Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 115

< Chapter 80 Truth

Chapter 80: Truth

(Author’s POV)

Joyce stood at the bottom of the steps for a full minute after Aurora’s car disappeared around the corner.

Then she went inside.

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Mr. Sayer tried the standard deflection – the student’s conduct, the school’s standards, the difficulty of the situation. Joyce cut him off before he finished the second sentence. She set Leo’s exam papers on his desk. She’d pulled them from the file herself on the way in.

The scores were nearly perfect.

“Explain this to me,” she said.

He lasted about four minutes under her stare before the sweat showed at his collar.

“Mrs. Langford.” He exhaled. “I received a call. From a Ms. Sienna Rathbone. She was very clear – she said under no circumstances was this boy to be admitted. She said it came from the family.” He spread his hands. “I didn’t ask questions. I assumed-”

“Siena? Are you sure?” Joyce was very surprised.

“Of course I’m sure. How could I lie to you, and such a clumsy lie at that? You can ask Miss Siena yourself and find out.” Sayer’s tone was somewhat impatient. “I really thought it was your intention.”

“You assumed wrong.” Joyce picked up Leo’s papers and left the office.

She drove to the Rathbone estate with the papers on the passenger seat and Sienna’s name running through her head on a loop. She was her most beloved granddaughter. She watched her grow up, taking her on vacations during every holiday when she was young, and accompanying her through all the heartbreaks she could remember.

She still couldn’t understand it.

When Joyce was shown in by the maid, Sienna was in the sitting room, curled into the corner of the sofa with her phone. She looked up, and something in Joyce’s expression made her set the phone down slowly.

Joyce placed Leo’s exam papers on the coffee table between them.

“Mr. Sayer told me everything,” she said.

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Chapter 80. Truth

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Sienna looked at the papers. She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then her eyes filled, and the tears came – quiet, well-timed, sliding down her cheeks with the practiced ease of someone who had learned exactly how much pressure to apply.

“Grandma.” Her voice went small. “I know it was wrong. I know.” She pressed her lips together. “But Aurora pushed me. On the stairs – Jasper saw it, the whole family knows. She could have killed me.” The tears kept coming. “And then she went online and called me a homewrecker in front of everyone I know. My friends stopped calling. I can’t go anywhere without people whispering.” She leaned forward and let Joyce’s hand close around hers. “I was so angry. I just wanted her to feel something. Even a fraction of what she’s put me through.”

She leaned into Joyce’s shoulder, and her voice dropped to the soft, broken register she only used when she wanted someone to stop asking questions.

Joyce’s hand moved to her hair.

George had been listening from the doorway. He’d never met Aurora. He didn’t need to. He’d watched his granddaughter cry herself into exhaustion, and that was enough.

“If the boy got caught up in it,” he said, “that’s what happens when her family picks fights with the wrong people. She should have thought about her brother before she started trouble.”

Joyce said nothing to contradict him. She pressed a kiss to Sienna’s forehead and told her it was over. They wouldn’t pursue it further.

Sienna closed her eyes and let herself be held.

***

Aurora had been on the phone for most of the afternoon.

The first two schools were polite but firm – enrollment was closed for the current cycle. The third had a waitlist running eighteen months out. The fourth didn’t return her call. By five o’clock she was sitting at the kitchen table with a legal pad covered in crossed-out names and a coffee that had gone cold an hour ago.

Her phone rang. Gavin Sterling.

“I was going to call you tomorrow,” she said. “About the hearing date – can we push it by a week? I’ve been dealing with Leo’s school situation and I’m not quite-”

“What kind of school situation?”

She gave him the short version. Westfield, the hallway, Mr. Sayer, the dead ends she’d been hitting all afternoon.

< Chapter 80 Truth

There was a brief pause on his end.

“Private prep schools,” Gavin said. “In Los Angeles.”

“Yes.”

“I have an uncle,” he said, in the tone of someone mentioning a minor detail. “He’s the principal at Pinecrest Academy.”

Aurora stopped.

“Pinecrest,” she repeated.

“That’s the one.”

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She knew the name. Everyone in the city knew the name. Pinecrest sent more students to Ivy League schools per year than any other prep school in the state. The waiting list was two years long on a good day.

“Gavin.” She set down her pen. “Are you serious?”

“I can call him tonight if you want. Set up a meeting for Leo this week.” A pause. “It’s not a guarantee. But my uncle’s a fair man. If Leo’s scores are what you say they are, he’ll give him a real look.”

“Yes,” she said immediately. “Please. Yes. Thank you – genuinely, thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She hung up and sat back in her chair, the crossed-out legal pad in front of her suddenly looking much less final.

In his office across the city, Gavin set his phone down on the desk and turned around.

Phineas was sitting in the chair across from him, jacket still on, one ankle crossed over his knee, watching the middle distance with the expression of a man who had already calculated the outcome of the conversation and found it satisfactory.

Gavin looked at him.

“You know,” he said, “you could have just told her yourself. Saved us both the theater.”

Phineas leaned back in the chair. The corner of his mouth curved – slow, unhurried, entirely too pleased with itself.

“If she figures it out on her own,” he said, “she’ll remember it longer.”

Choir 80. Troth

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