Chapter 26
Hannah didn’t care about his reaction at all and kept on talking.
“If it weren’t for this debt of gratitude, we never would have met, and I’d have had my own life
Zachary stared at her, the bitterness choking him. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. All he could do was watch as she opened the car door and stepped out.
Just as Hannah was about to walk into the house, a blinding beam of headlights hit her face. She instinctively raised her arm to shield her eyes, only to hear the screech of brakes and Zachary’s panicked shout.
“Hannah!”
The culprit behind the car accident was Yolanda, driven mad by jealousy. In her mind, everything that had happened was Hannah’s fault. She broke free from her security detail, jumped behind the wheel, and drove straight at Hannah.
But Zachary, quick as lightning, pushed Hannah aside. Apart from a few scrapes, she was unharmed.
Zachary wasn’t so lucky. Yolanda had floored the gas pedal, leaving Zachary with paralyzed legs, and he spent over a month in the ICU.
Before the Jones and the West families could even respond, Cedric had already ensured that Yolanda was behind bars indefinitely.
During Zachary’s hospital stay, Hannah visited him a few times. After all, he had risked his life to save hers Watching him lie there, tubes and wires everywhere, she sighed deeply, her emotions tangled and complex.
Her words in the car had obviously struck a chord with Zachary, but for her, it was too little, too late. His act of heroism was just a belated attempt at making amends.
Hannah stayed by his side for a long moment before finally walking away.
Her accident delayed her plans to return to Zion, and she spent the next few months recovering at the West family estate.
One morning, Hannah heard that Zachary had woken up. When he learned that it was Yolanda who had run him over and that he was now paralyzed, he showed no visible reaction, remaining unusually quiet.
On the day Hannah was packing her bags again, she found a ring in the drawer. It was the very ring she had retrieved from the ocean years ago, the one Zachary had proposed with.
In the seven years since, the ring had suffered from neglect. The diamond had fallen out, and the band was tarnished and rusty.
She ran her fingers over the ring for a long time, realizing that this piece of jewelry was the best answer to the question Zachary had once asked her. For five years, she’d been the one investing in their marriage, while he simply enjoyed the benefits.
Without mutual effort, their marriage had rusted away, just like the ring. Regardless of external circumstances, without his contribution, their relationship was doomed from the start.
She placed the ring back in its box and asked the butler to return it to Zachary.
When Zachary saw the ring, he was taken aback. In all his memories, he’d never given Hannah anything–any gift he had was always redirected towards Anna.
A friend visiting him noticed the ring and exclaimed, “Isn’t that the ring we tossed into the ocean for that bet?”
Staring at the ring, Zachary recalled that day. They had thrown the ring into the ocean, promising that whoever’s date retrieved it would win the land in the north of town.
It was a reckless bet, but they had tied the ring securely to a fishing line before casting it into the sea. Yet none of them dared to jump in except Hannah. She had calmly asked if the bet was genuine, and upon receiving
1/2
10:19
confirmation and a signed deed transfer, she dove into the sea without hesitation.
Watching her small figure disappear beneath the waves, his grip on the railing turned his knuckles white
