Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 189

Chapter 154: Aunt Aurora

(Aurora’s POV)

Phineas texted me while I was washing my face.

*Something came up. I’ll be back late. Don’t wait up.*

I stared at the message for a second, then typed back: *Okay.*

Then I sat on the edge of the bed and thought about the fact that I hadn’t told Olivia yet.

We’d been best friends since university. She’d helped me move out of my mother’s house. She’d sat with me in the hospital waiting room after my miscarriage, not saying anything, just being there. She’d driven me to the lawyer’s office on the day I filed for divorce.

She deserved to hear this from me, not from a social media post.

I picked up my phone and called her.

“Are you free tonight?”

“For you? Always.” I could hear her switching off her TV in the background. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just – I have something to tell you. Can you meet me for dinner?”

A pause. “That sounds ominous.”

“It’s not ominous.”

“Aurora. When people say ‘I have something to tell you‘ in that voice, it’s always ominous. Where are we

going?”

I gave her the address.

Another pause, longer this time. “That’s the private restaurant on Elmwood. The one with the garden view.”

“Yes.”

“Aurora Higgins.” Her voice dropped. “What did you do?”

I told her I’d explain at dinner and hung up before she could ask anything else.

The restaurant was quiet on a weeknight. The host led me to the private dining room I’d reserved – a small,

comfortable space with floor–to–ceiling windows looking out onto the garden, where the water feature was

lit up in soft amber light. I ordered a glass of sparkling water and waited.

Olivia arrived twelve minutes later, slightly out of breath, wearing a bright yellow coat that she hadn’t bothered to button. She scanned the room when she walked in, spotted me, and immediately narrowed

her eyes.

“You look too calm,” she said, dropping into the seat across from me. “That means it’s either very good

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Shaper 154 Aoth Dueta

news or catastrophic news and you’ve already made peace with it.”

“Sit down properly.”

“I am sitting down properly.” She picked up the menu, then set it back down. “Okay, tell me. What is it?”

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I’d rehearsed this on the drive over. I’d planned a reasonable lead–up- some context, some explanation, a logical progression of events that would help her understand how I’d gotten here.

Instead, I reached into my bag and pulled out the copy of the marriage certificate and slid it across the table.

Olivia looked at it. She opened it.

I watched her eyes move across the page and land on the name.

She shot out of her chair.

The door opened at that exact moment. A server came in carrying our first course – a small plate of bruschetta with heirloom tomatoes. He froze when he found Olivia half–standing, one hand gripping the back of her chair.

“Sorry,” she said automatically, and sat back down.

The server set the plates down with practiced composure and retreated.

Olivia waited until the door clicked shut. Then she leaned across the table and grabbed my wrist.

“Phineas Everett,” she whispered. “You married Phineas Everett.”

“I did.”

“The Phineas Everett. The one who walked into a board meeting last spring and restructured three subsidiaries in forty minutes and two of the directors cried.”

“I don’t know about the crying, but – yes.”

She released my wrist and sat back. Her expression cycled through shock, disbelief, and something that looked like awe before landing on concern.

“Aurora,” she said carefully. “Half this city would do anything to get close to that man. The other half actively avoids him because they’re terrified of him.” She picked up her wine glass, realized it was empty, and set it back down. “And there are look, I’m just going to say it because I’m your best friend and it’s my job – there are rumors. About him. That he’s never been with anyone. That he’s got some kind of – issue. Physically.” She lowered her voice further. “I’m genuinely worried that you’re going to end up in a marriage that looks perfect on paper and is completely dead in every other way. Like, you’ve got the name, you’ve got the house, you’ve got the security, but there’s just – nothing. No warmth, no-”

The door opened again.

The same server came back in with a bread basket, smiled pleasantly at both of us, and placed it on the

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Chapter? Aut Aur

table.

Olivia smiled back at him with the fixed expression of someone who has just realized they may have made a significant error.

He left.

Olivia turned to me very slowly.

“This restaurant,” she said.

“Is one of his, yes.”

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She closed her eyes. “I just told his employee that I think he might be – that he can’t-” She pressed both hands over her face. “I’m going to have to move cities.”

“You’re not going to have to move cities.”

“Aurora.”

“The staff here are very discreet. It’s fine.”

She dropped her hands and looked at me with the expression of someone who had decided to simply move forward and never speak of the last two minutes again. “Okay. Fine. Tell me everything. From the beginning. How did this actually happen?”

So I told her. The lawsuit, the settlement, the way Sienna had kept coming back no matter how many times we won. The moment I’d understood that money alone wasn’t going to be enough – that there would always be another angle, another approach, another attempt to make my life difficult. The realization that what I needed wasn’t just resources but standing. Someone whose name alone would make people think twice.

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