Hilda startled, quickly averting her gaze.
She'd long since steeled herself for the inevitable reunion with Jasper. She just hadn't expected it to come so soon.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught him trying to move toward her.
Her chest tightened. She stepped back instinctively, and at that exact moment, her father appeared at her side and took her hand.
"Hildie." His eyes crinkled with barely contained joy. "Come on, sweetheart. Let me introduce you to a few of my old friends."
Hilda exhaled in relief and fell into step beside him.
Vivienne followed the direction of Jasper's stare, glancing left and right, utterly baffled by what could have made him look like his soul had left his body.
"Jasper! What's wrong with you? Get a grip!"
She clamped down on his wrist, refusing to let him leave her side.
Jasper was frantic. He pried her off and snapped under his breath, "Let go."
Vivienne stumbled, unprepared, her hip slamming into the corner of the table hard enough to drain the color from her face.
A champagne tower shattered on impact. Glass and liquid sprayed across the floor, and every head in the vicinity turned.
Jasper's gaze swept the crowd. Hilda was already gone.
"Jasper."
Vivienne's forearm was pressed into the broken glass, blood streaming down her skin. She reached for him and grasped nothing but air. The amused, pitying stares from the guests around her burned like needles in her back.
"Jasper!"
He didn't look back. He plunged into the crowd, chasing the direction where Hilda had disappeared.
After meeting her father's friends, Hilda made an excuse and slipped back to her room.
The noise from the grand hall drifted up in waves. She turned over the dazzling array of jewelry her father had laid out for her, and a hollow ache settled in her chest without warning.
The alley where she'd grown up was in an old village on the outskirts of the city. There had been no shortage of girls her age among the neighbors, but most of them had been married off young, their futures decided by their parents.
Only Hilda had made it through the doors of a high school, carried there on the pennies her grandmother scraped together, one recycled bottle and one flattened cardboard box at a time.
She could count on one hand the number of times she'd seen Grandma Nora cry in her entire life. The only time was when Hilda had gotten into a top high school but started talking about dropping out because of the staggering cost of tuition and textbooks. Her grandmother had slapped her across the face, tears streaming down her own cheeks.
Then she'd pulled Hilda into her arms and sobbed. That night, Grandma Nora had gone deep into the back of the old cabinet and brought out a tin box. Inside was a small gold locket engraved with the character for "Summers."
That was the first time Hilda had ever touched the secret of her own origins.
But reality didn't leave room for dwelling on it. The little locket became numbers in a bank account, carrying her through high school and then through college.
She didn't know when her father had come in. He picked up the photograph of her and Grandma Nora from the table and studied it for a long time.
"I searched for you for over twenty years."
His eyes were rimmed with red. "After your mother passed, I was a wreck for a long time. I neglected you, and that's how they got the chance to take you."
Hilda looked at the silver threading through his hair. After a long silence, she asked, "How come you never remarried?"
This enormous house was so empty. The housekeeper only came on Sundays. Every other day, her father lived here alone.
He blinked, then smiled. "I was waiting for you."
"I was afraid a stepmother wouldn't treat you right, so I stayed single. And then after you went missing, I had even less heart for it. All I could think about was finding you and bringing you home."
Hilda's nose stung.
After Grandma Nora's death, after the man she loved betrayed her, after the car accident left her lying on the operating table, she had genuinely wanted to die.
It was her father who had kept her alive. He'd flown in equipment from overseas, tracked down the best surgeons from every corner of the country, and fought with everything he had to pull her back.
She owed it to him to live well from now on.
Calvin wiped his eyes, then said suddenly, "That young man from the Fairmont family came looking for me just now."
"He seemed like he knew you pretty well. Kept asking if he could see you. Do you two know each other?"
Hilda's chest seized. The color drained from her face.
Calvin caught the shift in her expression and sensed something was off. He was about to go back downstairs and turn the young man away himself when Hilda stood up.
"We've met in passing, that's all. I'll go see what he wants."
