Page 17 of The Billionaire and His Driver
“I was the vagrant-looking man sitting on the sidewalk outside of that fast food joint. It was raining and you sought shelter under the overhang where I was sitting.”
It still didn’t ring a bell with Brina.
“You gave me half of the biscuit you absconded with.”
As soon as he said the word biscuit, she remembered him. “That was you?” She was shocked.
Ronny smiled. “Finally some recognition,” he said happily. “Yes, that was me.”
But it still made no sense to her. “You were a vagrant seven months ago?”
Ronny laughed. “No, no. But I think to everybody else who walked by me with those disapproving looks, I appeared to be one. So you assumed I was one too.”
“But you weren’t?”
“No. Not at all. I had been jogging for about an hour, was muddy and disheveled, but I was hardly a candidate for vagrancy.”
Brina smiled. “And there I was giving you half of the only food I was going to get that whole day.”
Ronny considered her. “You didn’t get another meal?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Like I told you then, you never know. That’s why you never turn down food.”
“And your interviews didn’t work out?”
She shook her head again, a sad look appearing in eyes that were almost too big for her face. “They couldn’t look pass my criminal record. Especially when they saw that embezzlement charge. Especially when I had supposedly embezzled funds from another charity.”
For some reason Ronny already knew the answer to the question he was about to ask her. “Were you guilty as charged?”
Brina shook her head. “No sir. I never stole money from anybody my whole life. Or anything else. I was the one who went to my executive director and told him that somebody was stealing from the organization.”
“And let me guess: he pointed the finger at you.”
“That very afternoon the FBI showed up at Starbucks where I was having coffee with my boyfriend and arrested me on the spot. It was like he called in the Feds as soon as I left his office.”
“Which meant he was probably the one stealing those funds,” Ronny said. “Did you ever look into that possibility?”
Brina shook her head. “They didn’t grant me bail, so I couldn’t look into anything.”
“But surely your attorney investigated the possibility?”
“He said he looked into it but couldn’t find anything. He even tried to suggest at trial that my director or the field supervisor could have stolen that money, but the judge said there was no evidence to blame it on either one of them, so he wouldn’t let him even mention it to the jury. I didn’t stand a chance.”
“How long did you serve?”
“Two years of a three-year sentence, including time served when they wouldn’t give me bail. Talk about my life turning upside down. I went from being the darling of the non-profit world, topersona non gratawithin days of my arrest. My conviction sealed my fate in that world. Or any other corporate world actually. If Mrs. Dash wouldn’t have taken a chance on me and hired me here at Bradshaw Manor, I don’t know what I would have done. I was at the end of my rope when she hired me.” Tears appeared in her eyes, which touched Ronny deeply.
“I even cried in the interview,” Brina continued. “I was so hungry and scared and tired. I was just plain tired. To go through so much and for something I didn’t even do. It was just so unfair to me. I’m sorry,” she said as she turned her teary face away from him.
But Ronny quickly reached over, gently took her by the chin, and turned her face right back to his face: tears and all. “There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he said. “Because you’re absolutely right. It was unfair. Itisunfair.”
It was the first time anybody had ever validated her truth. She stared into his eyes. “You believe me?”
He nodded his head. “Yes, Sabrina, I believe you.”
The tears that she was trying to stop from coming came like an avalanche. She’d been holding them in ever since it happened. And when Ronny grabbed hold of her and pulled her into his arms, she broke. And began sobbing. She couldn’t stop.
Ronny held her as tightly as he could. This poor baby, he thought. What injustice had been done to her! He wanted to tell her right then and there that he was going to make it right for her if it was the last thing he ever did. But as soon as that thought entered his mind, Brina pulled away from him and stood on her feet.
