{"id":2768,"date":"2026-09-28T19:50:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T19:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icuow.top\/index.php\/chapter\/capture-your-heart-229\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T19:50:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T19:50:00","slug":"capture-your-heart-229","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"http:\/\/icuow.top\/index.php\/chapter\/capture-your-heart-229\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 229"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chapter 229<br \/>\nCapture Your Heart novel Chapter 229<\/p>\n<p>Karin&#8217;s going to have an emergent meeting to attend, and she calls the nanny to pick up Esme. After the meeting, she&#8217;s about to rush home when the nanny calls her, &#8220;Miss Karin, Esme is missing!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What?&#8221; She&#8217;s shocked to death. &#8220;Impossible!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I planned to take her right back home, but we stopped by the supermarket as I wanted to get some vegetables. She&#8217;s missing when I checked out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Shocked and terrified, the nanny says in a shivering voice as if she&#8217;s about to cry. Karin&#8217;s heart is squeezed and she instantly hangs it up to find her daughter.<\/p>\n<p>Until the night falls, she hasn&#8217;t found Esme. Then she is enveloped by terror and worry. William hastily comes to help her find Esme after she calls him for help, and they drive to find Esme\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When did you call the police?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;An hour ago.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Looking at Karin&#8217;s watery red eyes, William comforts her, &#8220;Don&#8217;t be worried. Esme won&#8217;t leave you for too long. Plus, you don&#8217;t have feud enemies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s never acted like this before.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>William frowns. &#8220;Why did Esme fight with her classmates?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Karin turns around as her tears running out of her eyes again. In no way Esme could be so pissed off unless she got teased about her non-existence father.<\/p>\n<p>She used to get teased like this, but they&#8217;re out of line this time, and Esme loses control.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s so cold outside. Where did she go? She&#8217;s never regretted that she gave up on Troy to save Esme with her, but somehow, she regrets. She shouldn&#8217;t have delivered her if she couldn&#8217;t give her a normal family. She&#8217;s too little to bear all the distress in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Troy wines and dines several local powerful officials as he&#8217;s about to develop his business here, so he wants to enhance his social network here.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s eleven o&#8217;clock when the dinner&#8217;s over. On the way to his home, Troy drives through a woods park where he notices a lonely child.<\/p>\n<p>For some reason, he finds her kind of familiar. He pulls over and gets off to walk to the child, asking gently, &#8220;Do you get lost?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The child slowly raises her head, which gets Troy shocked. It&#8217;s Karin&#8217;s child. To his surprise, the child&#8217;s got many scratches over her face.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Are you okay?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Troy crouches down to ask Esme, but she just stares at him silently. After silent for long, she says, &#8220;I don&#8217;t want to talk to you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Why not?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Because you&#8217;re a bad guy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A bad guy?&#8221; He raises his brows. &#8220;Is it written in my face?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Esme ignores his question, so he continues to question, &#8220;Why do you hate me?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t hate you, but my mother hates you. Every time she sees you, she&#8217;ll cry sadly.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Troy is dumbfounded as mixed emotions runs on his heart.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s your mom? Why are you here alone?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She doesn&#8217;t answer him.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Why did you get hurt? Had a fight with your classmates?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She&#8217;s still silent.<\/p>\n<p>Troy sighs and gives her his coat. &#8220;It&#8217;s cold outside. Let me take you home.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No. I don&#8217;t want to go home!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Esme gets startled and winces, her body shivering, her eyes watery.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What happened, Sweetheart?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to tell you.&#8221; She starts to weep.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Because I&#8217;m a bad guy?&#8221; Troy comforts her, &#8220;You know we&#8217;ve got evil bad guys and kind bad guys in the world, and I&#8217;m the kind bad guy, so you can tell me everything as I promise to help you punish the evil bad guys.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Esme glances over him doubtfully before crying in tears, &#8220;I can&#8217;t go home because I had a fight with my classmates, and my mom will get pissed off, but I don&#8217;t want her to get angry\u2026&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;How come you had a fight with them?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They teased me and said I was a bastard without a dad\u2026&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Troy gets shocked as he widens his eyes, then he asks, &#8220;Don&#8217;t you know who your father is?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t\u2026&#8221; She cries sadly. &#8220;Actually, I also wonder who&#8217;s my father, but I&#8217;m afraid if I ask mom, she&#8217;ll get sad.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Troy grins. &#8220;I see. Your mother has a clever and understanding daughter.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Because of my dad&#8217;s DNA.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;How do you know it?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Esme sadly lowers her head and says in whisper, &#8220;Because my mom always says that I&#8217;m as clever and kind as my dad, and that&#8217;s why she loves me so much.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Troy&#8217;s dumbfounded as he is rendered speechless.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But my mom only says things like that when she&#8217;s happy. In other cases, she&#8217;ll feel sad if she mentions my dad\u2026&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Taking a deep breath, Troy turns around as he feels his tears welling up.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Can I ask you a question?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Well, sure.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Troy shifts his eyes to her again. His eyes are filled with affection.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Why did you bully my mother?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Why did she cry every time she saw you?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Troy doesn&#8217;t know how to answer her question as he can&#8217;t tell her the truth or a lie. Noticing his distress, Esme sighs and takes out a picture book for him. &#8220;Can you promise not to bully my mom if I give all my paintings to you?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Esme pushes as Troy doesn&#8217;t answer. &#8220;Or you can bully me instead of my mom.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Okay\u2026&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He promises with a bitter smile.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s too late, and he asks Esme to pack up all the rest food. He doesn&#8217;t have Karin&#8217;s number, so he can&#8217;t inform her of Esme&#8217;s safety.<\/p>\n<p>After arriving at the Star River Community, Troy tings the doorbell, but no one reply. He says, &#8220;It seems your mom is still looking for you outside.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","class_list":["post-2768","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/icuow.top\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/chapter\/2768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/icuow.top\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/chapter"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/icuow.top\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/icuow.top\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}