The secretary listened, confused. He'd been called away by a phone call from Vivienne the day the ambulance arrived and had no idea what had actually happened to Hilda's grandmother.

After a moment's thought, he picked up the phone and called the hospital.

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?"