“Can I help you?” she asked professionally.
Isaiah swallowed.
“Do you still feed hungry boys behind grocery stores?”
She froze.
Her eyes widened slowly.
“Isaiah?”
He nodded.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then she crossed the hallway in three steps and hugged him so tightly he forgot how to breathe.
“You’re alive,” she whispered.
“I am.”
She pulled back, studying his face.
“You look…” She laughed softly. “You look important.”
He smiled. “I just look older.”
They sat in the small break room and talked for two hours.
He told her about Memphis. About college. About the company.
She told him about her grandmother. About the clinic. About the families she helped every day.
At one point, she shook her head in disbelief.
“So you really got rich,” she teased.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I did.”
She smiled. “I’m proud of you.”
He hesitated.
“You remember something I said?”
She tilted her head.
“When we were kids.”
Her eyes softened.
“You said a lot of things.”
He took a deep breath.
“I said I’d marry you when I was rich.”
Lila laughed, covering her face.
“Oh Lord, Isaiah—”
“I wasn’t joking,” he said gently.
She stopped laughing.
“I meant it then. And I mean it now.”
Silence filled the room.
“You don’t even know me anymore,” she said softly.
“I know you fed a boy who had nothing,” he replied. “I know you never asked for anything back. I know you still work here when you could’ve left.”
Her eyes glistened.
“Isaiah…”
“I didn’t come back just to reminisce,” he said. “I came back because you’re the reason I believed I could become something.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small velvet box.
Her breath caught.
“I don’t want to rescue you,” he said quickly. “You don’t need rescuing. You’ve been saving people your whole life. I just… I want to build something with you.”
Tears slid down her cheeks.
“You built an empire,” she whispered.
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