With the way things were going, he figured he’d be ready to hand over the keys to its next owner in another four months. Maybe three, depending on how fast the crews were at the construction site.

If this condo was nice, what Vin was building on the banks of the Hudson River was going to make the duplex look like subsidized housing. He’d had to buy up a half dozen old hunting lodges and camps to get the kind of acreage and shoreline he wanted, but everything had fallen into place. He’d razed the shacks, cleared the land, and dug a cellar hole big enough to play football in. The crew was framing now and working on the roof; then his fleet of electricians would install the house’s central nervous system and his plumbers would put in the arteries. Finally, it would be the detail crap with the counters and tiles, the appliances and fixtures, and the decorators.

It was all coming together, just like magic. And not only about where he would live.

In front of him, on the glass-topped table, was the velvet box from Reinhardt’s.

As the grandfather clock in the hall struck midnight, Vin sat back into the sofa cushions and crossed his legs. He was not a romantic, never had been, and neither was Devina—which was only one of the reasons they were perfect together. She gave him his space, kept herself busy, and was always ready to hop on a plane when he needed her to. And she didn’t want children, which was a huge plus.

He couldn’t go there. Sins of the fathers and all that.

He and Devina hadn’t known each other for all that long, but when it was right, it was right. Kind of like buying land to develop. You just knew as you stared over the ground that here is where I need to be building.

Looking out at the city from a perch high above so many others, he thought of the house he’d grown up in. Back then, his view had been of the crappy little two-story next door, and he’d spent a lot of nights trying to see past where he was from. Over the din of his mother and father’s drunken fighting, the only thing he’d wanted was out. Out from under his parents. Out of that pathetic lower-middleclass neighborhood. Out of himself and what separated him from everyone else. And what do you know, that was exactly what had happened.

He infinitely preferred this life, this landscape. He’d sacrificed a lot to get up here, but luck had always been with him—like magic.

But then, the harder you worked, the luckier you got. And damn everything and everyone, this was where he was going to stay.

When Vin checked his watch again, forty-five minutes had passed. And then another half hour.