Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 231

Chapter 196: The Wedding Date

(Aurora’s POV)

He exhaled. “Yes.”

She was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, “You should have told me.”

“It wasn’t mine to tell.”

Martha pressed her lips together. She looked at the invitation one more time, then turned and walked back

to her room.

A few minutes passed. Leo stood in the hallway with his hands in his pockets, not looking at me.

Martha came back out carrying a small box. She held it out to Leo.

“This was meant for her birthday.” Her voice was flat, controlled. “A Cartier bracelet. If she’s getting married, she should have it as a gift. Take it to her.”

Leo looked at the box. “She might not accept it.”

“Then she doesn’t accept it.” Martha’s jaw was set. “Take it anyway.”

Leo glanced at me – a quick, helpless look – and I could see exactly what he was thinking. He didn’t believe

Aurora would take it either. But he also knew that arguing with Martha right now would accomplish

nothing.

He took the box.

(Aurora’s POV)

Leo showed up Saturday morning with the small Cartier box tucked under his arm, wearing the expression

of someone who had already rehearsed what he was going to say three times on the drive over.

I let him in, poured two cups of coffee, and sat across from him at the kitchen table.

He set the box down between us.

I didn’t look at it.

“She wants you to have it,” he said. “For the wedding.”

“I know what she wants.”

“Aurora –”

“Leo.” I wrapped both hands around my mug. “Next time something like this comes to you, just say no on my behalf. I don’t need compensation from her. Not in any form.”

He pressed his lips together. I could see it in his face that small, stubborn flicker. The hope that maybe this time would be different. That maybe the gesture meant something.

Chapter 196 The Wedding Date

I reached across the table and opened the box myself.

A gold bracelet sat in the velvet. Simple band, standard clasp. I picked it up and held it against my wrist

The gap was obvious. Too large by at least a full size.

“She doesn’t know my wrist measurement,” I said. “She’s never known it.”

Leo stared at the bracelet.

“This wasn’t bought for me,” I said. “She bought it for herself at some point and decided it made a better

gift than nothing. That’s not the same thing as choosing something for someone.”

He didn’t argue. He couldn’t.

I set the bracelet back in the box and closed the lid.

“I’m not angry,” I told him. “I’m just done pretending these things mean what they’re supposed to mean.”

Leo was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “I’ll give it back to her.”

“That’s your call.”

He picked up the box. He turned it over once in his hands, and I watched him let go of whatever he’d been

holding onto.

“I’ll buy you something myself,” he said. “When I’m earning. A real gift. Something that actually fits.”

“I know you will.”

He left an hour later. The coffee cups sat empty on the table, and the kitchen felt quieter than it had

before.

I thought about the bracelet for a moment longer – not with bitterness, but with a clarity that had taken

years to arrive at.

I remembered the year Leo needed surgery. I’d been twenty–two, working two jobs, calling in every favor I had to cover the hospital bills. I’d gone through Martha’s bag one evening looking for a pen and found a crumpled receipt from a jewelry boutique. A gold bracelet. The price had been significant.

She’d had money. She’d just chosen where to spend it.

The clarity wasn’t new. But it settled a little more firmly into place.

(Author’s POV)

Leo returned to the house and set the box on the kitchen counter in front of Martha without a word.

She looked at it, then at him. “She didn’t take it?”

“It doesn’t fit her wrist.” His voice was flat. “You don’t know her wrist size.”

Martha opened her mouth.

<Chapter 196 The Wedding Date

“Did you buy that for yourself originally?” he asked. “Before you decided to give it to her?”

The silence was its own answer.

Claim

“I’m not going to be the one carrying messages between you two anymore,” Leo said. “Whatever’s between you and Aurora is between you and Aurora. Leave me out of it.”

He walked to his room and closed the door.

Martha stood at the counter for a long moment. The anger came first – the hot, indignant kind – followed

immediately by something she couldn’t name and didn’t want to examine. Her son had never spoken to

her like that before. Not once.

She picked up the bracelet box and her coat and walked out.

She took a cab to a high–end jewelry store on the main shopping boulevard and spent an hour choosing something she couldn’t comfortably afford – a fine gold bracelet with a delicate diamond setting, the kind of thing that came in a glossy bag with ribbon handles. A wedding gift for Sienna. Something worthy of the

circles Sienna moved in now.

She stood outside Sienna’s company building afterward and called the number.

It rang four tirnes before connecting.

“I bought you something,” Martha said. “For the wedding. I thought I could bring it by in person, if you have

a few minutes –”

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