Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 218

Chapter 183: Cream Satin

(Author’s POV)

Jasper said nothing. He leaned forward and told the driver to take his mother home first.

Before she got out, he said, “The dowry – that’s yours to arrange. But the wedding is mine. I decide everything about the wedding. That’s not negotiable.”

Victoria stepped out of the car. She paused, one hand on the door, and looked back at him with something almost like amusement.

“Of course,” she said. “Enjoy planning it.”

She closed the door.

Jasper rode the rest of the way in silence.

When he arrived at the Rathbone house, Sienna was still standing near the entrance, coat still on, looking

like someone who hadn’t quite decided where to go next. She looked up when she heard him.

He crossed to her without hesitating and took her hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He said it clearly, in front of Richard and Stefan, who were still in the hallway. “What

happened tonight shouldn’t have happened. My mother was out of line. It won’t happen again.”

Richard looked at him for a long moment. “See that it doesn’t.”

Jasper nodded. Then he turned back to Sienna, and his voice dropped.

“Let me make it up to you. Wedding photos. Just the two of us – somewhere good. We’ll make it a proper

day.”

Sienna looked at him. The knot in her chest loosened, just slightly.

“You’d better remember what you just promised,” she said.

He smiled. “I’m not likely to forget. You won’t let me.”

She almost laughed. Not quite, but almost.

(Aurora’s POV)

Three weeks later, I was standing in front of a mirror in Tiffany’s fitting room, and I didn’t recognize myself.

That sounds dramatic. I don’t mean it dramatically. I just mean – I’d seen myself in mirrors my whole life,

and the person looking back at me right now was wearing something that didn’t seem to belong to

ordinary life.

The cream satin caught the light softly. The skirt fell in those layered folds, each one built and shaped by hand, opening the way rose petals open when there are too many of them pressed together. The bodice was organza, layered and structured into something three–dimensional – not a flat decoration but an

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Chapter 183 Cream Satin

actual shape, like a crown sitting low across my chest.

I turned slightly. The fabric moved.

“Is it-” I stopped. Started again. “Does it look all right?”

Claim

Tiffany was standing to my left with a few pins still in her hand. She looked at me the way someone looks

at work they know is finished.

“Aurora,” she said. “It looks extraordinary. Go show him.”

I picked up the hem and pushed through the curtain.

Phineas was sitting in the chair near the window with a coffee cup in his hand. He looked up when I came

through, and for a second he just–looked.

He set the cup down. Stood. Walked toward me.

“Well?” I said.

“Beautiful,” he said. Two syllables. Nothing else. But the way he said it – not as a compliment, not as something performed for the occasion – made it land differently than compliments usually do.

He stood close enough that I could see the way his gaze moved over the gown, taking it in the way he

takes in anything he’s decided to keep. Deliberate. Certain.

“This one,” he said, to no one in particular. “We’ll take this one.”

Tiffany stepped forward. “Would you two be willing to let me take a photo? For the studio – just for display.

I wouldn’t use it anywhere without permission.”

I glanced at Phineas. “He doesn’t really like-”

“We’d be happy to,” Phineas said.

I looked at him.

He looked back at me, entirely composed, and said nothing more.

Tiffany smiled. She didn’t say anything either. She just went to get her camera.

(Aurora’s POV)

In the end, I talked Tiffany into using only my solo shot for the studio display. A couples photo felt like too

much – the wrong kind of attention at the wrong time.

Phineas tilted his head and looked at me with that particular expression he gets when he’s already

decided something and is simply waiting for me to catch up.

“A back shot,” he said. “Just our backs. No faces. No one’s identifying anyone from that.”

Tiffany pressed her lips together, clearly fighting a smile.

I opened my mouth.

Chapter 183 Cream Satin

He leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of my lips before I could get a single word out.

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“That,” he said quietly, “is for being smart. I knew your next question was going to be whether I planned to post it on Instagram.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Tiffany laughed – a real one, surprised out of her. She’d dressed hundreds of couples in that studio, and I could tell from the look on her face that she didn’t quite know what to make of him. This man who walked into rooms like he owned the building, who negotiated with the patience of someone who had never once lost, standing here and kissing his bride’s cheek over a photograph.

She looked at me with something warm in her eyes. A little envious, maybe. But mostly like she thought I’d

earned it.

I hadn’t figured out how to tell her I still wasn’t entirely sure what I’d gotten myself into.

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