Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 227

Chapter 192: The Window Display

(Author’s POV)

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The assistant blinked. “Oh, that’s one of our clients. She purchased that gown herself, actually. It’s not a

model shoot.”

“Was she buying it for a wedding?”

The assistant looked slightly uncertain about the direction of the conversation, but answered. “Yes. She

came in with her husband. They both chose it together. She was kind enough to let us use the image for

the display – we got her permission, of course.”

Jasper heard the words in the correct order. He processed them.

She came in with her husband.

“Thank you,” he said. He turned around and walked out.

Behind him, Tiffany emerged from the back room, smoothing her jacket. “Who was that?”

The assistant shrugged. “A customer. He asked some odd questions about the window photo.” She glanced back at the display. “That image really does draw people in, doesn’t it?”

Tiffany looked at the photograph for a moment, then nodded and went back to what she’d been doing.

The next morning, Jasper went with Sienna to shoot their wedding photos.

They’d booked a local studio – there hadn’t been time to arrange anything more elaborate, not with the wedding timeline already locked in. The weather turned savage overnight. Rain hammered the windows from early morning, wind strong enough to rattle the studio’s front sign. Every outdoor shot was cancelled before they even started.

Sienna’s gown got caught in the rain on the way in. They spent twenty minutes with a hairdryer trying to dry the hem. The studio’s lighting setup had to be reconfigured twice.

And Jasper couldn’t make himself smile.

The photographer asked him three times. Gently the first time, directly the second, with barely concealed frustration the third. He nodded each time. He tried. What appeared on his face apparently didn’t qualify.

Sienna caught his eye across the set, her expression a precise mixture of pleading and warning. He gave her a small nod and looked away.

By the time they got back in the car, Sienna’s patience had run out.

“The photographer kept telling you to relax,” she said. “You didn’t, not once. The photos are going to be

unusable.”

Jasper watched the wet street slide past the window. Rain was still coming down.

<Chapter 192 The Window Display “She got married,” he said.

Sienna went very still.

“They can fix it in post–production,” he added. “I’m sorry about today.”

Sienna said nothing. She pressed her lips together and turned toward her own window.

She didn’t understand it. She’d won. Aurora was gone. Everything Sienna had worked for, every careful

move she’d made, had paid off. Aurora had walked away with a settlement and disappeared.

And somehow Jasper was further away now than he’d been before.

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She wanted to say something. She wanted to ask him what, exactly, he thought he was mourning. But the

thought of what might come out of that conversation – the things it might dislodge – kept her quiet.

She couldn’t afford to push. Not now. She needed the wedding to happen first. She needed it to be done,

legal, permanent. After that she’d have leverage. After that she’d have ground to stand on.

She made herself breathe slowly. She arranged her expression.

“I don’t blame you,” she said. Her voice came out soft, slightly wounded. “I just – I need to know you’re not going to leave.”

Jasper was quiet for a moment. The trees outside blurred past in the rain.

“I’m not leaving,” he said.

He was looking at the window when he said it. Not at her.

(Aurora’s POV)

The resort was Phineas’s idea, and I didn’t argue.

By the time we finished the last setup at the castle, I could barely lift my arms. He said nothing about it – just redirected the car on the way back and checked us into a private suite with its own hot spring pool.

I got in and didn’t move for ten minutes. The heat worked into my shoulders slowly, unknotting two days‘ worth of tension, and I let out a breath I felt like I’d been holding since Switzerland.

Phineas came in, crouched at the edge of the pool, and without any preamble gathered my hair in his hands and twisted it up off my neck.

His fingers were warm. They grazed the back of my neck for just a second.

I shivered.

“I could help with your back,” he said. His tone was entirely casual, which was the part I didn’t trust. “I’m good at it.”

“Are you actually, or is that something you just say?”

He reached over and pressed two fingers against a point between my shoulder blades, right where the

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< Chapter 192 The Window Display

worst of the tension had been sitting for days. The pressure was precise and exactly right.

I hated that he was telling the truth.

“Fine,” I said. “You’re good at it.”

He worked through a few more points, unhurried, and then said, “It would be better with oil. Proper pressure, proper contact. But you can’t really do it through fabric.”

I moved sideways in the water immediately.

He looked at me with that expression – the one that was almost amused but gave nothing away.

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“I have a solution,” he said. “Wear the robe backwards. Covers the front, leaves the back open. I won’t see

anything.”

I looked at him for a long moment, trying to find the catch.

His face was perfectly composed. His eyes had just the faintest suggestion of something that might have

been satisfaction.

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