Page 16 of The Billionaire and His Driver
That shocked Ronny. He didn’t expect to hear that. “How did you make it out alive?”
“I wasn’t home. I was supposed to be, but I had snuck out of my bedroom window and went to this party a friend of mine was having. When I got back home, the fire department, and the entire neighborhood, was at my house.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
His voice sounded so genuine that it touched Brina. She nodded her head.
“How old were you then?”
“I was thirteen when it happened.”
“You moved in with relatives I take it?”
“With my auntie, yes sir. My family’s from Detroit.”
Ronny saw a look of bitterness appear in her eyes. “But?”
“It didn’t last long. A few weeks of her foolishness and I was out of there. Nobody was willing to take me in so I lived on the streets for a while, scraping by.”
Ronny was horrified for her. “You were homeless?”
“Homeless and hungry. Homeless and grieving for my family. Wishing I had been home and went down with them.”
Ronny stared at her. “How did you survive?”
“I didn’t really. It was tough. But this cop saved my life. He saw me rummaging through a dumpster and he ran me down when I tried to get away. He took me to this shelter for wayward teens and left me there.”
“That sounds worse than the streets.”
“But it wasn’t. It changed everything for me. They really looked out for us. I graduated high school and got an academic scholarship to the University of Oregon. It changed everything for me. After college, I went back to Detroit to work at this charity there. Then I was offered a better position and moved back to Oregon.”
Ronny was pleased to hear that it worked out for her. But it brought him to their first meeting. And he decided to go there. If she did have some grand scheme to reel in a billionaire and all the power and prestige that went along with it, he wanted it out in the open. “Do you remember me?” he asked her.
Brina stared at him. Why would he ask her that? “Do I remember you?”
He noticed she had an annoying habit of asking him the question he asked her. That was why he didn’t answer her.
“No sir, I don’t remember you. Are you saying we’ve met before?”
“That’s what I’m saying.” He was studying her eyes. He could sniff out a liar a mile away.
“Where sir?” She was searching his eyes as if he had to be mistaken. “I don’t recall ever meeting you.”
A part of Ronny was hurt that she didn’t remember him when he remembered her so vividly. And dreamed about her more than a few times afterwards. And was worried about her even during that brief encounter. “It was about seven months ago.”
“Seven months ago? I had just gotten out of . . .”
“Out of prison, that’s correct.”
Brina stared at him. He had mentioned something about prison in the car, but she had no idea he knew of her incarceration.
“You had job interviews lined up with various charitable organizations when we met.”
She nodded. “I remember having interviews lined up.” But she still didn’t remember him.
“You went to this fast food restaurant to see if you could get a job in the meantime, until your real interviews panned out into employment.”
“None of them worked out,” she said. “It was one of the lowest times of my life. But I still don’t recall meeting you during that time.”
