‘I can’t.’
‘Why not? If you’re worried about favouritism, don’t be. I wouldn’t offer this if it wasn’t a good deal for me as well. I truly believe you’d be an asset.’
His belief meant more to her than she could have realised, and for a moment she revelled in it—before the moment she’d been dreading came. The decision was oddly easy now. Of course she wanted this job, but she’d be building a career on a foundation of mistrust and she couldn’t do that.
‘I appreciate this more than you will ever know,’ she said. ‘But I genuinely can’t accept.’ She took a deep breath and a sip of wine. ‘I know I owe you an explanation, so here it is. I’ve told you that I’ve got no qualifications, that I dropped out of school and ran with the wrong crowd. Part of that wrong crowd was my boyfriend—Kevin. He was a few years older than me, and on the outside he looked cool...rebellious. I got sucked in.’
She’d been so mixed up, with her grief and her guilt, the injustice of Imo’s death tearing at her insides. So she’d told herself that it was OK for her to do it—anything to get out of the house where her parents’ marriage had been disintegrating.
All she’d wanted was to escape the deep-down suspicion that Imo had been her dad’s favourite—the daughter he’d been closer to. Avoid the knowledge that her own face had become a constant reminder both of what he’d lost and the guilt he felt at his favouritism.
But no excuses. She would not use Imogen’s death to excuse her own horrendous choices.
‘Anyway, long story short... I ended up with a criminal conviction for possession of drugs.’
No point in a protestation of innocence. Why should he believe her? No one else had.
He stilled, studied her face, and then he spoke. ‘I’d like to hear the long story.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it matters. My instinct tells me that no matter what or who you were back then you would never have had anything to do with drugs. That it would never be in your nature.’
Again tears threatened.
‘And I also believe in second chances. Even if you were guilty I do not believe that one mistake should blight the rest of your life. A life you seem to have turned around. So tell me the long story. The full truth.’
Oh, God. What to do? It sounded as if he’d give her the job regardless, so why relive the past? Why take the risk of adding him to the ranks of people who didn’t believe her? Because that would hurt way more than it should.
Sarah bit her lip, looked into the deep, dark blue of his eyes and realised that she owed him the truth. If he didn’t believe her, so be it. Yet she realised too, how badly she wanted him to have faith in her.
‘Try me,’ he said again, his voice deep but gentle.
Imperceptibly she shifted closer to him, wanting the warmth and solid bulk of his body near her. No. That wasn’t fair. Instead she shifted away but turned to face him so he could read her body language. The man was an expert, after all.
‘Kevin was a loser, but I wouldn’t admit that at the time. I believed in loyalty, trust and the power of love.’
It was hard to believe she could have thought that what she’d had with Kevin—that dependent, illusory state—was love.
‘I’d left home by then and was living in a hostel. Kevin was in a gang. I managed to convince myself that it was only to be cool, for street cred, and that it didn’t mean anything. He got into a fight with a rival gang and they planted the drugs in my room—they thought Kevin lived there too. They tipped the police off, my room got raided and the police arrested me.’
Her skin became clammy at the memory. At first it had all seemed so preposterous. Surely the police wouldn’t believe she’d had anything to do with it? But they had.
‘It turned out that Kevin was involved in things I genuinely had no idea about.’ Her eyes met Ben’s. ‘I realise how stupid that sounds, but I believed everything he told me. I had my head so deep in the sand it’s amazing I could see anything.’
‘Surely they believed you? You had no record and they had no proof the drugs were yours.’
‘But they did. Kev was so scared he’d go to prison that he tried to persuade me to take the fall for him. But I said I wouldn’t.’ She’d retained some small shred of common sense. ‘So he set me up. He persuaded a number of his mates to come forward and testify against me. They claimed they saw me buy the drugs.’
The memory was enough to make her shudder, and her skin crawled with remembered fear.
‘And no one believed me. I couldn’t prove I was anywhere else on those dates, so I was convicted. As it was my first “offence” I got a very short sentence and community service. But it’s on my record for ever.’ Her lips twisted. Perhaps I deserved it—a conviction for my own stupidity.’
‘No.’ Now Ben had shifted closer to her, and his hand covered hers in a grasp of reassurance. ‘You didn’t deserve that. Any of it.’
Hope beat a tattoo on her soul. ‘You believe me?’
‘Yes, I believe you. I don’t think you would ever get involved in any way with drugs. It wouldn’t be in you. I also suspect a good lawyer would have proved your innocence at the time.’