Sky's pov-
Time: 7:12 p.m.
Location: Kitchen (War Zone)
I was winning.
The rice was fluffy, the chicken was golden, the maids were cooing, and Kai hadn't managed to sneak a bite yet.
Victory.
I beamed as I placed the last dish down on the dining table, hair swinging behind me in its usual floor-length dramatic fashion. Two maids clapped. One even snapped a picture.
"She cooks like an angel," Rosa, our head maid, sighed happily. "With hair like that, she should be in a shampoo ad."
I flipped a strand over my shoulder. "Don't tempt me. I will do a hair commercial just to annoy Dad."
"You'd break the internet, darling," Rosa laughed.
I skipped over to the fridge to grab the iced tea and that's when it happened. Tragedy struck.
The fridge door slammed closed—ON MY HAIR.
"GaaAAHHHH!" I screeched, yanking back too fast, only to realize…
I was stuck.
One glorious, thicc section of my knee-length hair was trapped between the fridge and the universe.
"Oh my God. Oh no. This is it. This is how I die."
The maids rushed to me like I'd been shot.
"Don't move!"
"Where's the scissors—wait, no, that's a crime!"
"Is it pulling your scalp?!"
"I'm going bald!" I wailed, clutching the fridge like it betrayed me personally. "This is betrayal!"
Rosa took charge. "Someone call Mr. Ashford."
A maid was already on it. "Sir? Yes, she's—no, she's not injured, she's just… stuck. In the fridge. Her hair, sir. Yes. Yes, again."
I buried my face in the door. "This is so embarrassing. Don't tell Dad. I'll never hear the end of it."
"You literally just told him."
Footsteps thundered down the marble hallway.
Then the double doors swung open and Sebastian Ashford, feared CEO, living shadow, my overprotective dad, stormed in like someone had threatened my life.
"What happened?" he snapped, suit jacket already off, sleeves rolling up.
"Your daughter picked a fight with a refrigerator," Kai said, sipping his drink.
Sebastian blinked.
Then he sighed. "Again?"
He crouched down, so tall and effortlessly powerful, like some dark prince. His warm hands carefully lifted my hair from the fridge's iron grip, gentle like I was made of porcelain.
"It's okay, baby," he said softly. "I've got you."
And just like that… it came loose.
I spun dramatically into his arms, hugging him tight, face buried in his shirt.
"I thought I'd be bald forever."
"You'd still be beautiful."
"I made dinner."
"Then you're doubly my hero."
He kissed the top of my head like he always did, right where the parting of my hair was.
I looked up at him with wide eyes. "Can you help me braid it? So it doesn't attack appliances again?"
He hesitated… then nodded.
Ten minutes later, Sebastian Ashford—the same man who once threatened a diplomat into exile—was sitting at the dinner table, carefully braiding his daughter's massive, glossy black hair while she babbled about seasoning, algebra, and how Kai stole two cookies again.
And no one dared laugh. Not at the coldest man alive tenderly tying off a braid with a pink ribbon.
Because in this mansion, Sebastian Ashford may be king…
But I was the crown.