"So how'd you take care of it?" Hearing that Ashley Bowen wasn't the culprit, Jane Warren asked dubiously.
Ashley Bowen deliberately leaned close to Jane Warren's ear and whispered, "I wiped it up with my hand. Then I had to wash my hands for ages."
"Ugh, you're disgusting!" Jane Warren's face instantly twisted in disgust as she shoved Ashley Bowen away.
"That's why I had to lie! It would've been so embarrassing otherwise."
"Okay, well, as long as it wasn't you, that's what matters. Let's get ready to leave."
Watching Jane Warren turn and push open the emergency exit door, Ashley Bowen let out a long sigh of relief.
'Phew, that was close!'
Under the dim orange glow of the streetlights, Ashley Bowen pedaled her wobbly bicycle, her backpack slung over her shoulders. Her mind was still replaying the earlier incident.
'I really can't drink anymore. Losing all control when you're drunk is terrifying!'
She vaguely recalled the events of that night. A pleasant scent had drawn her to the First Prince's bridal suite, where she'd spotted a bottle of red wine on the coffee table.
She'd recognized it as a 1982 Lafite, worth thirty thousand a bottle. Having never seen such an expensive wine before, she'd chugged the entire thing!
Shaking her head, Ashley Bowen managed to calm herself, only to be immediately overcome with sorrow.
'If all of that was real, then my first kiss and my first night… they're both gone!'
Her spirits plummeted. Ashley drooped her head, her mood instantly souring. After all, she had guarded those precious things for nineteen years!
Sobbing quietly, tears streamed back in the wind.
'This world really isn't so wonderful after all.'
"Shay, hurry and get up! You're going to be late for work!"
Someone was yanking on her blanket. Ashley Bowen clamped it between her legs and pulled back with all her might. Tipping her head back, she looked at her mother with a pitiful expression and pleaded, "Mom, I'm sick today. I don't want to go to work."
"What? How could you suddenly get sick when you were fine?" Worried about her daughter, Shay's mom quickly let go of the blanket, sat on the edge of the bed, and felt Ashley Bowen's forehead.
"Tell me, did someone at the palace bully you?"
Ashley Bowen looked at her mother's grave expression, bit her lip, and shook her head.
'She couldn't possibly tell her mom she'd slept with a stranger, could she?'
"No, I'm just tired from working overtime." She blurted out an excuse, not wanting to make her mom worry.
Shay's mom sighed and pulled Ashley Bowen into her arms.
Blinking, Ashley looked at her mom and quickly tried to reassure her. "It's okay, Mom! I'm fully recharged now. I'll get ready for work!"
She came from a single-parent family. Her dad had left them when she was very young, and her mom had raised her by working odd jobs.
Ashley's heart ached for her mother, and she was deeply grateful to her. That's why every summer, she worked to earn her own tuition money and lighten her mother's burden.
Like a freshly charged battery, Ashley Bowen leaped from the bed, threw her arms around her mother's neck for a quick kiss, and then fled the room.
'No matter how upset I am, I can't let Mom see it.'
After finishing the breakfast her mother had made with love, Ashley Bowen slung on her backpack and left their small courtyard home, just like any other day. The house was the only property her father had left them. She'd heard it was worth several million now, but her mother could never bear to sell it.
As she pedaled her worn-out bicycle to the end of the alley, she found her way blocked by a gleaming, jet-black luxury car.
A clean-cut, handsome man in a tailor-made suit stepped out of the car and walked straight toward her.