Page 45 of Just Not That Into Billionaires

That was fine with me; I actually thought it was funny, but James didn’t. He felt strongly that I should get a divorce and find a true mate. He didn’t believe that I liked things the way they were.

It was one of the few things we didn’t see eye to eye on.

I check Spencer in at the front desk. This is something that Mac should be doing, but it’s important to me that I do it, at least for a while longer. Spencer is excited, wagging his tail with the force of a jackhammer. They told me that he’s made friends here. I’m glad about that, because that first month after James died was as rough on him as it was on me. He still looks for James when we go out onto the sidewalk and it fucking breaks my heart.

I head back down, sneaking in a few shots of nasal spray. My allergies go crazy when I ride with him.

Alverson has the backseat dog blanket stowed away in the trunk by the time I’m back at the limo. Between the nasal spray and weekly dog washings, I’ve been able to make it work, allergies be damned.

I drop my stuff off in my office and handle a few quick fires before heading down to the lab. I put on shoe covers, a head covering, gloves, and a sterile gown and I go in, resisting my impulse to walk quickly, to put all the confusion and mayhem behind me; some of these instruments and projects are so tiny and sensitive, even air currents disturb them.

I stop by to see how some of my people are faring with the project that we’re working on, which involves enabling the microrobots to scavenge power from surrounding vibrations in a novel way.

I’ll miss this team. They’ll be taken off this thing and reassigned. I don’t like abandoning this project, but that’s how it has to be.

I set up at my workstation, complete with vibration-isolation surfaces where sensitive instruments and projects are held up by air currents, or, as Francine would put it,literallyheld up by air currents, to guard against the ambient vibration of a city full of active subways and jackhammers.

I’m going at the same problem I’ve been going at all year—one tiny problem in a whole series of dominos.

People tend to get annoyed with me when I won’t stop going at a thing, when I won’t stop hammering at it. There have been many times where I’ve kept at things long after everybody else has given up; usually it’s wasted effort, I’ll admit, but every now and then I’ll get a result, just from pure dogged persistence.

This particular project will likely amount to nothing and no sane company would continue to fund it without results by now, but I feel like I can solve it, and I can spend the time. For now. That’s one of the beauties of owning your own company.

Needless to say, I’m getting it out of my system; once I sell, I’ll need to spend a year sticking to Protech corporate goals, and I’ll have to work these kinds of projects on my own time and in my own space. I tell myself that I’ll have the money after that to fund my own lab.

Though I do already have my own lab. That’s the thought that’s been creeping into my head ever since Francine pointed out my hatred of working for people.

It’s funny—I’m constantly questioning assumptions in the world of robotics and technologies and nanoparticles, but I rarely turn that questioning toward myself or the larger picture of where I’m going.

James used to tease me about my lack of introspection. “You never stop and think about what you’re doing or feeling, you just soldier ahead.”

Maybe it’s true. What I do know is that with his leadership abilities gone, selling is the logical next step. Yes, he was dead set against the sale when it came up, but he’s not here, and I can’t be both him and me. I can only be me.

Much as I don’t want to work in somebody else’s lab.

I get to work and the hours melt away; I don’t even break for lunch. Suddenly it’s four in the afternoon and my neck is aching and my body needs to move, so I leave the sterile cleanroom environment for the world of dusty shoes and bagel crumbs and uncontrolled humidity and temperature.

Aaron’s outside my office when I get there. “You look terrible,” he says, referring to my irritated eyes.

I blow him off with a grunt and lead him into my office, sneaking in a few discreet puffs on my inhaler.

“That shit’s not good for you to take that so much,” Aaron warns.

“It’s fine.”

“You promised you’d take care of him, not that you’dpersonallytake care of him,” he says, referring to Spencer, of course. Aaron’s a big one for the path of least resistance.

“I’m not pawning Spencer off on somebody he doesn’t know. It’s hard enough on him as it is.”

“You find him another nice owner and he’ll never know the difference.”

“He’s a dog, not a fish,” I say. “He’ll completely know the difference.”

Aaron grumbles his dissent.

I sit. “What’s up?”

“Look, about that Protech dinner. The girl came through for us, I’ll be the first to admit it,” he says, though actually the last to admit it. “You were right to pull her in, but it’s time to cut her loose. Every day that you don’t sign those divorce papers is a day that we’re exposed to her taking a piece of the sale. She could hurt both of us.”

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