Roadside incident.
Grant stopped breathing for a moment.
His accident had involved smoke.
The crushed front end of his car had begun burning before emergency crews arrived.
He remembered hearing later that someone had helped pull open the passenger-side door before firefighters reached him.
The police report had called the person an unidentified female juvenile.
Grant grabbed his phone.
His thumb hovered over Evelyn’s name.
He called.
It rang once before going to voicemail.
He called again.
Voicemail.
On the third attempt, he stopped himself.
She had just stood in front of him while he called her greedy.
While he told her she had never mattered.
While he used Natalie—the woman connected to the most important memory of his life—as a weapon against her.
A knock came at the office door.
Grant looked up.
Natalie stepped inside wearing the cream coat she had worn to dinner the previous night.
She smiled when she saw the signed papers.
“It’s done?”
Grant didn’t answer.
Natalie’s smile weakened.
“Grant?”
He closed his fingers around the bracelet.
“Where were you the night of my accident?”
She blinked.
It was a tiny reaction, but Grant had negotiated acquisitions across tables from men trained to hide fear.
He recognized the fraction of a second when someone needed time to choose an answer.
“What?”
“The accident.
Eighteen years ago.
Where were you?”
Natalie laughed softly.
“Why are you asking me that now?”
“Answer me.”
Her face sharpened.
“I was at the hospital.
You know that.”
“Were you a patient?”
“No.”
“Did anyone sign you in?”
“Grant, we were teenagers.
I don’t remember hospital paperwork.”
He placed Evelyn’s bracelet on the desk.
Natalie looked down.
The color drained slightly from her face.
There it was again.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
Grant felt something cold move through him.
“Do you know what that is?”
Natalie recovered quickly.
“A hospital bracelet.”
“Whose?”
“How would I know?”
