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“He’s probably going to fire me for telling you this, but you deserve to know,” she says. “In college, Ronan dated my roommate, Chelsea. I was dating this guy named Mike, and the four of us became good friends. Mike and Ronan were both kind of crazy and loved outdoor sports, so we did a lot of stuff on the weekends—hiking, rock climbing, that sort of thing. Nothing like what Ronan does now, of course. Anyway, we had a climbing trip planned. Ronan and Mike scoped out a location out in the middle of nowhere. We were excited, because our usual climbing spots were getting really busy. At the last minute, I had to cancel because my mom had to go to the hospital, but I insisted the rest of them go. I told them they could find out if the location was any good, and we’d all go the following weekend.”
Sarah takes a deep breath and re-crosses her legs. “They left early in the morning, and the route was up this mountainside on a road that was barely a road. I don’t know why they swerved. Ronan wasn’t driving, and he always said he didn’t see. But they ran off the road, and there wasn’t anything on the side. It was literally a cliff. The car rolled all the way to the bottom.”
“Oh my god.”
“Yeah, it was bad,” she says. “Mike never regained consciousness. Ronan tried to revive him and when he couldn’t, he did his best to keep him hydrated while he waited for help. Chelsea was awake for a while, but they determined later she was bleeding internally. There was nothing Ronan could have done. He had a broken arm, and cuts and bruises all over. Even with climbing gear, he couldn’t get back up to the road. Not that it would have mattered. There wasn’t any other traffic. They were too far out.”
“Chelsea didn’t make it?” I ask quietly.
“No,” she says. “I don’t know how long she lasted, but I’m pretty sure he stayed with her for a long time after she was gone. Eventually, he figured he had to move or he was going to die, too. I was at my folks’ until well into the following week, and it wasn’t until Tuesday that anyone even knew they were missing. We got a search party going, but I only had a vague idea of where they went. There was so much ground to cover.”
“How did they find him?” I ask.
“A trucker picked him up on the side of the road, and called 911,” she says. “He walked thirty miles in two days to find a highway with traffic. He was dehydrated, sleep deprived, and injured, but he was alive.”
Sarah pauses and takes a deep breath. “He was never the same. He was always pretty adventurous, but after that, he started taking bigger and bigger risks. Rock climbing turned into cliff diving, which turned into skydiving, and BASE jumping, and who knows what else. His family was afraid he was trying to kill himself, but he always insisted he wasn’t. He pushes himself in every aspect of his life. He takes risks no one else will take, and he does it without flinching. When he took over Edge, everyone thought he was nuts. Same with buying VI. But he does that. He doesn’t see the world the way most people do anymore. If he’s not tackling some new challenge, he isn’t really living.”
Ronan makes a lot more sense now that I know what he’s been through—but Sarah’s story also confirms everything I thought about why he left me. “And I was a challenge. I was hard to get, and he couldn’t resist trying.”
Sarah’s eyebrows draw together. She looks uncomfortable. “I know that’s how it seems.”
“Are you really going to tell me that isn’t what happened?” I ask. “Did Ronan tell you everything about me? How we spent a night together before he moved to San Francisco? How as soon as he saw I worked for him here, he started pursuing me? How he pushed against all my boundaries, found loopholes in the rules I set for working together? He wanted me because I told him no.”
“If you were any other woman, I’d have to grudgingly agree with you,” she says.
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve known Ronan for a long time,” she says. “I’m well aware of how he is with women. And it’s nothing like how he was with you.”
I shake my head. “That’s what we always want to believe, isn’t it? That we’re the special one? With everyone else, he’s a player who gets what he wants and moves on. But with me? Oh, I’ll be different. Do you know how many times I’ve told myself that? How many men have screwed me over because I bought their bullshit? Ronan is not the first. But he’s certainly going to be the last.”
Sarah takes another deep breath. “I’m sorry, Selene. I really didn’t mean to stick my nose in your business. He’s just … he’s not okay. But now at least I know why.”
My heart aches at the thought of him hurting, and I’m angry at myself for caring. He should be hurt. He crushed me. It would be worse to hear he was happy, wouldn’t it? At least maybe I can believe he misses me.
No, I don’t want to believe that. I’ve been naive for too long.
“He’s probably just stressed about landing this contract,” I say. “We’re all working too much lately.”
“I suppose,” Sarah says. “Can I ask you one more question? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, and regardless of what you say, this is confidential. I won’t tell him.”
“Sure.”
“Are you going to quit?”
I look away. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I hope you don’t,” she says. “But I’ll understand if you do.”
“Thanks, Sarah.”
She smiles and leaves.
I wonder what she meant when she said Ronan isn’t okay. Does he regret what he said to me? Or is he just working too hard?
I’m tempted to go talk to him. I’m hurt and angry, but I can’t help that I still care about him. I glance at the clock. It’s after five, but I’m sure he’s still here.
I grab my things, but I head for the elevator. He made himself clear. I can’t indulge in any stupid fantasies about him changing his mind at the sight of me in his office. It’s been a week. If he had any doubts about what he said to me, I’m sure he would have told me by now.
