Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 210

Chapter 175: The Standard

(Author’s POV)

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At Everett Global Group, Phineas was sitting across from Arthur with a coffee cup in hand, in no particular

hurry about anything.

Arthur leaned back in his chair. “You heard what happened last night.”

“The painting.” Phineas took a sip. “Yes.”

“Dad’s not in a good place about it.”

“He shouldn’t be.” Phineas set the cup down. “That child has never been properly managed. She’s only

going to get harder to deal with as she gets older.”

Arthur gave him a look. “You’re enjoying this.”

“I’m observing.”

“Same thing, with you.” Arthur shook his head. “You realize that Rosalind is going to have to call Aurora

‘Aunt‘ from now on.”

The corner of Phineas’s mouth moved upward, just slightly. “Only our children get to call her Mom.”

Arthur stared at him. “You’ve already thought about this.”

Phineas didn’t answer. He picked up his phone and dialed.

It rang twice before William picked up.

“It’s me,” Phineas said. “I’m bringing Aurora to meet you tomorrow.”

A pause on the other end.

“She’s your daughter–in–law,” Phineas continued, his tone easy and unhurried. “Eleanor has already given her the family bracelet. I’d suggest you have something appropriate ready as well. Something that reflects

the occasion,”

Another pause.

“Don’t embarrass yourself,” Phineas said, and ended the call.

Arthur looked at him across the desk. “You really just told Dad not to embarrass himself.”

“I reminded him of the standard.” Phineas stood and picked up his jacket. “Same thing.”

At the Everett estate, William set his phone down on the desk.

He sat there for a moment, staring at nothing in particular. Then he pushed back his chair, walked into the bedroom, and opened the wardrobe.

He pulled out a dark charcoal suit. Held it up. Put it back. Pulled out another one – navy, well–cut, with a

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<Chapter 175 The Standard

subtle texture to the fabric.

Eleanor appeared in the doorway.

She watched him hold the jacket up to the light and check the lapels.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Looking at my suits.”

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“I can see that.” She leaned against the doorframe. “You spent twenty minutes last year telling me that Aurora had too much history, too many complications, that Phineas deserved better. You said it quite loudly, as I recall.”

William put the jacket back on the hanger. “The marriage is done. There’s no point in-”

“I’m not arguing with you about it.” Eleanor’s voice was perfectly level. “I’m just reminding you. You said what you said. Now you’re standing in front of your wardrobe like you’re dressing for a state dinner.” She paused. “Make sure you remember your own words tomorrow, whatever happens.”

William didn’t respond to that. He took the navy jacket off the hanger and laid it across the bed.

Eleanor turned and walked back toward the sitting room.

He went to the study.

The painting was there, propped carefully against the wall near the bookcase. The butler had taken it down and leaned it there with a cloth underneath. William stood in front of it.

The handprint was still clearly visible in the lower corner – a small palm, fingers spread, pressed into the canvas in pale dried frosting.

He looked at it for a long time.

His chest felt heavy. He couldn’t explain it to anyone who hadn’t known the man who painted it. There was nothing to say. He just stood there until the feeling became something he could carry, and then he turned

off the light and went to bed.

He did not sleep well.

He woke once near three in the morning, the room dark and the house entirely still, and lay there for a long time staring at the ceiling. He thought about Phineas’s voice on the phone – that easy, unhurried tone his younger son used when he had already made up his mind about something and was simply telling other people the shape of it.

*Don’t embarrass yourself.*

William had not been spoken to that way in his own home in decades. It should have made him furious. He kept waiting for the fury to arrive, and what came instead was something stranger – a quiet, prickling discomfort that he could not quite place a name on.

< Chapter 175 The Standard

He turned onto his side and closed his eyes.

In the morning, he would meet his daughter–in–law.

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He still did not know her name with certainty. Phineas had never said it to him directly, and William had refused, on principle, to ask. He knew only that she was the woman his younger son had decided was worth standing in a corridor and threatening to leave the family for. That fact alone, when he turned it over

in the dark, felt heavier than he wanted to admit.

He had spent his entire adult life believing he could read a person across a table inside the first ten

minutes. Most of the time, he had been right. Often enough, anyway, that he had stopped questioning the

instinct. The few times he had been wrong, he had filed those moments away as exceptions and gone on trusting himself.

Tonight, with the handprint on his oldest friend’s painting and his younger son’s voice still in his ear, the

instinct felt less reliable than it had a week ago. Less, even, than it had that afternoon.

He pulled the blanket higher and waited for sleep to come back.

It did not come for another hour.

When it finally did, he dreamed – not of Aurora, whom he had never met, but of his old friend in the garden behind the university dormitory, pointing at a rose bush in the failing light and saying *that color, exactly that one, is the only thing worth painting all week*. William had laughed at him at the time. He had not

thought of the moment in years.

He woke at six–thirty, on his own, before the alarm.

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