Chapter 2

When Ezra Gilbert first started his company, Bailey Winters was still a poor student.

Yet she gave Ezra the scholarship money she'd worked a whole year to earn, plus every dollar she'd saved from her part-time jobs.

She was wearing a white T-shirt long since washed pale, and jeans.

She handed the bank card to Ezra.

She said, "Ezra, you're going to make it. I support you."

"You don't need to thank me. I'm just investing. I believe in you."

Ezra was moved.

He said with feeling, "Girls these days are all so materialistic and money-hungry. I've never met a girl this pure and kind. Even just for her sake, I have to succeed."

Around that time, Bailey was applying to a graduate program at a school.

But the advisor she'd set her heart on didn't really want her.

I was the one who went to the advisor and got him to take her.

She came to thank me.

I told her.

"You helped Ezra, and I'm willing to help you too—consider it a return for the kindness you showed back then."

Bailey sat across from me, her eyes flickering.

"I know who I should really be thanking."

After Ezra's company took off.

He told me Bailey came from a poor family, and he wanted to support her financially—consider it repaying her for the trust she'd placed in him back then.

After that, they stayed in touch all the time.

Bailey would share her school updates with Ezra now and then, and talk to him about the things she felt lost about.

Ezra always answered her patiently.

He often went to visit her at school and took her to concerts by her favorite singers.

He spent her birthdays with her and surprised her.

I sat on the hospital bed, looking through the files these private investigators had dug up for me.

My mind couldn't help drifting back to little anomalies from the past.

Like how Ezra often came home late at night carrying an unfamiliar citrus scent.

Like how he suddenly took a liking to a Chanel blue perfume, saying the scent felt very refined.

It was only now that I understood.

Bailey liked to wear citrus-scented perfume.

Her first perfume, her first luxury handbag, her first haute couture dress...

They were all given to her by Ezra.

And that perfume Ezra wore was a gift from Bailey.

She said she hoped that every time she saw him, she could smell the scent of the gift she'd given him.

So he kept the perfume in his car and would spritz it on whenever he had a moment.

I looked through their long chat history.

Ezra said, "I like you, but I have to carry my responsibilities. I can't let Camila down. We really did meet too late."

Bailey said, "It's okay. Every time I hug you, I feel completely satisfied, like someone who's been cold for a long time suddenly moving close to a fire—it feels so safe. Happy times are short, but every second I spend with you makes life feel worth it."