<h4>Chapter 299: Chapter 299 Ashton: The Choice</h4>


    The room was too quiet without her.


    I’d asked Mira to leave, told her I needed rest. The words hade out clipped, controlled, the way I always tried to sound when everything inside me was anything but steady.


    She’d hesitated, then gone, and the soft click of the door behind her was sharper than any de.


    I told myself this was for the best. She deserved a life unshackled by someone half-broken, someone who might never hold her the way she deserved again. Better to push her away now than let her waste years watching me struggle.


    And yet, as Iy there staring at the empty chair, the weight in my chest grew heavier with each breath.


    The minutes dragged. My hand throbbed with a dull ache, a constant reminder of what I might have lost.


    My heart ached worse.


    I tried closing my eyes, tried drifting back into the fever fog, but sleep wouldn’te. All I could think of was her face when I’d turned her away. The hurt she’d tried to hide, the way her eyes had lingered on me as though she wanted to fight my words but forced herself not to.


    When the door opened again, I thought I was imagining it.


    But there she was. Mira.


    She stepped inside, the faintest smile on her lips, as if she knew she was catching me in the middle of a sulk I hadn’t admitted to myself.


    ‘You didn’t think I’d really leave, did you?’ she said softly.


    I blinked at her. ‘You did leave.’


    She lifted a small box in her hand. ‘Only to get this.’


    I pushed myself up against the pillows, my pulse picking up. ‘What’s that?’


    She walked closer, her heels clicking quietly on the hospital floor, until she was right beside me. Then, to myplete shock, she sank down on one knee.


    ‘Mira—what are you—’


    She opened the box. Inside were two rings, simple yet striking, every line of them touched by her craft. My chest tightened painfully.


    ‘Last time, you proposed to me,’ she said, her eyes never leaving mine. ‘Now it’s my turn.’


    For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Of all the things I had imagined in the silence of this room, this was not one of them.


    ‘You can’t be serious,’ I managed.


    ‘Deadly serious.’ Her voice was steady, her hands firm as she held the box up to me.


    I swallowed hard. Part of me wanted to reach out, to pull her up, to say yes without hesitation. But the fear was still there, unrelenting.


    ‘Mira,’ I said quietly, ‘don’t do this out of pity.’


    Her brows pulled together. ‘Pity?’


    ‘You heard the doctors. There’s a chance my hand won’t recover. I might not be the man you thought I was. If this is your way of... of softening the blow—’


    She cut across me, her voice fierce. ‘Stop. This isn’t pity. It’s love.’


    I froze. She’d never said it like that before. Not once.


    She leaned closer, her eyes burning into mine. ‘Do you know why I fought so hard these past weeks? Why I went up against Lea, why I called in favours I didn’t even know I had, why I pushed myself into circles I swore I’d never step into? Because I realised something. I don’t care about jewellery, or Paris, or Mira Joie, notpared to you. You are what matters. Protecting LGH wasn’t about thepany, it was about protecting what you love. Because when you love someone, you protect the things they love too.’


    My throat went dry.


    She went on, her voice softening. ‘You bought Nyx Collective for me when I didn’t even ask. You stood up for me at the Aureate Awards when the whole world thought I’d fall on my face. You let me go to Paris even though you hated it, because you knew I needed it. All this time, Ashton, I thought jewellery was my greatest passion. But it isn’t. Not anymore. You are. You’re my number one.’


    The words hit me with a force I wasn’t ready for. For so long, I’d been bracing myself for her to walk away, to realise I wasn’t worth the trouble. And now here she was, kneeling with the rings she had designed with her own hands, telling me I was her priority.


    I couldn’t hold the walls up any longer. They cracked, then crumbledpletely.


    ‘Mira,’ I said hoarsely.


    She lifted the ring from the box, her hand trembling only slightly. ‘Say yes.’


    For once in my life, I didn’t overthink. I let myself feel.


    I held out my left hand. She slipped the ring onto my finger, her smile trembling with tears she didn’t bother to hide.


    I pulled her up, ignoring the protest of my weak arm, and kissed her. Long, deep, with everything I’d been holding back for months.


    When I finally broke away, I rested my forehead against hers. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to choose. And now I have my answer. I’m never letting you go again.’


    Sheughed through her tears, brushing her thumb along my cheek. ‘Good. Because you don’t get a say anymore. You’re stuck with me.’


    The weight lifted. The fear didn’t vanishpletely, but it no longer ruled me. She had chosen, and that was enough.


    We stayed like that, tangled together in the stillness of the hospital room, and for once, I didn’t think about thepany or the future or the hand that might never heal. I thought only of her, the woman who had turned my world upside down and then put it back together in ways I never expected.


    The woman who was mine.


    *** THE END ***