Chapter 292 | If I Was Early, Would You Have Chosen Me?

Chapter 292: 292 | If I Was Early, Would You Have Chosen Me?

Inside the house.

The door wasn’t closed properly, and Jasmine’s next words carried through the gap.

"You don’t have to spend the rest of your life within reach of the Ashfords."

Selene turned her face toward the sound. Lyra looked up, and her glasses caught the voices and began displaying their words.

"We could build something elsewhere," Jasmine said. "A business. A proper life."

Dexter lowered his gaze to the photographs—a kitchen, a shop, a way out. Once, he would have accepted before she finished asking. Jasmine saw his silence and leaned forward.

"I know what they did to you. I know the marriage wasn’t your choice."

His expression changed.

"They used you, Dexter."

"Yes."

"They handed you responsibilities and expected you to disappear under them. You were never given a chance to decide what you wanted."

He said nothing. Jasmine swallowed.

"I’m not saying your wives should be abandoned without help. There are arrangements we could make. Carers. Financial support. You could make sure they are comfortable."

Inside the house, Mira’s fingers tightened around the wheel and Selene went still. As Lyra stared at the words on her lenses, her expression changed slightly.

Jasmine’s voice softened.

"But you deserve a life too."

Dexter’s face remained still for a few moments, he looked at the folder without really seeing it.

Then he inhaled and closed it.

"Jasmine... I have a life."

Jasmine’s mouth parted, and he met her eyes. "I was forced into the marriage. But staying with them is my choice."

The words were quiet and there was no one in the room he believed he needed to impress.

Jasmine’s gaze lowered to the closed folder. "You care about them."

"Yes."

"Because they need you?"

Dexter took a breath. "That’s how it began." And he continued.

"At first, I counted everything. The money. The food. The hours. Every problem they brought into my life." A faint, uncomfortable smile touched his mouth. "I wasn’t particularly noble about it."

"But I didn’t know how things began to change."

"How?"

Dexter was silent for a moment. He could have spoken about gratitude, about duty becoming affection, but instead several small things came to him: Mira pretending not to watch the door when he returned late, Lyra putting aside the food she wanted most because she thought he had not eaten, Selene sitting beside him in the dark, saying very little, while making it difficult for him to remember what it had felt like to be alone.

"I started wanting to come home," he said.

Jasmine looked up. The answer hurt more than she expected. Dexter rubbed his thumb once against the side of his finger, then deliberately stilled his hand.

Previously, he did things for the system but now, if he sees something Mira would like, he would want to bring it back. When something ridiculous happens, he thinks about telling Lyra. If the weather turns cold, he wondered whether Selene is comfortable." He glanced toward the door. "I think about them even more than I do myself"

Jasmine’s eyes watered as a slow tear rolled down her cheek but she held his gaze.

"I thought you were still waiting."

"For what?"

"For the chance to leave."

Dexter’s expression softened with something painfully close to grief. "I was."

She understood the rest. At some point, he had stopped. And she had not been there when it happened. For a while, neither spoke. Then Jasmine asked the question she had been trying to avoid since.

"If I had come back sooner..." Her voice faltered, "Would you have chosen me?"

A strange lump appeared on Dexter throat and he couldn’t speak.

Jasmine watched his face and saw the struggle he was fighting internally.

In the adjoining room, the girls heard what Jasmine had said and Mira breathing seemed to have been passed by an invisible being, Selene eyes narrowed as she lowered her head, and Lyra’s gaze remained fixed on the words before her.

Dexter could have made it easy. He could have denied the past, claimed that Jasmine had only ever been a friend, turned years of lonely hope into something small enough to dismiss. But she deserved way much better than that. She wasn’t just a random nobody to him, he had thought she was his soul mate once upon a time.

But now...

After a few defines of silence, he swallowed down the lump and spoke.

"Maybe my life would have been different," he said at last.

Jasmine closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them, he was still looking at her.

"But I won’t leave them or make them feel unwanted because of a life that never happened."

Another tear slipped down her cheek, and before Dexter knew it, he almost reached out to wipe it but Jasmine beat him to it as she wiped it away almost impatiently. "I wasn’t trying to make them feel unwanted."

"I know."

"I thought I was offering you freedom."

Dexter’s throat tightened even more and he said with a hoarse voice. "You are."

That made her look at him again. He slid the folder gently back toward her.

Jasmine looked at the photographs visible beneath the clear cover. She had imagined him smiling when he saw them, relief or perhaps even the startled happiness he had shown over a secondhand sweater.

She had not imagined that the dream she carried could arrive too late without becoming worthless. After a moment, she nodded.

"All right."

Dexter’s shoulders lowered slightly. "Jasmine—"

"Don’t apologize because you’re happy."

Her lips trembled as she continued.

"Of course I’m happy that you’re happy. That’s the most important thing. I... I just need a little time."

Dexter almost looked down. "All right."

She wiped her cheek again, then gave a small, unsteady laugh. "I should have brought cheaper paper. This feels like a very expensive way to embarrass myself."

"You’ve survived worse."

"So have you."

Their eyes met and for one brief moment, they were back on the rooftop, speaking gentle nonsense to each other.

Then Jasmine ahook her he was and cleared her throat.

"I’m glad you found somewhere you belong," With difficultly, she said.

Dexter remained silent for a while before he spoke. "Thank you."

Jasmine turned away and walked away carrying the folder against her chest. Dexter watched her cross the gate but turned around and did not watch until she disappeared.

He then closed the gate. Some goodbyes needed that much mercy.

When he went inside, Mira was waiting when he came inside, having returned to the sitting room. Dexter stopped.

"Is something wrong?"

"No."

"Then—"

"Come here."

Her voice held none of its usual sharpness. He approached, and before he could ask another question, she reached for him. Her right hand closed around his. Dexter looked down in surprise.

Mira stared at their joined hands. She had faced powerful enemies without hesitation, but for some reason, placing her fingers between his required more courage than she wanted to admit. He turned his hand beneath hers and held it properly.

Neither spoke for several seconds.

When he knew Mira might become uncomfortable, he wanted to release his grip but instead, Mira’s grip tightened for a moment and then she let him go.

Dexter remained beside her a moment longer then he smiled at her before walking toward the kitchen.

Selene stood near the doorway, turning her face toward him as he approached, her pale eyes finding the faint warmth she could distinguish around his shape.

"Selene?"

"It’s all right."

He frowned gently. "What is?"

She hesitated. The words she had prepared seemed too large now that he was standing in front of her. "That she mattered to you."

Dexter became still. Selene lowered her face.