Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 241

Chapter 206: Strangers

(Aurora’s POV)

I settled back in my seat. Around us, the whispers were already circulating – Jasper’s ex–wife, here, with

Phineas Everett, as his wife. The combination was too much for anyone to absorb quietly. But when

Phineas turned his gaze on the nearest cluster of murmuring guests, the conversation died immediately.

I watched Sienna take her place at the altar. She was looking at us now – at Phineas’s arm resting casually on the back of my chair, at whatever expression was on my face. Her hands were clasped around her

bouquet hard enough that her knuckles had gone pale.

Jasper wasn’t looking at her.

Phineas pulled out his phone with his free hand, typed something briefly, and set it face–down on his knee.

Then he picked it up again, scrolled for a moment, and a faint satisfaction crossed his face.

“What are you doing?” I asked quietly.

“Being a generous wedding guest,” he said.

I looked at his screen. He’d found a video – already trending – of Sienna’s fall, and had just finished

promoting it.

“Phineas.”

“I’ll explain later.” He pocketed the phone and glanced at me sideways, the corner of his mouth lifting.

I gave him a look. He was entirely unbothered by it.

At the altar, the officiant had now prompted Jasper three times to exchange rings before Jasper finally

seemed to hear him. He reached for the ring box with the mechanical precision of a man operating on

reflex alone.

The applause at the end was thin. Polite, nothing more. The kind of applause that fills silence rather than

celebrating anything.

Sienna walked down from the altar with her chin lifted and her eyes too bright, holding herself together by

sheer force of will.

Jasper followed. He pressed two fingers to his temple, rubbing slowly, and his face held nothing no relief, no joy, nothing that belonged to a man who had just married the woman he loved.

(Author’s POV)

The dressing room door barely closed before Sienna tore the veil from her head and threw it to the floor.

“She came here on purpose.” Her voice cracked on the last word. “She came to watch me fall. She planned

this.”

Jasper pressed his back against the door. “Keep your voice down.”

1931

< Chapter 206 Strangers

“Don’t tell me to keep my voice down-”

Claim

“Sienna.” He crossed the room in three steps and dropped his voice to something hard and flat. “It’s done. It already happened. You can either stand here screaming about it or go back out there and salvage what’s left of the evening. Those are your only two options.”

Even as he said it, he was saying it to himself. He knew that. Out in that hall, with three hundred guests watching, he hadn’t been able to do a single thing. Not one word to Phineas. Not one gesture. The moment Phineas walked in with Aurora on his arm, the entire room had shifted, and Jasper had stood at that altar

with his hands full of rings and absolutely nowhere to put his anger.

He thought of what William had said months ago that the family would welcome them back. He thought of today, of Phineas arriving with his new wife and that unhurried, satisfied expression. The whole thing had been a trap. Sprung perfectly. And he’d walked straight into it.

“How am I supposed to calm down?” Sienna’s composure had completely shattered. “Your daughter did this. Your daughter stepped on my dress and dragged me down in front of everyone.”

“She’s five.”

“She did it on purpose. She’s been hostile to me from the start, and you’ve never done anything about it,

and now-”

“She’s five years old, Sienna.”

Sienna picked up a lipstick from the vanity and set it back down hard enough that it rolled off the edge.

She didn’t look at him again.

Outside the dressing room door, Victoria stood in the corridor with Rosalind’s hand in hers. She’d come to find out what had happened – she’d seen the fall from her seat and wanted answers. But the sound coming through that door stopped her cold.

Rosalind pressed herself behind Victoria’s arm. “Is the new mommy mad at me?”

Victoria looked down at the child. The girl’s face was pale, her eyes already filling.

She didn’t answer the question directly. Instead, she steered Rosalind away from the door, back toward the banquet hall. “Come on. Let’s go sit down.”

“But is she-”

“I’ll sort it out later,” Victoria said. “Don’t worry about it.”

It was not a reassurance. It was a dismissal. But Rosalind was too young to know the difference, and she

let herself be led back to the table without another word.

She sat down and cried.

It started quietly – just the trembling lip, the blinking that wasn’t fast enough and then it became the kind of crying that small children do when they’ve been holding it in too long. Her shoulders shook. The tears

< Chapter 206. Strangers

ran unchecked.

Through the blur of them, she looked toward the next table.

Her mother was there.

Aurora sat with her back straight and her hands folded in her lap, and even through the haze of tears

Rosalind could see how beautiful she was – the kind of beautiful that made you want to keep looking.

Something in Rosalind’s chest pulled hard toward her. She wanted to get up. She wanted to cross the

distance between the tables and push her face into her mother’s shoulder the way she used to.

Comments

LUCK DRAW >