Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 214

Chapter 179: The Tantrum

(Author’s POV)

“Jasper.” She pushed past him into the room. “What on earth did you do to this child?”

“I told her no.”

“She’s five years old.”

“Which is exactly why this needs to happen now.” He kept his voice level. “If I don’t set limits now, she’ll be

impossible in five years. In ten.”

Victoria knelt beside Rosalind, pulling her into her arms, rubbing her back. Rosalind pressed her face

against her grandmother’s shoulder and sobbed louder.

“You’re being too hard on her,” Victoria said.

“I’m being consistent.” He looked at his mother. “There’s a difference.”

Victoria opened her mouth to argue. Then she stopped. Because Jasper had lowered his voice, and what

he said next was quiet enough that Rosalind, still crying, couldn’t hear it clearly.

“I really do regret it.”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. Victoria understood exactly what he meant – not Rosalind,

never Rosalind, but everything else. The choices that had led to this house, this arrangement, this

particular version of fatherhood where he was the only one holding the line.

Victoria’s face went still. She didn’t argue. She pressed her lips together, stood up, and walked out of the

room without looking back at him.

Jasper stayed in the doorway for a moment longer, then turned and went to his study.

Sienna had been watching from the corner of the hallway.

She’d heard enough. She waited until Victoria’s footsteps faded down the stairs, then smoothed the front

of her dress and walked toward Rosalind’s room.

She knocked twice, soft and unhurried.

“Rosalind? It’s me.”

A pause. Then sniffling. Then the door opened.

Rosalind’s face was a disaster–red–splotched, swollen–eyed, tear–tracked from forehead to chin. She took one look at Sienna and launched herself forward, burying her face in the silk of Sienna’s designer dress and smearing the full catastrophe of her crying across the fabric.

Sienna’s expression flickered. A brief, involuntary tightening around the eyes. She held still and let it happen, her hand moving in slow circles on Rosalind’s back.

Chapter 129 The Tantrum

“It’s okay,” she said. Her voice was warm. Practiced. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”

Rosalind pulled back and looked up at her. “Daddy’s so mean.”

Claire

“He’s not mean.” Sienna crouched down to her level. “He’s just worried. But here’s the thing – if you don’t go say sorry, he’s going to stay upset. And when daddies stay upset for too long…” She let the pause sit. “They start paying more attention to other little kids. Kids who don’t cause trouble.”

Rosalind’s eyes went wide. “Other kids?”

“It happens.” Sienna tilted her head sympathetically. “You don’t want that, do you?”

“No.” The word came out small and frightened.

“Then I’ll show you what to do.” Sienna reached into her pocket for a tissue and dabbed at Rosalind’s

cheeks. “You go in, you hug him, you say you’re sorry. That’s it: Can you do that?”

Rosalind nodded.

Sienna took her small hands and wiped them with the tissue – two quick, perfunctory swipes – then immediately pulled a fresh tissue from her pocket and cleaned her own fingers carefully, turning slightly

away as she did it.

Rosalind watched her hands.

Something felt strange. She couldn’t name it. It was like noticing a door that was slightly the wrong size –

nothing you could point to, just a wrongness at the edge of things.

But then Sienna smiled and took her hand and said, “Come on, let’s go find Daddy,” and Rosalind decided

she’d imagined it.

Jasper was at his desk when they appeared in the study doorway. He’d been staring at the same paragraph

for twenty minutes without reading it.

He looked up. Rosalind was standing there in her pajamas, hair still damp from crying, holding Sienna’s

hand with both of hers.

He kept his face neutral.

Sienna caught his eye. A small, deliberate look.

Rosalind let go of Sienna’s hand and stumbled forward, arms out, and crashed into her father’s chest He

caught her automatically, and she pressed her face against his shoulder and said, in a voice that was half–sob and half–mumble, “I’m sorry Daddy I didn’t mean it I won’t do it again please don’t be mad

The last of his resolve dissolved.

He wrapped his arms around her and held her properly, and she stopped crying almost immediately, the way small children did when they finally got what they needed.

“I’m not mad,” he said. “But you have to listen. Okay? Not because I want to be hard on you Because I

Chapter 179 The Tantrum

want you to be someone people genuinely like. Someone who earns it.”

Rosalind nodded against his collar.

“Okay,” she said.

Clam

He sat with her for a few minutes, and by the time she’d calmed down enough to be handed off to Mrs.

Potts for a late dinner, the room had gone quiet.

Sienna hadn’t left. She was standing near the window, and when Jasper straightened up, she crossed the room and slipped her hand into his.

“She’ll be fine,” Sienna said quietly.

“I know.”

“You’re a good father.”

He didn’t answer that.

She leaned her head slightly toward his shoulder. “Let’s go register tomorrow morning. First thing.”

He hesitated. “I haven’t even proposed properly.”

“Does that matter?”

“It feels like it should.”

She pulled back just enough to look at him. Her eyes were bright, and there was something careful in her expression – something that looked like hurt. “Is it because of me? Because I’ve been married before?”

H

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