Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 151

Chapter 116: You’re Free to Go

(Phineas’s POV)

Her text was twelve words long.

*Phineas, thank you for everything you’ve done for me these past months. I’ve decided to move out.*

I read it twice, set my phone down, picked it up again, and read it a third time. Then I was on my feet without quite deciding to stand, walking down the corridor toward her door.

I got there. Raised my hand toward the bell.

And stopped.

It was ten o’clock at night. She’d just come back from what had clearly been an exhausting day-the settlement meeting, whatever Sienna had pulled outside, drinks with Olivia. And I was standing at her door like I’d lost something and thought it might be inside.

I stood there for another full minute. Then I turned around and walked back to my own apartment.

The text sat on my screen, unanswered.

I left it that way.

Sleep wasn’t happening. I lay on top of the covers and stared at the ceiling and turned the problem over in my mind the way I turned over every problem – methodically, from all angles, looking for the leverage point. By eleven-thirty I’d run out of patience with myself and picked up my phone.

Gavin answered on the fourth ring, voice rough with sleep and not bothering to hide it.

“This better be a medical emergency.”

“It’s not.”

“Phineas.” A long pause. “It is eleven forty-seven in the morning.”

“At night.”

“I have a hearing at eight. A significant one. I have been asleep for approximately forty-five minutes.” Another pause. “What do you want?”

“Aurora’s divorce settlement,” I said. “The ruling. Why didn’t you tell me it had been finalized?”

“Because she’s my client,” Gavin said flatly. “Not you. Her case, her information, her call on who gets told what. Why would I brief you on her legal proceedings?”

“Because now she wants to move out and I had no warning.”

Silence on the other end. Then, slowly: “Are you calling me at midnight because your tenant wants to leave?”

Chapter 1 It would tota

“She’s not just a tenant.”

“Right.” I could hear him shifting, probably sitting up. “Phineas. I respect you enormously as a client and, on most days, as a human being. But I am genuinely struggling to understand why this is my problem at this

hour.”

“Bill me for the hour,” I said. “I need you to tell me two things. First why is her first instinct, the moment she has money, to leave? And second – what do I do about it?”

The line went quiet for long enough that I thought he might have hung up.

Then he exhaled. “Fine. You want the honest answer?”

“I wouldn’t have called otherwise.”

“Aurora keeps score,” Gavin said. “Not in a petty way. In the way that someone does when they’ve been made to feel like a burden their entire life. She doesn’t carry debt – financial, emotional, any kind. The moment she has enough to stand on her own, she will. Every time. Her marriage trained her to believe that depending on someone is how you lose yourself.” He paused. “So the second she has an exit that doesn’t cost her anything, she takes it. It’s not about you. It’s about her needing to feel like she’s not beholden to

anyone.”

I thought about that. “So how do you get around it?”

“You either make her so comfortable with your presence that leaving starts to feel like the disruption rather than staying,” Gavin said, “or you give her something to feel needed for. She’s a caretaker by nature. She’ll stay for someone else’s sake when she won’t stay for her own.”

I turned that over. “Give her something to feel needed for.”

“I’m going back to sleep,” Gavin said.

“One more thing -”

“Goodnight, Phineas.”

He hung up.

I opened my banking app and transferred him a consulting fee. His reply came two minutes later: *Unbelievable. A man of your net worth and you tip your lawyer like you’re leaving coins on a diner table. Get some sleep.*

I put the phone down and looked at the ceiling again.

*Give her something to feel needed for.*

I thought about that until I fell asleep.

At six the next morning, I sent her a message: *There’s breakfast. Come up and we can talk through the move properly.*

Chante 116 you’re

Her reply came at seven-fifteen: *Give me fifteen minutes.*

She knocked at seven-thirty exactly. I appreciated that about her she was always precisely on time.

I went to answer the door in my robe. Not the good one. The old, slightly oversized one I kept for mornings when I wasn’t expecting anyone, left loosely belted, collar open. I’d put it on deliberately, which was a thing I would not be admitting to anyone.

Aurora looked up when I opened the door. Her eyes moved over me once a quick, involuntary sweep- and stopped for just a second before she looked away and smoothed her expression back to neutral.

That second was enough.

“Come in,” I said. “Coffee’s ready.”

She stepped inside, and I led her to the dining table, where I’d had the kitchen stocked early. Buttermilk pancakes, scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, a full French press of dark roast. I watched her take it in-the spread was deliberate, the kind of thing that said *I expected you* without saying it out loud.

We sat down. She poured herself a coffee and wrapped both hands around the mug.

“Congratulations,” I said. “On the settlement.”

She smiled, small and genuine. “Thank you. Honestly- the evidence you provided made the difference. The sixty-forty split wouldn’t have held up without it.”

“You did the work.”

“We both know it wasn’t just me.”

Comments

LUCK DRAW

M

Vote

305