Chosen By My Mate's Father-in-law novel Chapter 74

Chapter 74: Chapter 74: Company

[Jasmine’s POV]

"Oh my Goddess! I can’t believe he kissed you under the moonlight!" Mindie said and sighed wistfully. "How romantic."

It was the morning after my date with Axel, and I was parked outside the Laken’s mansion. I still had a few minutes to spare before I started work, so I called Mindie to give her all the details about my date.

"I’m so happy that you are really giving Axel a chance and putting yourself out there," my best friend continued. "I’m so proud of you! Okay, so give me all the details about the kiss. Did he lean in first, or did you?"

As I answered all her in-depth questions, my mind wandered. Why did Mindie want to know so many details? It was a simple kiss. Weren’t most kisses the same?

But that wasn’t true. Not at all.

Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I spent most of the night comparing Axel’s kiss to Gareth’s. Axel’s mouth had been gentle and sweet. But his kiss was nothing compared to Gareth’s strong and insistent mouth on mine. Axel’s kiss didn’t leave my knees shaking. Or made my heart flutter, or stole my breath away.

But kissing Gareth had done all those things and more.

I shook my head, frustrated with myself for thinking of any sort of future with Gareth. I knew that, to him, I was nothing of importance. In his eyes, I was nothing but a charity case.

Someday—maybe even soon—he would choose one of the many women vying for his attention and settle down with her. Especially if he thought Michelle would benefit from having an actual proper mother figure in her life, and not a fraud like me. But just the thought of another woman being her mother made my heart ache.

When I looked at the clock on my dashboard, my stomach jolted. I was already three minutes late for work.

"I have to go to work now, Mindie," I told her in a rush to get out of the car.

"Okay. Good luck."

When I entered the mansion, Michelle was already waiting for me in the main living room. After I greeted her, I looked over and was surprised to see Isabella. She usually didn’t join us for morning lessons since she usually had wedding planning meetings during this time.

But what really shocked me was that Isabella wasn’t smiling. I’d never seen her without a huge grin. Actually, when I looked at her more closely, Isabella seemed depressed. She was sitting on the couch with her legs folded against her chest. There were bags under her eyes like she hadn’t slept at all last night.

"Morning, Jasmine," she said with a dejected tone while staring at her phone in her hands.

My heart broke. Elliot was responsible for this. But I didn’t have time to know exactly what my ex-mate did to make Isabella look so sad. I had to tutor Michelle.

I had Michelle work through her math problem sets, and as I corrected some of her equations, I glanced over at Isabella every so often. But each time I did, her miserable expression didn’t change.

When Michelle was done with her math, we went outside so that she could practice with her bow and arrow. Isabella followed us listlessly and collapsed into a chair on the patio.

As Michelle and I walked onto the grass, the younger girl looked at me and then back at her sister.

"She’s sulking," Michelle murmured. "Her date with Elliot didn’t go well last night."

My eyebrows rose. Didn’t Axel say that Isabella didn’t want to go out last night because she was mad at Elliot?

"Do you know what happened?" I asked.

"They went to see Axel’s fancy light show," Michelle replied with a shrug. "After the show, she took a cab home alone and wouldn’t say why, and now she’s still moping around."

I let out a long breath of air and shook my head. Sympathy for Isabella made my heart splinter. That kind girl didn’t deserve to be treated this way. My stomach dropped when I realized that since Elliot was there last night, he could have seen Axel and me kissing.

My pulse quickened, but I decided that there was nothing I could do about it now. I focused on teaching Michelle archery. After two hours, we were sweating under the rising sun and ended our workout by jogging around the huge backyard five times.

"Great job today, girl!" I lifted my hand for a high-five. "Why don’t you go take a shower? You’ve earned a break."

Michelle slapped her hand against mine and grinned. "Thanks! I will."

After she went inside, I was shocked to see that Isabella was still outside. She was walking toward me and nervously biting her lip.

"Are you okay?" I asked when she was in front of me.

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