Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 159

(Author’s POV)

Daniel laughed. They talked for a while research directions, the difference between clinical and lab work, the particular frustrations of peer review. He was easy to talk to. Aurora found herself relaxing into the

conversation.

Then, out of professional habit, she asked, “What’s your specialty?”

Daniel paused. He smiled, but the smile had something careful behind it. “That’s actually a question you’d

be better off not pursuing.”

Aurora stared at him. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” he said pleasantly, “that some things are better discovered in context.”

She was still trying to work out what that meant when the doorbell rang.

Mrs. Walsh went to answer it. Aurora turned toward the hallway.

Eleanor Everett walked in. And behind her, Phineas.

Aurora went still for a second. The awkwardness hit her immediately – specifically the memory of Eleanor sitting across from her in that formal sitting room, voice careful and almost pleading, asking her to keep an eye on her son. And now here they both were, in her mentor’s living room, on a Saturday afternoon that had apparently been arranged by someone other than chance.

Phineas saw her at the same moment. His expression didn’t change much, but she caught the brief

stillness in it.

In the doorway, before they came fully inside, Eleanor put a hand on Phineas’s arm and murmured something close to his ear. Phineas’s jaw shifted. He said something short in response, and Eleanor gave him a look that communicated, clearly, that she was not interested in his objections.

He came inside.

Daniel, for his part, had gone very quiet. Aurora watched him look at Phineas, and then watched him look at Professor Walsh, and then watched something click into place behind his eyes. He picked up his coffee cup and took a long, composed sip.

They sat down to pre–dinner drinks. The conversation moved around the room the way it does when several people are performing normalcy at the same time – topics about the university, about the weather, about a gallery opening downtown.

Eleanor lasted about fifteen minutes before she stood up. “Let me go help in the kitchen,” she said, and disappeared before anyone could point out that Professor Walsh had the kitchen entirely under control.

A minute later, Professor Walsh appeared in the doorway.

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“Daniel,” he said, with the particular tone of a man executing a plan he’s slightly embarrassed about, “I’ve

got some research notes upstairs I wanted your take on. And Phineas I’ve been meaning to ask your opinion on something, business side of things. Why don’t you both come up to the study for a bit?”

Phineas looked at him. Then he looked at Daniel. Then he looked, briefly, at Aurora – she was

mid–conversation with Mrs. Walsh, laughing at something, not going anywhere.

“Sure,” he said, and stood.

Daniel was on his feet with impressive speed.

Aurora watched the two of them follow Professor Walsh up the stairs. She watched until they disappeared around the landing. Then she turned back to Mrs. Walsh, who was already looking somewhere else with great deliberateness.

A moment later, Eleanor came back from the kitchen and sat down beside her.

The shift in Eleanor’s manner was immediate. The social ease dropped away. She looked at Aurora with the focused attention of someone who had something important to say and had been waiting to say it.

“Phineas told me about the two of you,” Eleanor said. “All of it. And I want you to know – I want you to be part of this family. I mean that.”

Aurora opened her mouth.

Eleanor kept going.

“He’s a good man. I know how he comes across. But there’s something-” She paused, and the pause had real weight in it. “There’s something he’s never told me. Something private. A condition. Most women, if they knew, they’d walk away. I won’t pretend otherwise.” Her eyes were steady on Aurora’s face. “I’ve already arranged for a specialist – the best I could find. We’re going to do everything possible to address it. But I have to ask you.” She stopped. Her voice went quieter. “If you knew – if you knew all of it – could you accept him?”

Aurora’s mind moved quickly.

Daniel’s deflection. *That’s a question you’d be better off not pursuing.* Phineas, redirected upstairs with a doctor, under the guise of looking at research notes. Eleanor’s expression right now – the gravity of it, the way she was holding herself like the answer to this question mattered enormously.

The whole afternoon assembled itself in her mind in about three seconds.

She almost said something. She wasn’t sure what.

Before she could, footsteps crossed the floor above them, and a door clicked shut.

In the study, Daniel turned from the closed door and looked at Phineas with a calm, professional smile.

“So,” he said. “Why don’t you go ahead and drop your trousers, and I’ll take a look?”

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