His Captive Obsession Chapter 06

His Captive Obsession Chapter 06

By the end of the summer, I started preschool and celebrated my birthday.

Mom baked a huge batch of cupcakes and brought them to the school’s family fun day.

The delicious, healthy, and beautiful treats immediately caught the parents’ attention.

What started as small orders from the school quickly grew into a thriving custom cake business.

Mom eventually opened a small boutique bakery, hiring a few assistants and a pastry chef.

That was when Ashton joined us.

They say eighteen is the best year of a person’s life, and Ashton practically radiated youthful energy and life.

If I was a little bee buzzing around Mom, he was the biggest, fattest bee in the hive.

He put so much effort into impressing her that even I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Ashton, do you want to be my stepdad?” I asked one day.

His pale face instantly turned bright red, and he gently placed a hand over my mouth.

“How could you tell?”

It was incredibly obvious unless I was blind.

A while back, he had quietly asked me, “Where’s your dad?”

I looked up at the sky at a dramatic forty-five-degree angle and said, “He’s gone.”

Ashton nodded solemnly, not daring to press further.

He patted my head and said, “Let me buy you some cotton candy.”

I didn’t know looking at the sky at that exact angle could summon cotton candy, but the world was full of mysteries.

“Did your parents get along?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Daddy hated Mom. He said even as a ghost, he’d never let her go.”

That was what I had heard Daddy crying about in their room back then.

Ashton nodded again, assuming he understood. “Bad people always get what’s coming to them,” he muttered.

“What?” I asked, confused.

He pinched my cheeks gently. “How are you as pretty as a ball-jointed doll?”

Probably because my dad looked like a giant ball-jointed doll, so it was genetic.

Ashton told me to keep it a secret, then copied my forty-five-degree tilt, looking wistful.

“Your mom always treats me like a kid, but I’m an adult now.”

“I’m going to work hard and make a good living for her and you before I confess my feelings.”

Ashton was a top student at the city’s Ivy League university and had been the state’s valedictorian the previous year.

He was sweet, shy, and clearly had a brilliant future ahead of him.

The shop was filled with two massive baskets of roses, their scent so thick it made me dizzy.

The two of us—one big, one small—crouched behind the counter plotting.

Ashton stared through the glass partition at Mom, who was busy decorating a cake, his eyes full of admiration.

“Your mom is the best person in the whole world,” he whispered.

“You probably don’t know this, Munchkin, but I was one of the students she sponsored. High school was the darkest time of my life—bullying, losing both my parents… If it weren’t for her, I don’t know how I would have survived.”

Ashton’s voice grew quieter and quieter.

The evening light was soft, and his soothing voice quickly lulled me to sleep.

By the time I woke up, the sky was pitch black.

The adults were rushing around frantically because they had just taken a massive corporate order.

I rubbed my eyes, feeling hungry.

Mom told Ashton to take me to grab some dinner.

I dozed on his shoulder as we walked back to the bakery.

“Is there anything you want to do?” he asked.

“No.”

When Daddy was still at home, the moment I showed even a spark of interest in anything on TV or in a book, a driver would immediately show up to take me to see it.

Nothing in the world could really surprise me anymore.

But a moment later, as we passed a street market, I tugged on Ashton’s sleeve.

“Ashton, do you believe in love at first sight?”

A wire cage filled with about eight fluffy bunnies sat on the sidewalk, all scrambling over lettuce leaves.

Except for one sitting quietly in the corner.

Its left ear was pure white, and its right ear was a misty gray-blue.

I squatted down to stare at it.

The gray-blue patches swept beautifully from its spine down its sides.

The shop owner smiled. “You have great taste, little girl. This is a Netherland Dwarf rabbit with a rare blue gene. That’s why it looks unique.”

“It’s been here for days, guess it was just waiting for the right owner.”

“How much?” Ashton asked.

“Since you sound like you’re from my hometown, let’s not talk about money, let’s talk about destiny.”

The balding owner held up three fingers. “Three thousand eight hundred dollars.”

No wonder it hadn’t sold.

“Your daughter loves it so much, I’ll give you a discount.”

Hearing that, Ashton immediately pulled out his phone to scan the payment code.

“No need, just throw in the cage.”