Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 194

(Author’s POV)

“So you take that away from her.” Sienna’s voice dropped, quiet and precise. “She works at a research institute. You go there. You walk in during working hours, in front of every colleague she has, and you let them all see exactly what she is. A woman who chases married men and calls it moving forward.” She held Tiffany’s gaze. “A woman with a ruined reputation doesn’t get to keep her footing. Zachary’s family won’t accept her. And Zachary himself will think twice about throwing away a twenty–year marriage for someone the whole city is talking about.”

Tiffany was quiet for a long moment. Something shifted in her eyes – the grief hardening into something sharper.

“All right,” she said.

Sienna watched her leave from the doorway of her apartment, and the corner of her mouth curved upward.

She didn’t care what was actually true. She just needed the fire lit.

She picked up her bag and went to find Jasper.

He was walking out of a conference room when she arrived at his office building, still in his suit jacket, a folder tucked under one arm. He saw her and frowned.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” he said. “Why are you here?”

“I needed to tell you something in person.” Sienna fell into step beside him as he walked toward his office. “Aurora’s backing. The reason she could afford Gavin Sterling, the reason the school ruling went the way it did – it’s Zachary Rathbone.”

Jasper stopped walking.

“Zachary,” he repeated.

“Tiffany has evidence. I don’t know the details, but she’s certain.” Sienna watched his face carefully. “I thought you should know.”

Jasper was quiet. He’d spent weeks trying to work out how Aurora – a newly divorced researcher with no family money – had managed to retain the most expensive divorce attorney in the city and walk away with everything she’d walked away with. He’d told himself there had to be someone behind her. He’d just assumed it was someone from her lab, some colleague with connections.

Not Zachary Rathbone. Not a man pushing forty with a wife and a son and a family name to protect.

Something moved across his face – not quite anger, not quite something else. He couldn’t name it.

“I don’t want Rosalind around her,” he said. His voice came out colder than he intended. “Whatever

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4 nap 359 Curing the Pot

Aurora’s doing with her personal life, I’m not having my daughter in the middle of it. She doesn’t see Rosalind. Not until this is sorted.”

Sienna lowered her eyes.

“I think that’s the right call,” she said quietly.

Tiffany got home to find Quentin draped across the couch, shoes still on, complaining to no one in particular that neither of his parents had been home all day.

She walked past him without a word and headed straight for the study.

Claim

The door was half–open. She could hear Zachary before she saw him – his voice low and easy, the particular warmth he used when he was trying to sound charming. She caught the words “be good” and “I’ll come by tomorrow” before she pushed the door open.

Zachary spun around. He fumbled with his phone, ended the call, and then – incredibly – frowned at her.

“You could knock,” he said.

Tiffany stood in the doorway. “Why didn’t you tell me about Quentin?”

“I was going to-”

“You knew this morning. You let me find out from a teacher.” Her voice was steady, which surprised her. “You didn’t fight for him. You didn’t push back. You just let it happen.”

“Because there was nothing to fight.” Zachary set his phone face–down on the desk. “The principal had already made the decision. It was done. What did you want me to do, make a scene?”

“He’s your son.”

“And maybe if you’d paid more attention to what he was doing at school instead of spending your afternoons at the nail salon, he wouldn’t have gotten himself expelled in the first place.” He picked up his jacket from the back of the chair. “I’ll find him another school. It’s not the end of the world.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“What else is there?” He was already moving toward the door. “We’re not going to solve anything tonight. I have somewhere to be.”

“Of course you do.”

He paused in the doorway. For a second she thought he was going to say something real – something that acknowledged what was happening between them, what had been happening for months. But he just looked at her with the expression of someone who had already moved on in his head, and then he left.

The front door closed.

Tiffany sat down on the edge of the bed.

She pressed her hand over her mouth – not because she was afraid of making noise, but because she

Choppy 139 Seung Hw Pal

refused to let herself come apart completely. Not yet. Not tonight.

Clas

She sat there until she heard Quentin’s game start up in the living room, the familiar sound of explosions and background music filling the apartment.

Sienna’s voice came back to her in pieces. *She can’t survive public humiliation. You walk in there and you let them all see exactly what she is.*

Tiffany stared at the wall.

She had spent twenty years building something. She had cooked dinners and attended school events and managed a household and smiled at family gatherings and asked nothing in return except that it meant something.

Aurora Caldwell had walked into her life and decided it meant nothing.

By the time Tiffany stood up from the bed, her jaw was set and her eyes were dry.

She was going to pay Aurora a visit.

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