The meeting was at nine AM.
Ray had known about it for six weeks — had been tracking the timeline with the specific attention he gave things that mattered, the quiet vigilance of someone who understood that the difference between winning and losing a contract of this magnitude was usually not the proposal but the relationship. The proposal was already perfect. Had been perfect for three months, drafted and redrafted by the best infrastructure consultants money could retain, reviewed by his legal team, pressure-tested by people whose entire job was to find the weakness before someone else did.
The proposal wasn't the variable.
The relationship was.
And the relationship, he was confident, was solid.
