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.

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."

The gala had ended and the last of the guests had gone. Only Jasper remained, waiting alone.

He sat hunched forward, shoulders slumped, and the instant his ears caught the sound of footsteps behind him, he shot to his feet and lunged toward them.

"Hilda!"

The chair legs scraped across the floor with a piercing shriek.

"It really is you. It's really you. I knew I wasn't seeing things. It's really you."

Hilda stepped aside, dodging the hand he reached toward her.

"My father doesn't know about you and me. Don't come looking for me again."

Jasper's pupils trembled. His lips went white. "Hilda, you can't do this."

"You have no idea how long I've been searching for you. When I found out what happened, I nearly lost my mind. You can't even imagine what people have been saying about me behind my back. Hilda, look at me."

"I'm begging you. Look at me."

Hilda didn't so much as flinch. The fear that rose inside Jasper was unlike anything he'd ever felt, and his voice shook with it.

"Hilda, I know you resent me. And yes, it was my fault. But I'll make it up to you. All of it."

"Whatever you want, I can give it to you. I'll start planning the wedding right now, okay? We can go back to the way things were. We can just—"

Hilda cut him off. She couldn't stand another word.

"Jasper. Why?"

He blinked. "What?"

Every syllable fell like a stone. "Why do you assume that an apology entitles you to my forgiveness? Why do you take it for granted that I still want to marry you? Why, after you destroyed everything, do you have the nerve to stand in front of me?"

"So tell me, Jasper. Why?"

His mouth opened. Nothing came out.

Hilda turned and walked away, but for reasons she couldn't fathom, Jasper followed, trailing her like a shadow that refused to detach.

"I never realized the great Jasper Fairmont was this shameless. Or maybe I wasn't clear enough. Which word didn't you understand?"

His voice was raw with grief. "Hilda, please don't talk to me like that."

"I'm begging you. Don't speak to me this way. I can't take it."

In every memory he had of her, Hilda had always spoken to him softly, gently. In all their years together, she had been the one to back down after every argument. He simply could not absorb the distance between who she'd been and who stood before him now.

He wanted to keep trying, but his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He had no choice but to stop. He looked at Hilda with an expression that was equal parts desperate and pleading.

"I'll make this right. I mean it, Hilda. Wait for me."

Hilda didn't turn around.

She had far too much to do, too much to learn. But the person who came looking for her before Jasper could try again wasn't who she expected.

It was Vivienne.

"Hilda?"

Hilda turned. Vivienne stood three paces away.

She wore an all-white suit today, her makeup immaculate, but no amount of concealer could hide the bruised shadows beneath her eyes.

"It really is you, Hilda. You're actually—you're actually her!"

Her jaw clenched. Her entire body trembled with fury. "You're the daughter the Summers family found!"

"No wonder Jasper looked like someone had ripped his soul out at the gala. You're back."

Hilda offered a thin, indifferent smile. "It's been a while, Vivienne."

Vivienne's voice shot up an octave. "Hilda! You knew about your real family all along, didn't you? You hid it on purpose! You wanted Jasper to go crazy over you! You showed up at the welcome gala deliberately. This is revenge. You're punishing him. You're punishing both of us!"

"You must be so pleased with yourself. After you vanished, Jasper tore this city apart looking for you like a man possessed. He even risked offending my parents just to postpone the wedding!" Her voice cracked, sharp and jagged. "You ruined my entire life!"