Page 34 of Tempting the President

He grimaced. “Yuck.”

I pinched his cheeks. “You need to sleep or you’ll stay small like that forever. You’ll be the smallest man in the world and everyone won’t see you because you’re too small. They’ll step on you—-”

Ashton started to cry.

God, so cute! I hugged him again. “Sorry, you know I’m just joking right.”

“No,” Ashton wailed and cried harder.

Oh my God, I wanted to take a photo of his crying face. Were babies really this cute or was it just Ashton?

“Sssh, sssh, sorry.” I ruffled his head. “How about I sing you a song?” As expected, his tears miraculously dried and I grinned.

“Sing...” Ashton stopped speaking, frowning in thought. It made him look like a mini-lawyer, a three-year-old lost in thought. My heart nearly burst with joy at the sight of him.For this guy, I thought,I would sing forever.

He changed my life, gave me a reason to live, and the thought that our mother had almost aborted Ashton made me shudder, like it always did.

Ashton’s eyes were sparkling again. I itched to draw him like that, even though I knew I didn’t have time for it, not with my concert about to start in an hour.

“What do you want me to sing?” I expected the usual song little boys suggested. Something from a cartoon show maybe, or something popular—-

He hummed a song.

My eyes widened. Since we both took after our mom, his tone was pitch-perfect even at his young age. I recognized the song right away, but I couldn’t believe that Ashton would ask something like it.

“Really?” It was a Broadway song. More specifically, it was from the Phantom of the Opera, which Raoul and Christine had sung when they saw each other again after so many years.

I hummed the song.

Ashton nodded happily. “That one!” He was clapping his hands again, legs swinging. He always did these things when he was super excited, a trait that was supposedly common for kids with ADHD like him.

“Well, okay, if that’s what you really want...” I took a deep breath and sang. A cold shiver swept over me as I sang the first lines. I felt like someone had walked over my grave, but I told myself that it was just my natural aversion manifesting itself.

If The Little Mermaid’s voice was a gift, I looked at mine as a curse. A voice that was so beautiful it could supposedly take people’s breaths away. But for me, it took away my childhood, my identity – everything that I wanted to be had been erased the first time my parents heard me sing.

The moment they realized my voice made people smile, cry – the moment they realized my voice made people dig into their pockets, as deep as they wanted, it was all over.

To be a singer, that was my destiny.

My curse.

One that had my life documented on YouTube, a budding diva in the making. One that had us moving from town to town, long enough to complete a couple of gigs but never long enough for me to make friends.

Sometimes, I wanted to sing and sing until I could no longer breathe.

But then Ashton came...

When I finished singing, my brother said, “You are so cool.” Ashton was beaming at me as he said the words.

I hugged him again.

“Can’t...breathe,” Ashton gasped.

“Too bad.” I hugged him more tightly. For this little guy, I really would do everything. Sing till the end of the world if it was what would make him have the best life in the world. I wanted to buy him the cutest toys, wanted him to go to the best schools, to have his own life and not be like me.

The main door of our suite opened. “Time to go,” Amelie sang. She was a little drunk. Again.

I frowned, wishing I could tell her not to show herself to Ashton when she was like that. “I’ll just put Ashton to bed—-”