Chapter 16: Redeeming Promises

*Seraphina*

“You seriously expect me to hire a jailbird? What do you take this company for, Miss Lovelace? A joke?”

I clenched my fists as the interviewer’s cruel words replayed again and again in my head as I walked out of the building. It’d been awful. Humiliating. I knew from before that it wouldn’t be easy to try and find a decent job after my stint in prison. As though my lack of degree wasn’t enough, people made so many assumptions about my character and morals.

This interviewer had been no exception, echoing a version of James’s words to me the day I was released. I had to bite my tongue to keep from retaliating, bite my lip to keep from crying in front of the man who’d essentially laughed me out of his office.

Archeron had been an ideal situation, a hole-in-the-wall pub whose patronage and staff could never dream of throwing stones at someone with a criminal record. But that didn’t represent the bigger world. And trying to find a half-decent job with my backgroun