Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 174

Chapter 139: Husband

(Author’s POV)

Later, Serena appeared in the hallway outside the sitting room, wearing her most carefully casual expression.

“Grandmother,” she said, “I heard something about Uncle Phineas-”

“Did you?” Eleanor picked up her coffee cup.

“Is it true that he-”

“Serena, darling. Your uncle is a grown man who makes his own decisions. Whatever he does is his business, unless he chooses to share it with you himself.” She smiled serenely. “Now, weren’t you supposed to call your mother back this evening?”

Serena opened her mouth, then closed it. She left without learning a single useful thing.

Eleanor sipped her coffee, content.

(Aurora’s POV)

The morning after we registered the marriage, I woke up with the same strange, untethered feeling I’d fallen asleep with. Like the whole day before had been something I’d watched happen to someone else.

I picked up my phone. Four missed calls from Phineas.

I called back.

“Mr. Everett,” I said, out of habit.

A quiet laugh came through the line. “That’s a little formal, don’t you think? Given the circumstances.”

I hesitated. “Should I just – use your name?”

“You could.” A pause, and I could hear the smile in his voice. “I don’t mind if you call me husband.”

My face went hot immediately. I did not have a response to that. I opened my mouth and nothing came

out.

“My mother wants to have dinner tonight,” he said, taking pity on me. “The three of us. Are you free?”

“Tonight?” My stomach dropped slightly. “That’s – soon.”

“I know.”

“We literally just-”

“Aurora.” His voice softened. “She likes you. This isn’t an interrogation. It’s dinner. You’ll be fine.”

I said I would be there. We hung up.

Sand

I got dressed quickly and left the apartment early, partly to clear my head and partly because I had the irrational feeling that if I stayed near my phone too long, I would say something embarrassing to him again. I took the earlier train to work.

My phone rang before I’d even made it to the lobby of the building.

“I’m standing outside your apartment,” Phineas said. “Which is empty.”

“I left early.”

“I can see that.” A brief pause. “You are genuinely difficult.”

“I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I was going to drive you in.”

“I took the train. It was fine.”

Another pause. “You’re going to give me gray hair,” he said, and hung up.

I stood in the elevator and tried very hard not to smile.

2

The workday passed in a particular kind of low–grade agony. Every time Director Harrison said “Everett” or “the group” or referenced anything connected to the company, my heart did something embarrassing in my chest. I kept my eyes on my data and tried to look like a normal person who had not recently and secretly married her employer’s ultimate superior.

At four–thirty, Harrison gathered everyone in the main lab space.

“Drinks tonight,” he announced. “The whole team. Seven o’clock, that place on Meridian.”

I raised my hand. “I actually can’t make it tonight. I’m sorry.”

Harrison looked at me. “Seriously?”

“I have a prior commitment.”

“What kind of commitment?”

I hesitated. “I’m meeting my boyfriend’s mother.”

The lab went completely silent for approximately one second. Then Harrison’s expression transformed from mild irritation into something much more entertained.

“Well,” he said. “That’s a legitimate excuse.” He waved me off. “Go. Don’t be late.”

Sylvia caught my eye from across the room and mouthed something that looked like *finally.* I grabbed my bag and got out before anyone could ask follow–up questions.

Phineas was waiting at the side entrance of the building. He was leaning against the car, jacket still on, looking like he had nowhere else to be and all the time in the world.

I glanced left. Glanced right. Put my sunglasses on. Then I crossed the pavement quickly and got into the

passenger seat.

He got in after me and sat for a moment without starting the car.

“You looked both ways before approaching,” he said. “Like you were crossing a street.”

“I was being careful.”

“You put on sunglasses.”

“The sun was in my eyes.”

He glanced pointedly at the overcast sky outside the windshield. I looked straight ahead.

“Aurora,” he said, “I need you to know that you looked exactly like someone doing something they shouldn’t be doing.”

“I just don’t want my colleagues to see me getting into a car with-” I stopped.

“With your husband.”

I did not answer that. He started the car.

The restaurant was the same one from our first dinner – the old manor house on the edge of the city, ivy climbing the stone walls, the kind of place that looked quiet from the outside and revealed itself slowly once you were through the door. Candlelight, private dining rooms, the particular hush of somewhere that had been designed to make the outside world feel very far away.

“This place again,” I said.

“It’s mine,” he said simply. “I like to support my own investments.”

I turned to look at him. “This is yours?”

“Has been for six years.”

I thought about the last time we’d been here – how he’d known every detail of the space, the story behind the stone fountain in the courtyard, the way he’d ordered without looking at the menu. I had assumed he was just a regular. I looked out at the fountain as we walked past it, the water catching the last of the

evening light.

*Maybe it had been listening after all.*