I wasn’t really sure what to do. Since I had to stay in Moranta for the next few days, I couldn’t very well go all the way back and send her to the hospital. “Mom, can you ask one of the maids to take Summer to the hospital? She may just be going through a bad case of seasonal flu. Maybe she’ll get better after a while,” I told Cameron.
“Alright. I’ll arrange for someone to take her to the hospital tomorrow. Your dad and I have been so busy nowadays we can barely catch our breath. Come back after finishing your business at Moranta, okay? Don’t go to A City anymore. Come back to K City and learn how to manage the companies. Your dad and I are getting old, so you and Emery will be taking over soon. Since you’re both so young, it’ll be much easier for you two to take the reins. I’m sure the companies will do much better with you two in charge.”
It surprised me to hear that they were planning to pass both the Moore Corporation and the Anderson Corporation over to me. Almost instinctively, I replied, “Mom, you know I don’t like all that business stuff. Nick and Emery are both skilled enough to take over. I still have stuff I want to do in the future. You can slowly give up the company bit by bit, but there’s no rush.”
Luckily, Cameron seemed to respect my decision. She sighed and replied, “You know, you will have to take over sooner or later. You’re from the Moore family, after all. There are some things you can’t just push to others.”
I knew she was just reminding me out of kindness. Hence, I replied with a short hum, reluctant to say much more.
However, my mood got much worse after the phone call. I had never even thought of those things. In the midst of all this new information, I couldn’t help but feel slightly rattled. I turned around to see Ashton still reading.
I felt like I had to coddle him a bit. After all, I had run out by myself and got my phone broken by Holden. I even got back pretty late, so it was inevitable that he would worry.
Because of what Cameron said, however, I was already in a rather unhappy mood. I decided to just crawl into bed. Maybe it was because I was worried, or maybe it was because I was already tired from walking around all day, but I fell asleep rather quickly.
After some time, I woke up to some loud noises. I soon realized that Ashton was making those noises on purpose. He was practically slamming his books down and even made a racket when he was filling a glass of water. His typing was usually pretty quiet, but today he was stabbing each key as if he had a personal vendetta against his keyboard.
I wasn’t planning on saying anything at first since I knew he was doing it on purpose. Sometimes, men could really be more immature than I could imagine. He was just trying his best to get my attention.
How could I have not realized? At the sight of my indifference, he somehow dug out a calculator and started repeatedly pressing one of the buttons. The mechanical beeps kept coming as he continued pressing.
I finally sat up and looked at him. “Ashton, can you stop being so childish?” He was almost forty, so I couldn’t believe that he was still so immature.
He glared at me. “How am I being childish?”
I nearly choked on my spit. “So you think you’re being an adult right now?” In order to wake me up, he had already banged, beeped, and tapped everything that could make a noise in the hotel room.
He looked at me and suddenly lowered his head, chuckling so hard his shoulders started to shake.
Ever since I’d met him, we never showed our weaker or childish side to each other. Despite having been married for many years, I sometimes felt as though we’d just started dating. We had been all caught up in misunderstandings and jealousy until now when we could finally start interacting more comfortably.
I watched him as he finally stopped laughing. “What did you go out alone for?” he asked me.
I thought about it for a while before answering, “I’ve never been to Moranta, so I thought it would be fun to take a quick walk. I was getting bored staying in the hotel room after all. I didn’t know I would get into trouble, much less bump into Holden.”
He leaned next to me and sighed, looking a little pitiful. “Next time, please let me know your whereabouts no matter what. Worrying so much about someone hurts more than you’d think.”
I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him and nodded. “I’ll always let you know where I am from now on, okay?”
A relationship always ended up boiling down to two people missing each other all the time. The simplest definition of love was probably having someone apart from your parents love and care for you.
I suddenly felt his hand on me and looked at him with wide eyes. “Ashton, what are you doing?”
He had already pushed my nightdress up to my thigh. With a gentle gaze, he asked, “Aren’t you going to pay me back for what I’ve gone through?”
