Chapter 2Your Future Belongs in My Trash Can

I pulled open my desk drawer and retrieved the brand-new voice recorder I’d bought for meeting notes. Now, it was my only weapon. I slipped it into my jacket pocket.

A cup of coffee landed on my desk. It was Spencer Wells, my boyfriend of three years, who outranked me by one level.

“Dahlia said you’re quitting?”

I didn’t look up. “Yep.”

“Because of the salary thing?”

My hand paused. I looked up at him. “You know about it?”

He hesitated. “I know.”

“What is your monthly salary?” I’d never asked him directly, seeing as we weren’t married yet, but now I was consumed by curiosity.

Spencer’s eyes darted away. “Three hundred thousand. But I’m a Project Manager. You’re just a Project Liaison. We’re in different tiers, of course it’s different.”

I held his gaze.

“You were promoted to Project Manager at the beginning of this year. But your salary hasn’t changed for two years.”

“I started managing the company’s key accounts the year before that. My five percent raise put me at sixty-six thousand. That’s less than a quarter of your pay.”

“I know every project in this company inside and out. Every stage requires my sign-off. Without me, this whole operation would shut down before the afternoon, and not a single product would go out the door.”

“Spencer, I am more important to this company than you are.”

He frowned. “So what? Ability doesn’t dictate pay, Rich does. Go talk to him if you’ve got the guts.”

I stood up. “You’re right. I absolutely will go talk to him.”

I needed an answer for my six years of life.

I walked toward the elevator immediately. Spencer looked stunned, rushing to intercept me.

“Jenna, don’t do anything reckless!”

I ignored him, pressing the call button.

As the elevator climbed to the fifth floor, my mind was flooded with memories of my time here.

In 2022, fresh out of college, I met Rich Kingsley—then thirty-seven—at a job fair. He was just starting out, short on cash, but bursting with passion.

“Jenna,” he’d said, “we’re just a handful of people now, but we have a dream and we’re willing to grind. Come join us, and I promise you’ll never regret it.”

I believed him.

That first year, the company was housed in a cramped apartment. The summer was suffocating, the winter brutal. As the only woman on the team, Rich made a show of looking out for me. He’d slip me an extra five hundred dollars every month, calling it a “hardship stipend.”

“Jenna, an Ivy League graduate like you, I’m putting you through hell,” he’d said.

At the time, everyone else made four thousand, but I started at six thousand.

The second year, the company stabilized. We moved into a modest office in a commercial building. I got my first real desk. Rich was thrilled on moving day, grandly announcing a five percent raise for me—three thousand dollars—by year end.

That same year, Spencer joined. My subordinate. Base salary: eighty thousand dollars.

The third year, I worked non-stop for two weeks, turning in sixteen different proposals. I successfully secured the Summit Group contract, earning the company a massive payout and finally putting us on the map.

My reward? A cheap, mass-produced plaque, and the responsibility for all the company's major project liaison work. Rich clapped my shoulder, his voice heavy with significance. “Jenna, I knew I was right about you. The future of this company rests on your shoulders.”

That year, I was twenty-five. My salary was sixty-three thousand.

In the fourth and fifth years, my project list grew, and the company took off, renting four floors of a corporate tower.

I lost my office, however, because Spencer was promoted to manager and needed the space. I remember Rich, now sporting a beer gut from constant client dinners, his eyes perpetually yellowed and cloudy from drinking. Oily.

“Jenna, don’t blame me. This promotion is strictly about utilizing your talent with the clients, not tying you down to a desk.” Rich puffed on his cigar, playing the concerned mentor. “Spencer came later and hasn’t closed any deals, but he’s a man. He’s better for schmoozing, and frankly, when dealing with the junior staff, a man commands more respect, right?”

I was so naive then. I figured he had a point. I didn't love sitting in an office. As long as the boss valued me, what was a Project Manager title, anyway?

Now, hearing Spencer's self-assured claim—*“We’re in different tiers”—*I felt like a complete fool.

The elevator arrived at the fifth floor.

I took a deep breath, walked to Rich Kingsley’s office, and knocked.