The necklace had landed in the planter in the middle of the road. Hilda kept her eyes locked on it, heart in her throat, waiting until the traffic thinned before darting across to dig through the bushes.
She crawled through the landscaping for what felt like an eternity, mud caking every inch of her, until at last the recovered necklace was clutched tight in her palm. She looked up, and a pair of headlights barreled straight toward her.
She squinted against the blinding glare.
The next second, pain shattered through her like every bone in her body had been pulverized at once. The impact hurled her into the air. The last thing she registered was the shriek of a car horn.
When she opened her eyes again, a month had passed.
She'd been rushed to the ICU three times. Dozens of fractures across her body. Internal bleeding. Recovery would take a long while.
A middle-aged man sat vigil at her bedside.
"My child. My sweet girl. You've suffered so much. I'm your father, Hilda. I'm your real father."
The moment the paternity results had come back, he'd been overjoyed. The moment he learned what had happened to her, he'd dropped everything overseas and flown back.
"I got here too late. This is my fault."
He held her hand and wept, his shoulders shaking. Hilda noticed the white hairs on the crown of his head.
They hadn't been there the last time she saw him.
Her heart clenched. She couldn't open her mouth to speak. A single tear slipped from the corner of her eye.
Calvin insisted on bringing her home that very day, hiring a private medical team to tend to her recovery.
Another month slipped by.
When two or three days passed without Hilda reaching out, Jasper was already getting restless.
By all logic, her grandmother's condition couldn't hold out this long. The fact that Hilda could endure the silence until now meant he must have truly broken her heart.
He was still turning this over in his mind when his secretary's call came through.
The tension visibly drained from Jasper's body. A faint smile even tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Well? Did Hilda contact you?"
Whatever was said on the other end made Jasper shoot straight up from his chair. "What kind of joke is that?"
"It's true, Mr. Fairmont." The secretary's voice hitched before continuing. "I've already confirmed with the hospital. Hilda's grandmother passed away after resuscitation failed."
"I also reached out to the funeral home. The deceased has already been cremated and buried. The day it happened was the same day as your engagement banquet with Miss Blake."
"That's insane!"
Jasper panicked. He floored the accelerator and tore across town to the funeral home where Hilda worked, only to learn she had resigned long ago.
The manager's gaze was far from friendly as he looked Jasper up and down.
"A while back she put in her notice, said she was getting married. Then she came back and said the wedding was off, asked to transfer somewhere else. Next thing we heard, she'd been in a car accident on the bridge. Sounds like she'll be recovering for quite some time."
A car accident on the bridge.
The same bridge where he'd fought with Hilda and left her behind.
No. No, that's not possible.
Jasper's mind went blank. His legs buckled beneath him as he staggered toward the exit.
This had to be a stunt. Hilda must have put someone up to this to get a reaction out of him.
Her grandmother's death had to be a lie. Hilda was just trying to make him panic, so she'd hidden the old woman away.
Jasper kept telling himself that, but his heart wouldn't listen. It hammered faster and faster.
He pulled every string he had, turned every hospital in the city inside out. But Hilda had vanished. As if she'd never existed.
One dead end after another. He locked himself in his study, staring at Hilda's photograph day and night, tears streaming down his face. In the end, his bodyguards seized him by the arms and dragged him out, and Patricia Fairmont slapped him across the face. Again. And again.
"Jasper Fairmont, that cheap little tramp has rotted your brain! You've completely lost your mind!"
"Look at yourself these past six months! Is this what the heir to Fairmont Group looks like? Do you have any idea how much you've humiliated this family?"
Jasper's cheeks were swollen. He hung his head in silence, limp as a corpse, letting them do whatever they wanted with him.
Vivienne stood behind Patricia, tears rolling down her face in fat, heavy drops. She caught a glimpse of the photo Jasper still clutched in his hand, the one of him and Hilda together, and a flash of hatred cut through her eyes.
"If that woman is all you can think about, then get out of this house! I'll adopt Vivienne as my goddaughter and be done with it!"
Vivienne spoke up, her voice urgent. "Mrs. Fairmont, you can't do that. I made up my mind when I was a little girl. Jasper is the only man I'll ever marry."
She knelt beside him, weeping prettily, and at a glance the two of them made quite the picture of star-crossed lovers.
Patricia sighed.
"Jasper. Pull yourself together. You and Vivienne are attending a welcome gala at the Summers estate today. The man's in his fifties, and against all odds he actually found his daughter. Show some respect."
"Same surname, different fate. Remember who you are. And remember what Hilda did for a living. Dead or alive, she was never in your league."
A long silence. Jasper's lips parted. His throat was raw and burning, and it took an age before any sound scraped out. "Understood, Mother."
The Summers family empire already sat at the very top of the old-money hierarchy. The chairman's first wife had passed young, leaving behind a daughter who'd gone missing as a small child. Now that she'd been found, naturally she would be cherished like a treasure.
When Jasper arrived, the reactions around the room were varied. After all, everyone had spent the past six months hearing the gossip about how the Fairmont heir had nearly destroyed himself over some woman.
Amid the clinking glasses and flowing champagne, Chairman Summers stepped forward. He clasped his hands in gratitude for the well-wishes, then took the microphone and began telling the room about his daughter.
From the moment Jasper walked into the banquet hall, his heart had been beating wrong. Erratic. Restless. He rubbed his thumb along the rim of his glass, wanting nothing more than to leave.
Vivienne noticed the shift in him immediately.
"Do you have any idea what kind of event this is, Jasper? You're going to abandon me here in front of all these people?"
Jasper didn't hear a word. Because he had spotted a figure across the room.
That silhouette was too familiar. The one that haunted his every waking thought, every sleepless night. He could never mistake it.
His heart slammed so hard it nearly lodged in his throat.
Hilda felt the weight of a gaze and turned her head.
Their eyes met.
