Javon agreed.
Nicholas remembered asking his rescuer to save his grandmother’s ring. Ariel hadn’t known anything about it.
So Nicholas ordered his team to investigate.
That night, Bailey checked the news and felt her blood run cold.
Ariel Hartley had been identified as Nicholas Phil’s rescuer. A press conference was scheduled for the next morning at 9:00 a.m., where Ariel would be publicly honored and rewarded.
Bailey sat on her bed staring at the headline.
No.
Seventeen years of swallowed anger hardened into something sharp and steady.
She still had the ring.
That was her proof.
She decided she had to reach Nicholas before the press conference.
After hours of online research, she found an old profile that mentioned Nicholas’s daily ritual: every morning he went alone to a small coffee shop called The Daily Grind, a place his grandmother Eleanor had taken him as a child.
At 6:45 the next morning, Bailey stood outside the shop in the nicest outfit she owned.
She bought the cheapest coffee on the menu and waited by the window.
At 7:18, Nicholas walked in.
This time he was alive, healthy, fully conscious, and somehow even more striking than she remembered. He greeted the barista by name, asked about her daughter’s college acceptance, and ordered his usual coffee.
Bailey’s legs nearly failed her.
But she forced herself to walk over.
“Excuse me, Mr. Phil.”
He turned. Their eyes met. Something flickered across his face.
“Do I know you?” he asked.
“We’ve met,” Bailey said. “Sort of. You weren’t really conscious for most of it.”
Nicholas went still.
“Route 41,” Bailey said. “September 28th. Your car was wrapped around a tree. I pulled you out.”
His eyes widened.
Bailey reached into her pocket and pulled out the velvet box.
“You asked me to save something,” she said. “You said it was all you had left of your grandmother.”
She opened the box.
Nicholas stared at the sapphire ring as if he had been struck speechless.
“You saved it,” he whispered.
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