When the man I loved told me he was going to destroy the woman who had once saved my life, he smiled as if he were talking about winning a football pool.
Chapter 2
Rachel knew something was wrong the moment I picked her up Friday morning.
Normally she climbed into the back seat talking. She could go from quarterly projections to a new restaurant to whether her father should finally stop wearing the same navy blazer in less than sixty seconds.
That morning, I barely said hello.
She watched me in the rearview mirror. “Okay. What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Daniel, you’re driving seven miles under the speed limit.”
I glanced at the dashboard.
She folded her arms. “You only do that when you’re upset.”
I pulled into a quiet parking lot beside a coffee shop and turned off the engine.
Rachel’s expression changed immediately. “Is somebody hurt?”
“No.”
“Your parents?”
“No.”
“Ryan?”
I looked at her.
She went still.
I told her everything.
I did not exaggerate. I did not protect Ryan either. I repeated his words as closely as I could remember them, including his comment about changed information and the upcoming project.
Rachel asked very few questions.
When I finished, she looked out the window for a long time.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
She turned back to me. “Why are you apologizing?”
“Because he’s my boyfriend.”
“You didn’t make him say those things.”
“I should’ve known he had this kind of anger toward you.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Exactly.”
She reached forward and rested one hand on my shoulder. “I know this wasn’t easy.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to make sure he can’t damage anything. After that, it’s not my decision alone.”
That frightened me more than if she had sounded angry.
“Will he know I told you?”
“Probably.”
I closed my eyes.
Rachel squeezed my shoulder. “You can change your mind. We can stop this conversation here.”
I looked at her in the mirror.
“No,” I said. “Do what you have to do.”
By three that afternoon, Ryan had been called into a meeting with his manager, human resources, and the company’s internal security director.
By four, his access to company systems had been suspended.
By five, he had been fired.
I was home when he arrived.
He did not knock. He used the key I had given him and came through the door like a storm.
“You told her.”
I was standing by the couch. “Yes.”
“You actually told her.”
“Yes.”
He threw his keys onto the table so hard they bounced onto the floor.
“I begged you not to do it,” I said. “You told me you were going to sabotage her.”
“You got me fired.”
“You got yourself fired.”
“Don’t give me that garbage.”
He paced across the room, his face flushed. “Do you have any idea what this does to my career? They’ll never give me a recommendation. I had four years in that company.”
“And you were willing to throw it away to humiliate someone.”
“Because she deserved it!”
“No one deserves to have their work deliberately sabotaged.”
His eyes narrowed. “You picked her over me.”
“I picked not helping you hurt someone.”
“Same thing.”
“No, Ryan. It isn’t.”
He stared at me for several seconds. Then his voice softened.
“If you love me, prove it.”
The words should have sounded vulnerable.
Instead, they frightened me.
“How?”
“Quit.”
I almost thought I had misheard him.
“Quit what?”
“Your job. With Rachel.”
I laughed once from sheer disbelief. “You cannot be serious.”
“And stop seeing her.”
“Rachel is my best friend.”
“She’s the reason I lost my job.”
“You are the reason you lost your job.”
He stepped closer. “You betrayed me for her. Now I need to know where your loyalty is.”
I looked at this man I had slept beside, cooked for, worried about, introduced to friends, and imagined growing old with.
Then I heard myself say, “You’re asking me to give up my best friend and my livelihood because you got caught doing something wrong.”
“I’m asking you to choose your relationship.”
“I shouldn’t have to.”
“Then there’s your answer.”
He grabbed his jacket and left.
The door slammed hard enough to rattle the framed photographs on my wall.
For the next two days, he texted constantly.
He told me I had ruined his future. He said Rachel had manipulated me. He said wealthy people like the Ashfords bought loyalty because they were incapable of earning it.
Then he would switch.
He missed me. He loved me. He couldn’t believe I was throwing away eighteen months over one mistake.
That word began bothering me.
Mistake.
A mistake was forgetting an appointment.
A mistake was saying something careless in anger.
Ryan had formed a plan. He had described what he meant to do. I had begged him not to do it. He had refused.
That was not a mistake.
That was a decision.
Once I admitted that, other memories started returning.
About a year earlier, Ryan had applied for a promotion. One evening he had asked me to “put in a good word” with Rachel.
I had refused to lobby for him but told Rachel he was interested in the position.
He did not get it.
For several weeks afterward, Ryan complained that she had no appreciation for talent. Six months later he received a different promotion, and the anger seemed to disappear.
At least I thought it had.
Now I remembered another conversation.
We had been dating only a few months when he asked whether Rachel talked about confidential work issues in the car.
I had laughed.
“Of course not.”
“Never?”
“Not anything sensitive.”
“What about acquisitions?”
I had assumed he was making conversation.
Another time, he had asked which executives Rachel trusted most. Another time, what her father thought about restructuring the operations division.
I had answered vaguely or not at all, but I suddenly saw a pattern I had never considered before.
I called Rachel Sunday evening.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
“When Ryan and I first started dating, did you think it was strange?”
There was a pause.
“Strange how?”
“That he worked for your company.”
“I thought it was inconvenient.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes. Why?”
I told her about the promotion and the questions.
Rachel grew quiet.
Finally she said, “Daniel, don’t torture yourself by rewriting every good memory you had with him.”
“What if those memories weren’t what I thought they were?”
“That’s something only Ryan can answer.”
I knew she was right.
And suddenly I needed that answer, even if I hated it.
