, please, no! Those were the last words on earth Vansh ever, ever, wanted to hear his oldest sister say to her judge husband. Ever.
Yash, who was generally not the sort of guy who snorted with laughter, snorted with laughter so violently that Nisha and Neel jumped apart like someone had fired a cannon.
Nisha’s hands pressed into her face. “No. No. Nononono. What the hell are you all doing here?”
“Not waiting for Neel to use his gavel, that’s for sure,” Yash said, still howling like a hyena. Which, to be fair, Vansh was doing as well.
Nisha charged at Yash. Neel grabbed her around her waist. As a circuit court judge (with a gavel), Neel obviously saw enough crazy shit on a daily basis that he was entirely unfazed by any Raje family shenanigans.
He held Nisha in check while laughing into her hair, and in the end she broke down and started laughing too, embarrassed though the laughter was.
“If either one of you tells anyone, I’m going to chop you into little pieces and pass you through a mulch shredder,” their sister threatened.
“Who let her watch Fargo?” Vansh asked, and Neel looked heavenward.
Ignoring the question, Nisha disengaged herself from her husband and threw her arms around India. “I’m so sorry you’re stuck with my evil brother,” she said with the kind of gleeful affection that indicated exactly how thrilled she actually was that India was stuck with their brother. Then she noticed that Naina was also there.
Until this moment Vansh had believed that Nisha had inherited their mother’s talent for absolute discretion. Nisha had a veritable toolbox of expressions under which she hid anything she didn’t want others to see. But a blast of such extreme discomfort and confusion at Naina’s being here flitted across Nisha’s face that she couldn’t seem to identify exactly which mask-expression to use to cover it up.
Nonetheless, she made a valiant effort. “Naina,” she said only the slightest bit late, and Vansh hoped Naina hadn’t noticed.
Letting India go, Nisha turned to Naina, unable to decide how to get away with not hugging Naina now that she had greeted India so effusively. Nisha obviously did not feel the same way about their brother’s ex as she did about their brother’s current girlfriend. Most of the family blamed Naina for trapping Yash in a loveless relationship for ten years.
“Great to see you, Naina,” Neel said, saving the day with his signature warmth and circuit-judge
equanimity, and gave Naina a friendly hug. “I heard you’ve moved back to town permanently.”
“Sure have.” Naina returned Neel’s hug and then let Nisha give her a quick, and hella awkward one.
Before the awkwardness could settle on them in earnest, Vansh noticed a bottle in Neel’s hand.
“Is that scotch in your gavel-wielding hands, Your Honor?” Vansh asked, raising a brow at their stickler-about-these-things sister. Nisha was the one who’d given strict instructions for a California-wine-and-California-bubbly-only party.
Nisha was about to charge at Vansh when more sounds drifted in from the corner of horny doom that his siblings had evidently withheld from Vansh his entire life.
Ashna and her boyfriend entered the alcove already in a lip-lock, which at least made it impossible to say something incriminating that the others could use to embarrass them for the rest of their lives.
“Does anyone have a glass?” Neel asked as though they were at a bar watching a game.
In what was now starting to feel like an overdone off-Broadway comedy, Ashna jumped away from Rico, who had his hands halfway up her very prim dress.
Vansh dumped out his remaining overpriced yet not nearlybstrong enough bubbly into the bushes and offered his glass to Neel, who poured a healthy serving from the bottle.
Naina was the only other person with a glass, and she chugged her wine and held it out for a fill.
“Hey, everyone,” Rico said as though getting caught with his hands and his tongue all over his girlfriend with a large majority of her family watching was the most ordinary of things. This perfectly described Rico Silva.
Ashna was their cousin, but Vansh didn’t ever remember thinking of her as anything but his sister. After Ashna’s parents’ separation, she’d pretty much grown up here, on Vansh’s parents’ estate in Woodside. Sometimes Vansh thought Ashna was more part of the siblings than he was.
Face flaming red, Ashna snatched the glass from Vansh and took a mighty gulp. “Where’s Trisha?” she asked calmly enough.
Vansh’s other sister, Trisha, was the only one who was missing from the now crowded alcove. All eyes turned to the corner, as though everyone expected Trisha and her boyfriend, DJ, to appear.
“I’m calling her,” Nisha said. “She’s probably running around trying to find us to keep the aunties and uncles from cornering her and DJ and asking when they’re getting married and making babies.”
A phone started ringing and they all looked down at their pockets and purses. Then everyone seemed to register that the ringing was coming from inside the pool house. Just as that realization sank in, the door pushed open and out stepped Trisha and DJ.
