When There Is Nothing Left But Love

“Okay.” I nodded obediently and continued speaking through puffed cheeks, “Get home as soon as you can.”

A faint voice spoke up from his end of the call. It was foreign and sounded like it belonged to a man. “Mr. Fuller, you may begin now.”

“Alright,” Ashton responded to the voice before turning back to me. “I have to deal with some stuff here, so you should go on to bed without me. I’ll text you when I get home.”

Then he hung up before I could manage a “goodbye” or even an “okay.”

Looking back at the call history, something didn’t quite sit right in my chest.

Am I mistaken or did Ashton sound a little nervous earlier? As I contemplated giving him another call after he was done with his work, my phone buzzed—it was a WhatsApp message from Ashton: Don’t worry, Honey. I’ll be extra careful so no one can cop a feel.

A soft smile broke out on my face, thinking that he must be fine if he can joke around like this.

Feeling relieved, I put away my phone and decided to check on the twins in their nursery. On my way there, I noticed a faint glow coming from Summer’s room. Seeing that her door wasn’t fully shut, I peeked into her room out of curiosity.

computer with her head leaning down, doing something that I couldn’t see from where I

get close to Summer. I already transferred Stella to the Logistics Department and made sure she suffered for it. Don’t tell me that

Summer to get a better look. It turned out that Summer was practicing some fourth-grade math

me. Summer had just started

still lowered, focusing on the fourth-grade workbook before her. She was so absorbed in solving equations that

tiny human

inhaled and gradually approached her side, making sure to not startle her before asking my

fun, and Mr. Cress said I’m

“Is that so…?”

there was nothing special about the contents since it mostly consisted of basic

lips into a

happily throw herself into the tediousness of bookkeeping. She loved it dearly; calculating, and tallying

if Summer was

placed the workbook back down and petted the top of Summer’s head. A comforting smile stretched across my face as I encouraged, “That’s great, Summer! I’m so proud of you. Now, you’re still young, and your body needs to rest. So let’s get you tucked