It doesn’t matter that I may have kept my job. I deserve my job. And the promotion.

I’ve always come to work on time. This was literally the only time I’ve ever been late, and it was just a little late, on a weekend. And it wasn’t my fault. I tried to tell that to Mason — about the truck’s failure, hoping Riley didn’t share something similar, with a nonsexual twist, when she got home — but he wasn’t willing to hear a word. I don’t remember everything he said because I was too busy staring at my navel and playing shamefaced, but there was something about how a real man doesn’t make excuses. About how a real man always has contingencies for the things that are important.

But interestingly, I don’t even think he was rebutting my truck defense. It sounded like he didn’t believe me. Like the moment I started to explain, he was waving his hand to waft my bullshit away from his sensitive nose.

Insulting.

Condescending.

By the time I got home, I’d almost decided to quit.

Fuck Mason James. Fuck his company. Let’s see what happens if I quit. Not only will the Stonegate project fall apart; he’ll see how much crap I was holding together. Stuff I wasn’t even responsible for. Stuff I handled because it was wrong and needed to be right, and no one would fix it but me. I should do it just to make him beg. I should stalk off and let everything come crumbling down, then see if his opinion of me changes.

Let’s see what kind of deal he gets on the land he’s considering without my insights. Sure, the survey and zoning specialists nailed their assessments, but there’s one thing I meant to bring up in that meeting as a gotcha that I’m sure nobody’s mentioned: The city is planning to repaint the water tower visible at the east end of the land’s view. Everyone with a north-facing window, looking into the beautiful valley, is about to get an eyeful of garish yellow blight once the paint job is finished. It’s not front and center, but people who pay what Mason wants them to don’t want something like that even in the peripheral vision of their luxury home.

I figure it’ll cost him $10,000 per unit in resale value, on ambiance alone.

Given the planned three hundred or so units, that’s $3 million. If they’re capitalizing the land at 10 percent, which they may or may not be, that’s at least $300K, maybe a half million less that Mason should be paying. And knowing Mason, he’ll get it to at least a million. Everyone knows Life of Riley is staking out the land on the hill near the creek, and if they mysteriously pass, every other developer will think twice.

The financiers won’t hurt as much as the seller, but it’s not exactly a lending boom right now. The banks act like they have all the power, that they’re not willing to lend their precious money and that therefore everyone should beg. But the truth is that banks have to lend or they die, and that it’s them in desperate need — for someone like Mason James, who’s a safe credit risk and willing to assume massive loans.

Let’s see how this deal goes without me.

Let’s see how the Stonegate project would do without me.

Let’s see how any of what I touch at Life of Riley will fare if I walk out, calling Mason’s high-goddamn-handed bluff.

By the time I got home, I was about ready to hit the bar despite the hour. I had women I could call, too, and I almost did. I don’t need any James. None of them. They want to pile atop me, make me feel like crap? They want to tell me I’m useless and unwanted? I’m used to it. I’ve grown immune.

But then Bridget texted me. And after I deflected some questions and apologies about the whole stupid, botched incident, I managed to ask about her business, and if she thought she was on track to start again after her vocal cords recovered.

I managed to ask what I really wanted to know without seeming too obvious, I think.

But of course, it looks like Bridget’s check will be delayed again, and she won’t be paid for another week or two beyond what she’d last heard. Because that’s just my luck. And I’m bone fucking dry.

So much for the repayment I’m sure Bridget would insist on making right away.

So much, accordingly, for my sense of pride.

I didn’t go to the bar.

I didn’t call any of the women I know would love to make me feel better, and I’m not sure why. It’s not like I’d have to pay them. It’s not even like I’d need to buy them dinner. That’s free sex, and it’d let me get lost for a while in the press of warm flesh.

But I must be seriously bummed out because I called no one.

I didn’t call Mason to tell him to fuck off. Or leave a message for him to fuck off when he got back to the office, at his convenience.

I watched TV. For now, TV is free.

On every station, it seemed, there was a woman to remind me of Riley. Even on the skin channels. Especially on the skin channels. Someone has her legs. Someone has her tits. Someone has blonde hair. Someone looks nothing like her, but she’s on a beach, and I’m sure for some reason that Riley loves the feel of warm sand on her skin.

And now here I am at work. On time, like a chump. Wearing one of my nice shirts, again because I’m a chump. I feel for the entire morning like I’m walking around bent over, so willing to do whatever the company needs of me, no matter how degrading.

I’m in charge here, so I guess it says nothing, the way nobody has told me to leave. But there’s been no call from Margo or anyone else at the office asking for one of my foremen and wondering why I’m here instead of the unemployment line.

I do my job and slowly decide that the minute I can afford it, I’ll march back into Mason’s office and demand the vice presidency. It’s that, or I quit. And I’ll mean it. Because the longer I sit here, picking up the slack nobody else ever picks up, doing my job better than anyone else does theirs, going above and beyond without recognition, the angrier I get.

Mason treated me like a criminal. He didn’t give me the benefit of the doubt. He did exactly the opposite. For some reason, I was guilty until proven innocent. He wouldn’t listen, as if he’d already decided I wasn’t just late because of something reasonable, but was instead because I’d been busy robbing a liquor store.

Or having angry sex with his daughter.

But he doesn’t know that unless Riley told him. So as soon as Bridget’s check comes in and I get my money back, I’ll turn the tables. I’m going to demand a promotion, or I walk. I’ll make a list of everything I do, everything that would be dead if I hadn’t intervened. And I’ll shove it down his throat.

I’m out of here. I had a naive love of this company, but I’m over it now. The company doesn’t love me back, or it would believe in me.

“Hey, boss,” Shaun’s voice says from behind me, in the small trailer that functions as our on-site office. “Someone to see you.”

I see Shaun standing beside a tall black man when I turn, wearing clothes that are nicer than mine. He’s vice president of finance at Life of Riley, and I’m pretty sure his name is Marcus. I’ve met him before, but it was in the hurly-burly of the office tour a thousand years ago, back when I’d thought I might get a vice presidency myself.

I swallow my anger. Marcus is just a guy like me, doing a job. And today, he’s probably here to ask for mine.

We shake hands, and I fake a smile.

“We just stopped by to get your projections, as we talked about last week.”

“Projections?”

“You said you were on schedule and under budget.”

I understand his words, but they don’t make sense. When I talked to Marcus, he’d been gathering information from Mason’s candidates for vice president of Land Acquisition. It was kind of like a live resume, or a reality show contest. Whoever looked best, with the best credentials, won. But Marcus must not have missed the memo: I’m now persona non grata in Mason James’s eyes … or at least persona not worth trusting with real responsibility, like that of a company VP.