Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 103

Chapter 69: Her Husband

(Author’s POV)

Saturday came bright and cold.

Aurora was up early, moving quietly through the apartment, pulling on her coat and checking her phone for the hospital’s discharge time. Leo was being released today, and she’d already mentally mapped out the logistics – call an Uber, get there by nine, handle the paperwork, get

him home.

She pulled open the front door and nearly walked into Phineas.

He was already dressed, keys in hand, clearly heading out himself.

They both stopped.

“You’re up early,” he said.

“Leo’s being discharged this morning. I was going to call a car.”

Phineas looked at her for a moment. “I’ll drive you.”

“You don’t have to – ”

“A car service is fine for adults,” he said. “For someone just out of surgery, the ride matters. The seat, the stops.” He said it plainly, not as an argument. Just as a fact. “Besides, those cufflinks you gave me were worth considerably more than a hospital run. Consider it returned.”

Aurora opened her mouth, then closed it.

He wasn’t wrong about the ride. And he’d already framed it as an exchange, which somehow made it easier to accept than straight generosity.

“Alright,” she said. “Thank you.”

He nodded once and started toward the elevator. Then, without turning around: “I want a home–cooked meal in return. Your cooking, not delivery.”

She almost laughed. “Fine.”

Martha’s face when Phineas’s car pulled up to the hospital entrance said everything she wasn’t saying out loud.

She watched him step out and come around to hold the door, and Aurora could see her

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s Chuapter 59 Her Husband

mother recalibrating in real time – reassessing, approving, practically vibrating with restrained enthusiasm.

“You really didn’t need to come all this way,” Martha said to him, smiling warmly.

“It’s no trouble,” Phineas said. “Mrs. Higgins, please, just use my first name.”

Martha looked like she might actually clasp her hands together. “Phineas,” she repeated, with the tone of someone filing away important information.

Aurora focused very hard on the discharge paperwork.

Leo walked out of the ward under his own power, wrist brace on, looking pale but alert. He spotted Phineas and his expression shifted – not unfriendly, but careful.

They got into the car. Martha took the seat behind the passenger side, Leo settled in behind the driver, and Aurora sat up front.

Leo was quiet for the first few minutes. Aurora could feel him thinking.

She glanced in the side mirror and caught him watching Phineas through the rearview. He was doing what Leo always did when he was sizing someone up – taking stock of the details, running some internal calculation.

Phineas drove without talking. He didn’t fill silence unnecessarily, which was either a quality Leo would respect or find unsettling.

Apparently it was the latter, because Leo kept watching.

Aurora could guess what he was thinking. She’d come out of one bad marriage. The last thing she needed was to get tangled up with someone who kept his cards this close to his chest – someone who gave nothing away, who moved through every situation with that particular brand of unreadable composure.

She was thinking something similar herself, if she was honest.

Then Phineas’s eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror.

He and Leo made eye contact.

Leo went very still. Whatever he’d been working through in his head, the look on Phineas’s face suggested it had already been read and catalogued. Leo glanced away first, dropping his gaze to the window.

The corner of Phineas’s mouth moved. Barely. Not quite a smile.

He said nothing and kept driving.

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Chapter 69: Her Husband

Jasper’s meeting ran long.

It always did on Saturdays – the quarterly management review had a way of expanding to fill whatever time was available, and today it pushed past one in the afternoon before he could get out. He skipped lunch entirely, told Ethan to clear his afternoon, and drove to the hospital himself.

He needed to tell Aurora directly. Whatever his mother had done, whatever that agreement said – it wasn’t from him. He hadn’t sanctioned it. He hadn’t known.

He pushed open the door to Leo’s room.

The bed was empty. Stripped clean, the pillow centered, the tray table folded back against the wall. No personal items, no get–well cards, nothing.

Jasper stood in the doorway for a moment.

–

He stepped back into the corridor and caught a nurse passing with a chart. “Excuse me – the patient in this room. Where is he?”

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