Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 176

(Aurora’s POV)

His grip was easy, unhurried. Like it was nothing.

I went slightly rigid. Then I reminded myself that Eleanor was right there, watching us, and that looking like

a woman who had never held her husband’s hand before would raise more questions than I wanted to answer. I relaxed. I didn’t pull away.

Eleanor glanced down at our joined hands. The smile that crossed her face was the most openly

delighted I’d seen from her all evening. She kissed me on the cheek, said goodnight to Phineas with a look that contained an entire paragraph of maternal satisfaction, and got into her car.

We stood on the pavement and watched her taillights disappear around the corner.

I started to withdraw my hand.

The diamond caught the edge of Phineas’s shirt cuff as I moved – a small, sharp little *clink* – and I froze.

“Oh no.” I pulled my hand back and cradled it against my chest, inspecting the stone. “I’m sorry, I – this thing is worth a fortune, I can’t just be walking around-”

“It’s a ring,” Phineas said. “Not a museum exhibit.”

“It’s a seven–figure ring.”

“Probably, yes.”

“Phineas.” I started working it toward my knuckle. “I should put it back in the box until-”

His hand closed around my wrist. Not tight. Just present.

“It’s meant to be worn,” he said. “It’s already on your finger. Leave it there.”

I looked up at him. He looked back at me with that same expression from dinner – patient, certain, faintly amused by my resistance.

I stopped trying to take it off.

(Author’s POV)

Across the city, Jasper was lying on his bed staring at the ceiling.

He’d been there for the better part of an hour, turning the same question over and over in his mind without arriving anywhere useful. *Had Aurora actually gotten married?*

Part of him rejected it outright. Aurora had loved him – genuinely, completely, in the way that people don’t just switch off. She wouldn’t have moved on that fast. She wouldn’t have been able to.

But then the other part of his brain, the part that was less comfortable to listen to, pushed back. If she hadn’t had someone waiting, why had she been so decisive at the divorce? Why had she walked out of

bwls U1 The Hing

that office without looking back, taken nearly half of everything, and not once reached out since?

He sat up.

The thought that had been circling finally landed, and it wasn’t a pleasant one. What if she’d been using the settlement money – *his* money to fund whatever new arrangement she’d built for herself?

He picked up his phone before he’d fully decided to. He typed quickly.

*There’s still a remaining balance from the divorce settlement that hasn’t been processed. Come to the office tomorrow – finance needs you there in person to verify the figures before they can run the transfer.*

He sent it. Then he put the phone face–down on the mattress and waited.

Aurora had just stepped out of the shower. She picked up her phone, read the message, and her brow furrowed.

She’d unblocked his number specifically to handle the remaining property settlement. She hadn’t wanted to, but there was no practical alternative. She stared at the message for a moment.

*He wants me to come in person.*

She typed back: *No need. Send me the numbers and I’ll confirm by phone. Finance can process it remotely.*

She set the phone down and reached for her towel.

Jasper read her reply. He read it twice.

That was it. No greeting, no softening, no opening for anything beyond the bare transaction. Three years of marriage and she was responding to him like he was a contractor she’d hired to fix a leaky pipe.

He typed back: *Unless you don’t want the remaining payment, you’ll need to come in. That’s how the process works.*

He knew, even as he sent it, that it wasn’t true. Finance could absolutely process a remote confirmation. He’d verified that much already.

Aurora read his reply and set the phone down on the bathroom counter. She stood there for a moment, looking at nothing in particular.

She thought about Jasper in their marriage – the years of careful distance, the way he’d looked through her rather than at her, the particular cruelty of being present in someone’s life while being entirely invisible to them. She’d spent three years trying to be enough, trying to be seen, and he had never once tried.

And now, after all of it, he wanted her to come to his office.

HILE

She picked up the phone. She typed the last message she intended to send him that night, and she kept it

short.

*Fine. I hope you have everything ready to pay out tomorrow – because I’d rather not have to see you

again.*

She sent it, put the phone face–down, and went to dry her hair.

(Aurora’s POV)

I almost left the ring on the nightstand.

I stood in front of the mirror, turning it over in my fingers, and told myself it was perfectly reasonable. It was a family heirloom worth more than my annual salary, and I was walking into my ex–husband’s office building to collect a divorce settlement. The combination felt absurd. I set it down.

Them I thought about the prenuptial agreement. The clause had been straightforward – if either party met alone with a member of the opposite sex, the other should be informed in advance. I’d pushed back on it at the time, and Phineas had been direct about his reasoning. He knew I didn’t love him. He wasn’t asking for that. But he needed absolute loyalty, and that included the kind that lived in the mind, not just the body. Emotional betrayal counted.

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