Ren’s somber mood signaled to Kerry that his efforts to recruit her services had been a sort of Hail Mary pass aimed at remedying a situation that was a lot more dismal than she could have imagined yesterday when everything seemed utterly idyllic in Renato Montisi’s world.
Meanwhile, her mind was spinning. On one hand, she was utterly drawn to the life she’d glimpsed at the ranch, to say nothing of the sense that a magnetic force neither she nor Ren could explain was pulling them closer by the second. Still, the sensible, logical part of her brain told her that the notion of forsaking LifeStyleXer, and all its potential “upside,” as Charlie would surely term it, to come work for an enterprise teetering on the brink of apparent insolvency might prove to be the worst of both worlds.
No guts, no glory, Kerry m’girl!
Kerry refused to glance down at her ring. Why was life always so complicated, she mourned silently? So many things had piled on top of her and suddenly, it was all too much: Charlie’s betrayal... the sheer self-interest and meanness of Beverly Silverstein and the HR trolls she’d had to confront... her stupidity to have signed a contract she hadn’t read carefully... the loss of familiar surroundings and... most of all, the absence of Angelica’s calm presence. As Maggie Doyle once said: she just didn’t have the bandwidth to deal with it all! She grasped for a way to let Ren down gently.
“Your proposal is amazing and totally unexpected, but it would definitely cause an uproar where I work.” She took a large sip of her stinger to buy time to think, acutely conscious that Ren was gazing at her with unsettling intensity.
“Is what I’m proposing something you’d want to do if you weren’t in the situation you find yourself in at your company—and with your boyfriend?”
“Charlie Miller? Ex boyfriend!”
“Ex,” he repeated. “And glad to hear it. But on its own merits, Kerry,” he pressed, “what do you think of the idea of us working together to make the ranch self-sustaining and maybe even profitable?”
I would so love to do that...
There was no concealing the pure joy she’d felt cooking in that wonderful kitchen for people who cared about food as much as she did, or the satisfaction of being part of a team in a beautiful place like the Montisi Olive Ranch. But there were so many obstacles standing in the way, she thought, and they came rushing at her, one by one.
“Your offer is—in a word—wonderful,” she told him frankly, “but how can it work? Don’t you see, Ren? You’re asking me somehow to wiggle out of a binding contract I recently signed, forfeit my big pay day after LifeStyleXer goes public, and come to work for you at an admittedly shaky enterprise—just like that?”
“Yup. Just like that.” His demeanor had shifted and Kerry knew she was catching a glimpse of Renato Montisi, the hard-nosed executive. “We’re grown ups now, Kerry. We get to choose what we want. We also sometimes have to make hard choices.”
“Hard doesn’t begin to describe what’s happened to me in the last week.”
Refusing to offer sympathy, Ren asked baldly, “How much will they pay you for those carrot-and-stick stock options?”
“I get half a million bucks if I hang in two years past the IPO that’s scheduled immediately after New Year’s. After that, I’d get more stock, the longer I stayed... that is, if they still like what I do,” she amended, thinking of the contract’s clause stipulating that her supervisor could can her at any point.
“Well...” Ren considered slowly, “I didn’t think recruiting you would be easy, but... wow... five hundred K, plus. They must really think you’re one of their gold-plated assets—and they’re right.”
“Thank you. I never quite believed it myself.”
“I can see that.” Ren remained silent for a moment and Kerry could tell he was carefully considering his next words. “What if you didn’t quit your job, but simply came to live on the ranch and helped us out as much as you could until two years are up, when you could decide if life at the ranch suits a city girl like you?”
“You’d wait that long and risk my not giving you as much of my time as you need now to help fix things with the business?”
“Yes, I would,” he said. “I know you wouldn’t stint on what you committed to do for the ranch. That’s how much of a difference I think you could make in our enterprise.”
“Wow,” was all Kerry could manage to reply.
“I’ll give you the Mercedes so you can drive back and forth to the city.” At her look of astonishment, he shrugged. “I like driving the truck. You’d continue your routine as a food blogger and your other duties for LifeStyleXer... and given that you won’t be paying for rent or food at the ranch—and they’re paying you at least some salary to boot—I bet your company could get the W Hotel to make you a deal booking a room there two days a week. That way, you can be at the ranch Wednesdays through Sundays and only be locked up in your cubicle Mondays and Tuesdays!” he finished triumphantly.
Kerry wondered if Ren had stayed up all the previous night plotting strategy to convince her to take the job.
By this time, his signature grin had spread across his handsome features. “And here’s another bonus: I promise I won’t work you to death the first two years and we’d share the workload on new projects at the ranch, fifty-fifty.”
“Better make it more like eighty-twenty, with you doing most of the heavy lifting for a long while,” she cautioned. Then, recalling Angelica’s penetrating questions before she left New York, she asked Ren, “Oh. And if I said yes to this crazy scheme of yours, what’s my salary down the road?”
“Well, when we know this is going to work for both of us, I’ll grant you the same amount I’ll be paying myself, plus a participation position in the ranch’s overall business.”
“You obviously learned at the knee of The Godfather. You’re pretty much making me an offer I can’t refuse.”
“That’s my plan.”
Kerry’s excitement had gone from mere bubbles in her solar plexus to a rolling boil. It was, in fact, her dream job—or would be, eventually, if she and Ren could make all the moving parts work properly.
A studied risk is what this is...
Working at the Montisi Olive Ranch could certainly prove a failure, but Ren’s plan had all the ingredients that—if the two of them worked hard and had some luck—could result in sublime success.
“And this agreement between us will all be in writing?” she pressed.
“Every word.” He seized her hand once more, and a wave of adrenaline shot up her arm. “I witnessed you operating with tremendous grace and goodwill under terrible pressure. That was all I needed to know you’re the kind of person I’ve been praying would come along.”
Kerry suddenly recalled her godmother Angelica’s words about her husband Brian and their getting engaged in a week. “We just knew!” she’d exclaimed.
He’s just speaking professionally... Kerry scolded herself, and immediately she felt another jolt skitter up her arm.
No, he’s not!
When she glanced down at her hand, the heart-shaped stone was pulsing pure white. Meanwhile, Ren was pointing out the window beside them.
“Well! Will you look over there? See how fast the fog lifted. There must be strong winds out there on the Bay.” He smiled at her confidently. “Before you give me your final answer, I want to show you something.”
He pulled her from her chair and led her to another window facing north, swinging his right arm under her chin and around her shoulders as if they’d known each other forever. The next thing she knew, her back was pressing against his chest.
“Just look at the Golden Gate Bridge, lit up, over there,” he murmured. His breath near her ear was pleasantly laced with brandy in the stinger he’d sipped. With his free left hand, he pointed at the bridge aglow against the night sky. “To me, it’s one of the most beautiful sights in the world... and the road across it leads toward everything I love.” Ren turned her around to face him. “Please, Kerry... I know we’ve known each other exactly three days and you’re probably still licking your wounds about what happened to the partnership that brought you to San Francisco—”
“I’m well out of that, believe me,” she murmured, feeling as if she might faint from the sensation of the two of them standing so close. “I’m still pretty stunned by everything that’s happened this week.”
“So am I, in a way,” he confessed, pulling her against him so that her hips brushed his pelvis, sending shock waves clear through her. “After you left, yesterday, it came to me, all of a sudden, in a way I can’t explain. It just seemed like our talents and sensibilities would be a perfect match for everything that’s important in my life.” He nodded in the direction of the glowing bridge. “Please say you’ll take that road out there.”
Kerry sensed that any second now, he would lean down and kiss her.
“And here I thought you were just going to offer me a job as a temporary cook,” she teased, tilting her face toward his.
Ren wrapped his arms around her waist so she had nowhere to look except into his eyes that had turned the color of dark amber shaded by the blackness of the night outside. No one except her godparents had ever given her a sense of being protected like she felt in his arms. Ren cocked his head to one angle, their lips nearly touching.
“Those blue eyes of yours... your hair,” he whispered. “Hannigan, you’re something else, you know that?”
Kerry raised her hand to brush the backs of her fingers along the side of his cheek when a sudden, alarming thought brought her up short.
“But what about Sara?” she blurted. “How will... adding me to the crew at the ranch sit with her?”
Renato took a step back and remained silent for nearly the count of ten. Then, he turned away from her and stared out the window at the crystal lights twinkling in the distance.
“She won’t like it,” he stated flatly. “Just like she didn’t like it when I married her sister.”
“Sara Lang is your sister-in-law?” Kerry exclaimed. “Well, that’s a little factlette you neglected to disclose!”
A mental file folder spilled out all the instances when Sara-of-the-blond-pigtails had been rude and possessive, and behaving like a jealous lover, not a grieving sister of Ren’s late wife. Without so much as a glance at the Claddagh ring, she turned abruptly, marched over to their abandoned table, and grabbed her purse.
Ren was right behind her.
“Wait, Kerry! Where are you going?”
“To get a cab.” She turned. “Don’t you get it? I don’t want any more drama like this in my life!”
“I told you before, my wife died! She was killed in a skiing accident.”
“Really? So one sister passes away and you road-test another?” Kerry snapped, turning away to head in the direction of the elevator.
Ren seized her arm to keep her from leaving. Instead of the furious expression she expected to see, he merely looked exasperated.
“You are still licking those wounds over that Charlie guy, aren’t you?” he said, releasing her from his grip when she turned to face him.
“Not really,” she retorted. “And don’t tell me you didn’t notice,” she added sarcastically, “that your sister-in-law has the hots for you.”
“Just to be clear,” Ren countered, “and in case you were still wondering, Sara and I have never had an intimate relationship before, during or after I married her sister.”
“Well, she sure acts as if you have! Trust me, Ren, I don’t need another hairball like the one I’m already dealing with, and Sara’s rotten attitude toward just about everything has all the makings of one!”
“At least let me explain why she’s on the ranch.”
Kerry took a deep breath.
Hear him out, silly girl!
She sighed with resignation. “Okay. Shoot.”
For a long moment, Ren gazed out the big, plate-glass window that faced the Golden Gate Bridge, its blinking red tower beacons warning off low-flying aircraft. Kerry could tell he was watching a movie she couldn’t see.
“After Sandra died three... almost four years ago now, her sister, Sara, went into an emotional tailspin. To put it bluntly, she had a nervous breakdown—or close to it. Her family couldn’t deal with her, so I said my sister-in-law could come live at the ranch until she got back on her feet. She’s been a total pain in the ass since the day I met her in college, but I felt sorry for her. We all did.”
Kerry froze. Her experience with Charlie had prompted her to jump to conclusions. Sara’s presence on the Montisi Ranch was an act of charity on Ren’s part. She could feel color rising in her cheeks.
“Oh. Oh hell!” Kerry said, turning to face him. “Ren, I am so sorry—”
“As I said, it’s been over three years since Sandra’s accident. Sara’s a lot more stable now, and I’m the first one who wants her to move on with her life, but—”
“How did the accident happen?”
Ren remained silent for a long moment. Then he answered, “If you come across the street with me, I’ll tell you the whole sorry tale.”
“Across the street?” she echoed. “Why across the street?”
“Because the bar’s closing and I booked a room at the Fairmont for tonight.”
Kerry frowned.
Ren quickly added, “I have a meeting with my banker first thing tomorrow. I didn’t feel like driving back to the ranch tonight and turning right around to come to the city tomorrow morning. And besides, the manager is a friend. He gives me a friends and family discount.”
“Oh,” was all she could manage, her mind skittering toward thoughts she knew she shouldn’t be having.
Ren ‘s expression had relaxed, and a ghost of a smile appeared. He lightly placed a hand on each of her shoulders.
“If I promise to be a very good boy—which won’t be easy, I might add—would you consider having a cup of coffee with me where we can talk privately? Since you may be considering doing business with me,” he said with a wry expression, “I want to give you a brief history of the last ten years.”
By the time they were midway in the crosswalk that separated the Mark Hopkins Hotel from the Fairmont crowning Nob Hill, she took his arm.
“Look... I really need to apologize for judging you as I just did a few minutes ago. All situations are not necessarily the same,” she added, upset with herself that she had ever equated Ren’s behavior to that of Charlie Miller’s.
Ren steered her in the direction of the hotel’s porte-cochère where a series of luxury vehicles were rolling up to the Fairmont’s carpeted entrance.
“Well, thank you for that. I can certainly understand why you may be a little gun shy after what happened to you lately.”
“I’ll tell you the gory details about that... sometime,” she offered as the two of them reached the top step. “But first, it’s your turn.”
“Good. I want to know everything, so I can punch the guy in the nose for you. And that Beverly woman, too.”
“Another perk I get if I come to work at the ranch?”
Ren laughed and nodded at the doorman who ushered them inside. Kerry walked in first and then halted her forward progress in order to say something that had continued to weigh heavily.
“If I join your staff, you’re going to have an even bigger problem with Sara Lang, so before you tell me whatever you plan to tell me here, I need to let you know that the unresolved situation with her makes me very leery of getting involved at your ranch professionally... or personally.” She was amazed at her own frank admission that she felt the same zing between them that he obviously did. “But!” she continued, holding up one finger before Ren could protest. “I’ll definitely hear you out if you promise to put me in a cab afterwards.”
Ren appeared to consider the bargain and said, finally, “Fair enough.”
Kerry waited discreetly in the Fairmont’s magnificent cream-and-gold lobby while Ren checked himself into the hotel. A brochure on a side table revealed that the soaring gold-leaf pillars and impressive gilded plasterwork spoke volumes about California’s first licensed woman architect, Julia Morgan, who, at a mere thirty-four-years-old, restored the burnt-out hulk in the wake of the 1906 earthquake and firestorm.
She looked up from reading just as Ren turned away from the front desk and inclined his head toward a bank of elevators several yards further on.
“This place is spectacular,” she exclaimed as they rode to the fourth floor.
She felt a faintly unnerving flutter of excitement when the two of them walked down the carpeted hall to his assigned room. Within moments of entering a small, elegant suite consisting of a sitting room, with a bedroom visible through a half-opened door, he had ordered room service to bring up a cappuccino, a pot of tea with milk on the side, “and a plate of biscotti,” he finished, and replaced the phone receiver in its cradle.
Ren indicated that she should sit on the brocaded love seat upholstered in a subtle gray to match the gray, silk bedspread Kerry had glimpsed through the door. He settled into an upholstered club chair nearby. He inhaled a deep breath before he began to speak.
“Twelve years ago, I met both Sara and Sandra Lang at Stanford when they were undergraduates, a year apart, and I was at the business school. I met Sara first, but was more drawn to her younger sister, Sandra, because of her athleticism and... well... a more outgoing personality.”
“You mean, in contrast to Sara’s gloomy-gus approach?” she couldn’t resist commenting.
Ren raised an eyebrow and nodded.
“Sandra was an amazing athlete... a top tennis player in college and a fanatic skier, ready for any adventure. Looking back, I think I simply got married in 2007, a few years after Sandra graduated, because the choice seemed to be either do that, or break up. During my twenties, our close circle of friends were getting married in rapid succession and everybody we knew just expected us to make our relationship official.”
“But the trouble is, you don’t really know who you are, or what you truly want in life till at least after thirty, don’t you think?” Kerry said fervently. “I know I didn’t.”
“I totally agree. In my case, I had my shiny new business school degree and was about to move to Mountain View in the heart of Silicon Valley, ten miles up the road from the university, and join a VC firm—”
“Venture Capitalist, right?” she confirmed.
“Yeah... we had the heady job of investing in new companies we thought might be the next Google or Facebook. Sandra’s future plans after graduating centered around playing tennis and skiing wherever there was snow, and—well—me.”
Just then, there was a discreet knock on the door and a voice called out, “Room service!”
The waiter swiftly brought their order in on a tray and departed. Kerry stirred milk from a small pitcher into her cup of tea while Ren settled back against the chair holding his coffee.
“In those first years after grad school and my marriage, I was basically going along with everybody else’s program,” Ren continued his narrative. “I was working nights and weekends on the deals we were doing, while Sandra and her sister spent most weekends at the Lang’s family house in Squaw Valley on Lake Tahoe.”
Ren fell silent and stared into the surface of his coffee. At length he said, “Sandra and I were drifting apart, mostly due to my allowing my work to be the central focus of my life, along with her obsession in the early days of our marriage to try out for the USA Olympic Ski Team.”
“Did Sara ski, too?”
“Yes, but never on the level of her younger sister. In fact, that’s pretty much Sara’s problem. Sandra got what Sandra wanted with ease and grace, and Sara always came in second.”
“Was Sara training to try out for the Olympic Team as well?”
“They both gave it their all, but it was pretty clear that Sandra was the one that had the best shot. Sara finally gave up and got a job as a glorified administrative assistant at Lehman Brothers in San Francisco and drove up to Tahoe from the Bay Area on the weekends with me, while Sandra stayed at Squaw, training seven days a week.” Ren took a sip of his coffee, swallowed, and continued.
“One winter, about four years into our marriage, I got a call that Sandra had been hurt on the slopes. Turns out that Sara had goaded her sister to ski off the cornice at the top of the mountain just as bad weather was closing in. Everything had iced over and Sandra crashed into a tree, breaking her thighbone, and had to be brought out by the ski patrol. A lot of things happened after that, and my wife ended up in a coma.”
“She went into a coma as a result of a broken leg?” Kerry asked, bewildered.
“After the surgery to repair her leg, she caught one of those terrible infections in the hospital. It came on fast and galloped through her system. As her husband, I had to make the decision to pull the plug. It was pretty devastating... for Sara, especially.”
“Survivor’s guilt?”
Ren nodded. “In spades. After all, she’d dared Sandra to go down that run and then chickened out.”
“Oh, my God...”
“Yeah, it was pretty gothic. For my grandmother and me, it felt like a rerun of my parents dying so unexpectedly in the plane crash. Sara, though, was basically a basket case and in those first weeks after Sandra’s funeral, Concetta and I both worried she might... do something really terrible.”
“Where were the sisters’ parents in all this?” Kerry demanded.
“Wendell and Doris?” Ren shook his head in disgust. “The Langs are the quintessential Baby Boomers, if you know what I mean. Very ‘do your own thing and don’t bother us.’ After Sandra died, essentially they just told Sara to suck it up and not be such a pain in the ass.”
Kerry heaved a sigh. “You must think I’m a total jerk... and maybe I am, but it just looked to me as if you and Sara might be—”
“I know how it looked,” Ren interrupted. “Jeremy hinted to me just the other day that he also thought Sara and I had become an item in recent months because that’s the way Sara wants everybody to think.”
“That’s pretty weird...” ventured Kerry, “and must have been tough to deal with.”
Ren nodded. “Sara’s been problematic from day one. She apparently had set her sights on me at Stanford, and when I chose her sister, she began to invent a story in her own mind that she and I had always been destined to be together, which was pretty weird as time went on, given Sara was partially responsible for what happened to Sandra.”
“Then, why in the world did you ever bring Sara to the ranch—even if you felt sorry for her?” Kerry asked, exasperated.
“She’d lost her job in the crash of 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed and then got laid off again right after Sandra died in 2011. Her roommates kicked her out of their apartment for not paying her share of the rent and her parents were living in France. She called one day, literally begging me to please give her a job—any job.”
“But she’s been on your ranch a couple of years, Ren.”
There had to be more to this than he was revealing, she thought. Maybe Ren had some survivor’s guilt of his own?
“To my surprise, Sara made a big effort, when she first came to the ranch, to make herself useful when we hosted events, especially in the kitchen. Jeremy was kind enough to teach her the rudiments of being a sous chef.” Ren put his coffee cup down abruptly and caught Kerry’s gaze. “I needed the help, frankly. The ranch’s finances were a mess when I took things over, and until recently, I had no idea Sara had always had this fantasy in her mind about the two of us. She wants what she has always wanted: the life that Sandra had. Her psychiatrist recently called me to explain.”
“Really?” Kerr asked, startled. “That shrink must have felt he had a duty to warn you. Otherwise, wouldn’t patient-confidentiality prevent him from saying anything?”
Ren nodded. “Right after I talked to him—the day before I met you, incidentally—I told her parents I’d done my duty and now it was their turn to deal with their daughter.”
“And?”
Ren cocked an eyebrow. “I’m waiting to hear their plan.”
Kerry gazed across the narrow space that separated them. “That sounds pretty open-ended, Ren.”
Frustration clouded his features. “Honestly, I’ve done my best to treat her as a sister, but she...” His sentence drifted off.
Kerry, recalling Sara’s expression of instant dislike the minute Ren had escorted her into the ranch kitchen to meet Jeremy, asked quietly, “So... basically you’re in limbo with Ms. Sara Lang?”
“I’ve let it ride because we’re so short-handed, and now, with Jeremy down for the count...”
Kerry could sense the weight of the world pressing down on him and without warning, the ring on her right hand began vibrating.
Think, Kerry m’girl! What would make you happy?
Before she could weigh her next words, she heard herself saying, “Look, Ren, I’d love to work with you as a profit-sharing partner in your olive oil adventures.”
A look of both relief and joy spread across his face. “You would?”
“Yes!” she said firmly.
“That’s wonderful!”
She raised her hand in warning.
“But for this to work for me, I couldn’t move to the ranch or accept any money from you until I renegotiate my deal with LifestyleXer.”
“I have no problem with that.”
“Let’s hope LifestyleXer doesn’t have a problem, either.” She smiled, hoping to reassure Ren that she was willing to go out on a limb to try to find a way to come to the ranch. “I’m excited about the idea of devising whatever else we can to sell with the Montisi brand, plus,” she said with deliberate emphasis, “I’d absolutely love to be Chef Jeremy’s Number 2 as soon as Sara leaves.”
“Great!” Ren said with an affirmative nod. “It’s all great.”
She fixed Ren with a steady glance. “And when do you expect that will be? Sara’s leaving, I mean?
Ren sobered. “I can’t tell you that yet, but as soon as possible. You’ll have to trust that if she creates any problems in the meantime, tell me right away and I’ll take care of it.”
Kerry was suddenly filled with doubt. Could she trust this man? What if he’d made these promises merely to solve his own problems at the ranch and wouldn’t actually do what he said he would?
Studied risk, remember Kerry? This is one of them...
After a long pause, she said, “Well, thanks for explaining everything.” She gave him a measured look. “I have to be straight with the people at work that I want to change my deal, so I’ll make an appointment with my CEO tomorrow and let you know how it goes.”
“I know this probably feels as if you’re making a very big leap of faith like the one when you decided to come to San Francisco—” he began.
“Oh, no,” she assured him. “This feels very, very different.” She glanced at her watch. “But, it’s getting late. I’d better go.” She rose and picked up her handbag off the sofa. “I’ll try to get in to see the big boss at work and hope I can negotiate an exit strategy where I won’t lose everything I’ve worked for the last two years.”
Ren rose to his feet, his eyes alight. “But you’ve just given me a definite ‘yes’—yes? You’re committed to come work with me at the ranch?”
“I’ve given you a definite ‘maybe,’” she corrected him.
Kerry could sense a subtle shift in Ren’s demeanor.
“Ah... the money, is it? The stock options carrot? I can practically hear that conversation in your head. I’ve heard it often enough in my own. You’d like to keep the bird in the hand and capture the one that’s just fluttering within reach.”
His expression had become unreadable and Kerry knew instinctively that she’d disappointed him somehow.
“It’s not just the money, Ren! I worked my ass off to get to where someone is offering me a half million bucks, and I have every right to try to see it through, if I can. And besides, I don’t want to work at the ranch behind the back of my current employer. You wouldn’t like it if I did that to you. I need to have a conversation with the big boss and see if I can renegotiate my deal and, by the way, you need to get Sara Lang off the ranchero, right, señor?”
Without reply, he rose and walked with her toward the door.
“How about you give me your answer tomorrow night, Kerry, after you’ve met with the CEO? I’ve got to get someone teed up right away to give the ranch its best chance for survival, and if it’s not going to be you...”
Kerry rested her hand on the hotel suite’s doorknob, wondering if the electricity she’d felt flowing between them earlier was merely wishful thinking on her part. In a flash of insight she could see that Ren Montisi did not like to get left. And, he was also a tough businessman, and likely skilled at playing both Good Cop/Bad Cop to secure what he was after. Right now, it felt as if he were suddenly playing Bad Cop to pressure her to help solve his problems at the ranch.
Was this just another Charlie Miller move, she wondered bleakly? Worse yet, was this really her dream job, or would the presence of Sara Lang in her life turn it into another nightmare?
Kerry glanced down at the Claddagh, wishing for the first time that it would offer clear guidance. The emerald retained its normal color without a hint of iridescence.
For once in your life, just do what you want!
Startled, she continued to stare at her hand, expecting the ring’s gemstone to change color—which it did not. Those were her thoughts, she marveled. With absolute clarity, she knew she wanted to do the kind of life’s work represented by the Montisi Olive Ranch, whether Renato Montisi and she were an “item” or not. It felt so liberating to finally know what her path should be! She squared her shoulders and in her most professional manner, bid Ren farewell.
“I’ll do my best to get in to see the CEO first thing tomorrow. Meanwhile, let me know if you’ve gotten a commitment from Sara to leave by the end of the month.”
And with that, Kerry allowed Ren to say a circumspect “Good night,” and put her in a cab downstairs, noting that another invasion of fog off the wide Pacific Ocean now cloaked the night sky atop Nob Hill.