A Love Trap
Chapter 81 Trick

Cheryl was a waitress that Greyson had recommended to Ashley. She was a pretty young girl who worked hard. Ashley thought highly of her.

"Ashley, you're finally here," Cheryl said in a shaky voice. The young girl had never been in such a situation before and was visually shaken by it. Her eyes were wide with fear and red from crying. Ashley approached her, patted the girl reassuringly on the back and asked, "What happened?"

"I am not sure. When I came here, I saw a girl lying in front of our shop and her parents said that their daughter had blacked out after she ate one of our cakes,"

Cheryl said with a worried tone in her voice.

When the father of the girl saw Ashley, he stopped crying and stood up immediately. He pointed at Ashley and shouted angrily, "You're the boss here, right?

I heard that the cakes in your shop were delicious, so I bought some vanilla cream puffs. My wife and I didn't have a chance to try them because we had something to do.

But when our daughter Jenny came home from school, she saw the cream puffs and had some and now she has passed out."

The man then turned around and looked at the crowd as he squeezed out a few tears. "I didn't expect that my daughter would get sick after eating a cake from this shop.

You'd better not buy anything from this bakery. The food here isn't safe to eat," he said indignantly.

He then turned to his daughter and bent down stroking her hair. "Oh, my poor girl. She is so young and now she is lying unconscious because she ate a cream puff from this bakery."

The girl's mother who was squatting down beside the unconscious girl shook her body and cried, "Wake up, Jenny. Please open your eyes. I can't lose you, sweetie."

The onlookers started whispering to one another.

"I ate food from that shop, it was really good and I didn't get sick from it. Perhaps something else has made his daughter sick," a man said.

"Oh that poor little girl. It doesn't look like her parents are acting. Who would use their own daughter to pretend something as terrible as this?" said a woman.

Upon hearing this, the man let out a deep sigh and shut up.

"Is that man telling the truth? The food in that shop isn't safe to eat?"

"Oh, isn't that man the owner of Teddy Bear Bakery? Why would he come here to buy a cake, when he has his own cakes?" a man asked curiously when he recognized the sulking father to be the owner of the Teddy Bear Bakery.

The expression on the father's face froze and he looked rattled for a moment. However, he quickly composed himself and said, "Yes, I am the owner of that bakery. But I noticed that this shop was very popular so I came here to try some of the cakes. I never expected something like this to happen..."

The father's words had made sense and his daughter was still lying on the ground in a coma. The bystanders took pity on him and began to believe his story. They started to side with the weeping parents.

...

Ashley looked at the forming crowd in front of her shop. She wasn't fazed by their remarks and skeptical glances.

She narrowed her eyes at the couple who were crouching beside the unconscious girl and recognized that they were the owners of the bakery nearby.

They always made scornful remarks about Ashley's bakery and she wasn't stupid. She didn't buy that man's story for one minute.

The two shops were in stiff competition with each other and Ashley was convinced that this was all just a ploy from the owners of the other bakery to defame hers.

If she didn't settle this properly, she knew that her bakery's reputation would be ruined and she and Ellie would have to close the shop. That way, there would be only one bakery left in the street and the treacherous couple would get their old customers back again. What Ashley wasn't aware of, was this trick had been used by the couple before to deal with their competitors. Each time a new bakery opened, they would play the same trick and make the owners close their shop.

That was the reason why there was only one bakery in the whole busy street before Ashley and Ellie opened theirs.

But the man didn't expect that his trick wouldn't work on Ashley and Ellie.

Ashley went to check on the little girl and called out to Ellie, who was standing in the entrance of their bakery. "Call 120, Ellie, tell them that someone has collapsed."

When the man saw Ashley coming his way, he flew into a panic. Noticing that Ellie took out her phone, he immediately jumped to his feet and slapped the phone out of Ellie's hand causing it to fall and break on the ground.

"What are you doing? Stay away from my daughter. Are you trying to hurt her? She is unconscious because of you. Why are you so mean?" the man chided, pointing at Ashley.

Ellie's face darkened as she stared at her broken phone on the ground. Seething, she glowered at the man who slapped the phone from her hand and hollered at him, "When the hell did you see us hurt her? Your daughter has fainted, but you don't want to take her to a hospital. Instead, you leave her lying on the cold ground.

I was going to call 120 but you stopped me and slapped the phone out of my hand. Are you really even her father?"

"She has a point. They tried to help your little girl out of goodwill. Can't you see that?" said someone from the crowd.

"Besides, that lady was going to call 120, but you just slapped it out of her hand and now it's broken on the ground. Why would you do that?" asked another.

The onlookers began to question and criticize the father's behavior.

Everyone had been so caught up in the man's accusations against the bakery that they ignored the fact that the parents didn't do anything to help their own daughter and take her to a hospital.

"Call 120. The kid needs immediate treatment," some bystander called out.

Ashley pulled her phone out with the intention of calling 120. The girl's father saw what she was going to do and made a quick move towards her to try and stop her.

Ashley frowned at him and managed to dodge his advances, protecting her phone so it didn't end up like Ellie's one which was broken on the ground.

She glared at him and asked acidly, "What are you doing?"

"No! You can't call 120!" the man yelled and shot Ashley a threatening look.

Frowning, Ashley glared at him and snapped, "Why not? Didn't you say that our shop's food made your daughter get sick and collapse? I am trying to save your daughter's life. If she doesn't get to a hospital, she could be in grave danger!"000000