Chapter 99.2

Chapter 99.2

“You seem to know a lot about his situation.”

“We just happened to meet at the exhibition earlier.”

“Coincidences seem to be working very well today. It’s quite remarkable.”

He murmured in a low voice, but Jasmine ignored him.

“Jasmine…”

Richard paused before speaking again.

“You seem very generous with past relationships.”

She gave him a questioning look, and he laughed bitterly.

“Whether it’s with Lord Alexander or even with me. Why are you so kind?”

“Do you have a problem with kindness?”

“I both like and dislike it. Kindness is frustrating when it can’t be exclusive.”

As always, he spoke candidly. Then he gazed at Jasmine, as if trying to quench a long-standing thirst by simply looking at her. Jasmine didn’t avoid his gaze either.

They stared at each other in a renewed, peculiar atmosphere. After a long moment, Richard’s dry lips finally moved.

“Have you been well?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a relief.”

At least one person should be comfortable. Richard swallowed a bitter smile. He was not comfortable. How much had he agonized after she left like that?

It was almost a relief that Jilian had called him after a long time and loaded him with work, keeping him so busy for a few days that he couldn’t even lift his head. After receiving her letter, he had worked through the night to finish his tasks in a rush and had hurried over here. In the brief silence, surprisingly, Jasmine asked again.

“And Richard?”

“I…”

Richard only pulled up the corners of his mouth in a smile.

“I’m always the same.”

Thinking about you all day. Eating with you, walking, reading books, and falling asleep together. Then, when I sighed and turned to look beside me, it was an empty spot where she wasn’t.

“Jasmine, I…”

Richard lowered his gaze beneath his eyes and chose his words for a moment. Perhaps it was the emaciated light that cast a shadow. His pale face, shadowed by his dense eyelashes, was as beautiful as a frost-covered statue.

The blue eyes that looked up silently were as cold as the washed-out air of dawn. It was hard to grasp that such emotions could be contained in that cold color.

After a long while, he finally spoke.

It might be my foolish delusion or wishful thinking, or it might be an overstepping guess, but…

“I thought it would be nice if we could be a little more honest.”

Jasmine looked at him without saying a word.

“You still want me, don’t you?”

“……”

“Is there really nothing left in your heart?

Not even a speck of lingering attachment? No. Jasmine still loves him. If she had no feelings, her occasionally wavering expressions, her eyes, and her hesitation to completely sever ties wouldn’t be noticeable.

If the kind yet cold Jasmine truly wanted, she could have cut off such things entirely. He knows she is capable of doing so.

Richard looked into her eyes. Today, too, those lovely amethyst-colored eyes that slightly trembled and made him thirsty.

“I know it’s difficult and frightening. I also know that I am too late and have let much time pass.”

But…

“Can’t we try just once more?”

“……”

“If you want, you can regard it as one of those many romances you enjoyed like playing with dolls. If they were acceptable, why can’t I be?”

“Richard.”

“If I really no longer mean anything to you, then it shouldn’t matter, right?”

Richard’s hand rested on the back of hers. Jasmine flinched and instinctively tried to shake it off, but his long fingers persistently intertwined with hers. The desperate and somewhat obsessive gaze made the back of her neck tingle.

She turned her eyes away as if to ignore the sensation, but he gripped her more firmly.

“Please. It’s worth trying once.”

“…Stop it.”

“Aren’t you curious? About what emotions and memories we might build together. About how far I can go. About how far we can go. Aren’t you curious?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

He laughed helplessly, a mocking smile on his dry, rough face. His irritable eyes held a deep thirst and a faint resentment. That intensity was both frightening and dizzying.

Her heart chilled, but it wasn’t fear of a future hurt. It was an instinctive recoil. The man Jasmine had fallen in love with at first sight and loved for over seven years was occasionally overwhelming and hard to handle. The closer she got, the more she realized this, something the old Jasmine hadn’t anticipated.

It was his inherently intense nature, his magnetic pull, and charisma. Richard Aion was not just cold and rational as he appeared; he had a passionate, untamed stubbornness, a desire for control, and greed like a wild horse.

His desire to control was strong, wanting to swallow everything and wield it as his own. His true nature, hidden beneath an old-fashioned and courteous exterior, was further obscured by his position and power as Duke Aion, along with his exceptional abilities, which made most people, including his vassals, follow or obey him without question.

Even he himself was like that. Even if he slightly overstepped the line or tried to control the situation a little too much, it hardly showed, and he had the ability to naturally manage it.

So, despite the considerable allure of that gap, it was easy to be swayed by it if one wasn’t careful. Jasmine had already experienced that.