Lauren looked down again.
Then back up.
“Why are you really doing this?”
He answered right away.
Because he had already asked himself that question.
“Because gratitude matters. Because my daughter is alive and home and sleeping under a real blanket today. Because you are qualified enough to deserve a shot. Because too many decent people get shoved sideways by one bad turn and spend years trying to crawl back to where they belong. Because I’m tired of running a company like resumes tell the full truth about a person.”
Lauren stared at him.
He gave a small, tired shrug.
“And because I don’t think the best hires always walk in at their strongest.”
Something in her face must have changed then, because he smiled.
“Take a minute,” he said.
She didn’t need a minute.
Not really.
She needed a whole day to absorb it.
A week maybe.
