Chapter 3

For four straight days, Mason stayed almost annoyingly attentive. A lot of the time, before I even had to say anything, he had already taken care of whatever I needed done.

Not only had he actually clawed that one-thousand-dollar travel reimbursement back from Linda, but every time we had a meeting, he made sure coffee and neatly printed materials were already set in place at my seat.

By Friday, the Dallas project had entered its final stage, and I needed to fly out in person to lock down the final materials pricing with the suppliers.

The night before I left, Mason parked himself in front of my desk and eagerly patted his chest. "Ethan, please, you've got to let me come on this Dallas trip. I can carry your bag, drive, handle the schedule—whatever you need. I won't get in your way. I just really want to see how you land a client this big!"

Sarah, who was nearby reviewing reports, pushed up her black-rimmed glasses and shot him a cold look.

I stared at Mason's face, full of sincerity.

After a moment, I said, "Fine. You're coming."

A flicker of barely concealed excitement flashed through Mason's eyes, and he nodded eagerly.

Thirteen hours later, in Dallas, at an upscale restaurant downtown.

Tonight was the final welcome dinner before the formal signing. Inside the private dining room, the supplier directors from the two core factories were seated across from us at the long table.

But the moment dinner started, Mason began acting strange.

"You must be Mr. Ford from Quality Control, right? I've heard so much about you. I have to drink to that!" Like some social butterfly, Mason smoothly squeezed over to my right side, lifted his glass, and started talking over me to the supplier reps across the table.

For the next half hour, he completely ignored his promise to carry bags and run errands.

Any time one of the suppliers brought up a topic, he jumped in immediately, parroting the buzzwords I'd used in our company slide decks.

"Exactly—supply chain resilience has always been a top priority for us in Los Angeles..."

"I completely agree. We can offer the most competitive payment terms..."

He weaved around the dinner table with practiced slickness, and more than once, he cut me off in a way that was painfully obvious.

Sitting to my left, Sarah frowned deeply. Several times, she looked ready to step in and stop this ridiculous overreach, but each time I shut it down with a look.

I said nothing, and I didn't lose my temper.

I just calmly cut into my steak and watched Mason perform.

That was, until Mr. Ford across the table dabbed his mouth with a napkin and threw out the most fatal question of the night.

"Manager Mason sounds very impressive, but under Option B in the agreement, if upstream production capacity tightens next month, what exactly is your warehouse hedging ratio?"

In that instant, the private room went completely silent.

Mason froze with his wineglass hanging in midair. Beneath his slicked-back hair, a thin layer of sweat began forming across his forehead.

Those polished PowerPoint lines of his had never covered the underlying calculations.

"Well... uh, about that ratio..." Mason stammered, trying to throw me a look for help.

I set down my knife and fork, took my napkin, and wiped my hands without even looking at him. "Four point seven percent. And for all backup inventory, we offer only a fourteen-day interest-free turnover window. If it routes through Dallas, anything beyond that is billed at two-tenths of a percent per day."

Mr. Ford dropped the polite facade and fixed his eyes on me. "Ethan, you're clearly the one who knows what he's talking about. We'll do it your way."

Mason's face went from pale to flushed and back again. By the time the dinner ended, he didn't dare cut in one more time.

Late that night, at the hotel in Dallas.

I had just loosened my tie when someone knocked on my door.

Urgently.

When I opened it, Mason was standing in the hallway. The swagger he'd shown at dinner was completely gone, replaced by exaggerated humility.

"Ethan, I want to sincerely apologize for what happened tonight at dinner." Mason lowered his voice, his tone full of regret. "Once I get excited, I can lose my sense of boundaries. I just wanted to learn more about the project and grow as fast as I could. I really wasn't trying to steal your spotlight."

I leaned against the doorframe with my arms crossed and listened.

When he saw I wasn't responding, he pushed his performance even harder.

He gritted his teeth and switched tactics. "Ethan, if you're really disappointed in me, or if you think I'm not fit to support you... just say the word, and I'll buy myself a ticket back to Los Angeles first thing tomorrow morning. If you want me to resign on the spot, I won't say a word against it."

"Resign?" I finally spoke. "If you want to go back to L.A. and clear out your desk, you can book your flight right now. Don't use that kind of line to test where my limits are."

The muscles in Mason's face twitched hard.

"This industry doesn't care about tears or apologies. The only reason you were sitting at that table tonight was because I allowed it. Next time you decide to act on your own, make sure you actually have the ability to clean up the mess."

Even though I was still angry, I wasn't about to let emotion interfere with the bigger picture.

Watching him stand there, crushed to the point he couldn't get a word out, took the edge off most of my anger.

"Tomorrow morning at eight, go to the lobby business center and print out all the legal settlement documents. If you screw it up, don't bother coming back to the office."

With that, I slammed the door in his face.

Before I could even turn back toward the couch, the door to the room right next to mine opened out into the hallway. Through the gap in my not-quite-shut door, I heard Sarah's voice. She knocked, and I opened the door again to let her in.

Sarah was holding a stack of reconciled data sheets, her expression extremely serious.

"Ethan, you need to watch that idiot." Sarah lowered her voice, her eyes clear with warning. "When dinner ended tonight, I saw him use the excuse of going to the restroom to stop the supplier's VP in private. He was even secretly writing down the suppliers' direct contact info and their floor quotes."

Her meaning was clear. Mason's ridiculous little performance tonight had only been cover. Behind the scenes, he was building his own channels, trying to go around me and get the supplier relationship chain into his own hands.

At that, my eyes went completely cold.

"Got it," I said. "I'll handle it."