Chapter 8: His Obsession

"How did you know him? I mean... he was very low profile to be exact. I have never seen his face before. And I searched his name on the internet just now, they rarely had his picture in the articles. Just a few pictures of his side face but never showed his full face," Hana was weird that it was so hard to find Ashton's full face or full body pictures on the internet. That was kind of rare for someone who was rich and famous.

"He was only famous with his name. And he strictly banned the media from publishing any of his full-face pictures to the public, or else he'll sue them. You're right. He's a very low profile person. I met him a few times actually. He always hired Infinite Designs Architecture to do the designs for his boutiques and branch buildings. I guess he just loved our design ideas."

Infinite Designs Architecture was the company Samuel worked for. He was one of the senior architects in the company.

"Anyway... I can't believe that your non-blood sister is going to marry this guy tomorrow. I wonder if she even knows who he truly was," Samuel continued.

"Should I tell her?" Hana was excited by the idea but her husband shook his head immediately.

"Let that be a surprise to her. I'm sure Karl would be even more surprised to know about this later. Ashley did want to go to his wedding, right?"

"Yeah. This is the perfect rebound. Serve you right, Karl!" Hana was hyped up by the thought of Ashley pissing off Karl later. Her husband just chuckled at her reaction.

***

"To whom did you send our selfie picture just now?" Ashton asked Ashley during dinner. She was focusing on her phone, smiling and chuckling alone as she kept sending and receiving text messages from someone. She barely touched the food in front of her.

"To my sister..." she replied slowly and smiled at him.

"You have a sister?" He was stunned.

This morning, he just found out that she was an orphan. Now, she told him that she had a sister. There was so much about her that he didn't know yet, and he couldn't help but felt a strange feeling hitting him on the inside because he was about to marry this woman tomorrow.

"Not really a real one. Just like a non-blood sister. She was from the orphanage too. She's the only one that I considered as my family member apart from Sister Maria," Ashley explained.

"What's her name? And who is Sister Maria?" Ashton was getting more curious now. He focused on her while eating his food. Although he too hadn't told her anything about his family background, he thought that maybe it was time for them to be open with each other about it since they were getting married tomorrow.

"Hana Miller. It was Hana Wilson before, but she got married to an architect named Samuel Miller. So she changed her surname. They had a son named Max. As for Sister Maria, she was the one in charge of taking care of the kids in the orphanage where I lived before. Sister Maria White..."

"She had the same surname as you? Is she your real relative?"

"Not really. I was abandoned in front of the orphanage when I was a baby. No documents were found with me. Only a note was written on a small piece of paper, stating that my name was Ashley. The orphanage needed to process my identification documents, so Sister Maria let me use her surname. Thus, I became Ashley White. I really didn't have a clue who my parents are," there was a hint of gloominess inside her voice.

"We should at least invite them to our wedding tomorrow. This Hana and Sister Maria," Ashton suggested, trying to change the topic so she wouldn't be sad.

"I did invite Hana. But she said she couldn't come because her husband has to be out stationed in another city tomorrow. He was pretty attached to her and their baby, so he wanted her to come along with him. As for Sister Maria... I don't think she could come," Ashley replied.

"Why so?" Ashton wondered.

"The orphanage was too far and isolated. I could call her but still, I don't think she would be able to come. Besides, the kids at the orphanage can't be abandoned. She can't just leave them to go to my wedding," Ashley told the reason. It made sense, so Ashton didn't ask further about it.

They continued eating dinner and slept early that night because tomorrow was their big day. Ashley requested to sleep in the guestroom. She couldn't bring herself to sleep together with him even though they would be married by tomorrow. She just felt like she wouldn't be able to sleep soundly if they are in the same bed. Ashton just allowed it to respect her privacy.

The night passed and the morning sun rose again in the east. The alarm on her phone went off and Ashley woke up immediately. It was eight o'clock and her wedding would be held in two hours. She got off the bed and went to peek at the back garden from a window. A few people wearing formal attire were still doing some arrangements there.

"I'm really getting married today..." she muttered senselessly.

She took her phone and checked the date. She felt that she should at least remember the date of her wedding day. 

"Fourteenth February... such a nice day to get married. It's Valentine's Day," she mumbled again and chuckled bitterly.

She didn't hate the groom. It was just that she wasn't sure if marrying him was the right choice. She started to wonder if she had been too reckless to accept Ashton's proposal before. But now, it was certainly too late for her to change her mind. Everything was ready. The only thing left was for her to submit herself entirely and just let the thing happen as planned.

Amidst her pondering alone, the bedroom door was knocked by someone.

"Miss White, are you awake? We are the stylist team for your wedding today. Can we come in now?" Flora asked kindly.

She was the team leader of the stylist team from the modelling agency that belonged to Ashton. Her whole team was summoned by Ashton that day to prepare his bride for the wedding. Everyone inside her team was wondering what Ashley looked like, considering that she managed to capture the heart of their cold, strict and indifferent Chairman, who was also a bit of a perfectionist.

Ashton always looked at all the female models at the agency disdainfully and each female model that wanted to train inside his agency must go through a body measurements check-up based on the Golden Ratio number as a scale. Those who couldn't score at least seventy per cent accuracy on the annoying scale number would not be accepted by the agency. What was more annoying was the fact that those strict requirements were only applied to the female models, whilst the male models got accepted pretty easily. At some points, there were also rumours saying that Ashton was actually gay and hated women.

Truthfully, he was just a guy who was obsessed to find that one woman who had the perfect body measurements according to the Golden Ratio number, which was considered to be the most visually pleasing measurement. That one woman who could fit the Ancient Greek beauty formula and have her body figure visually pleasing as if the body of a Greek goddess. That was the obsession that he gained after Layla left him.

Layla had always told him how much she wanted to have such a perfect body, similar to a Greek goddess, the one that fit the measurement for the Golden Ratio number. They used to check her body measurements once and she came as close as scoring over ninety-seven per cent accuracy towards the number.

For years, Layla had been the Greek goddess that conquered his heart. Until he met Ashley and found out that she matched the Golden Ratio number perfectly, with almost one hundred per cent accuracy and that blew his mind entirely. Because he was convinced that no one could ever have that number.

"Miss White? Are you still asleep? You need to wake up now. We need to prepare you for the wedding," Flora knocked again at the door, a bit louder than before.

The first knock on the door stunned her before. So when there was another knock, Ashley pulled her sense back and ran to the door, opening it slowly and peeking outside timidly at all the people she had never known before.

"Hi..." All the women outside greeted her in unison, staring at her with their hands waving at her in a friendly manner.

"Hi..." Ashley replied shyly.

"Hello, Miss White. It's very nice to meet you. I'm Flora Mills from the company. Mr Grey ordered us to come and prepare you for the wedding," Flora repeated the same information for the third time.

"Oh, hmm... I haven't showered yet," Ashley responded, feeling hesitant to let them in.

The whole stylist team chuckled and told her that it was fine and that it was the reason why they were there. They convinced her to let them in and when they entered the guestroom, suddenly the atmosphere changed as if it was a wedding studio.

Trisha and Sandra went into the bathroom and prepared a bubble bath for her. They poured a small bottle of fresh vanilla fragrant bath gel and even put a few flower petals, mostly roses into the bathtub. In ten minutes, they called Ashley to come in and had a bath.

"Just fifteen minutes inside the tub. Scrub your body everywhere and then rinse under the shower. Okay?" Trisha gave her instruction on how to bathe properly. Ashley just nodded obediently and the two left her inside the bathroom alone.