Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 242

Chapter 207: The Toast

(Author’s POV)

But next to Aurora sat the man from the shopping mall. The one who had refused to help her. The one with the cold grey eyes who had looked at her like she was a problem he didn’t have time for.

Rosalind pulled her knees to her chest and cried harder.

(Aurora’s POV)

I heard her before I saw her.

The sound cut through the low hum of conversation around me, and my hand tightened in my lap without my meaning it to. Phineas noticed. He always noticed. His hand closed over mine on the table, warm and

steady.

“Do you want to go over?” he asked quietly. “I’ll come with you.”

I looked at Rosalind. She was hunched over herself at the Everett family table, crying in that way that

made the back of my throat ache.

I sat with it for a moment.

Then I shook my head.

Victoria was there. Rosalind had people. And the court had been clear – custody belonged to Jasper. More than that, Rosalind herself had been clear. She’d said she didn’t want me. She’d said it plainly, in the way children say things that they mean completely and that you can’t unhear.

I watched her cry and told myself she’d gotten what she wanted today. A new family. A new mother. I hoped, quietly and without much conviction, that she wouldn’t regret it.

Around us, a few guests were watching the child with varying degrees of interest.

“She’s the one who tripped the bride,” a woman at the next table murmured to her companion. “If she gets

an earful for it, that’s hardly surprising.”

I turned away from the sound.

At the main table, William had been watching the room with the expression of a man cataloguing everything and reacting to nothing. He glanced once at Phineas. Just once.

Phineas leaned back in his chair, entirely at ease. “I haven’t done anything, sir,” he said. “I just came to a

wedding.”

William’s expression didn’t change. But he looked away, which was as close to conceding a point as he

ever got.

It didn’t take long after that. One guest approached with a glass raised, then another, then a small crowd had gathered around our end of the table, voices overlapping, everyone talking about the wedding at the

< Chapter 207 The Toast

Claim

end of the month, congratulating Phineas, congratulating me. The energy of the room had relocated itself. What had started as Jasper and Sienna’s evening was now, unmistakably, something else.

I watched Jasper emerge from the corridor with Sienna at his side. He’d gotten her composed enough to function – her smile was back, stiff but present, and she was moving through the room with him toward the first table to begin the toast circuit.

Then he looked up and saw the crowd around us.

His face did something complicated and then went still.

Sienna’s gaze found me through the cluster of guests. She stared. The photographer who’d been trailing them all evening took one look at her expression and quietly lowered his camera.

Jasper touched her elbow. She didn’t move for a long moment. Then she turned away.

The toast circuit continued. Joyce Langford sat two tables over, and I noticed her watching me – not with hostility, but with something quieter. Something I couldn’t immediately name. She looked at me the way people look at things that remind them of something they’ve lost. Her expression held a softness I hadn’t

expected from her, given everything.

I didn’t approach her. She didn’t approach me. But when she finally turned away, something in her face

settled into what looked almost like a private wish.

When Jasper and Sienna reached the main Everett table, Victoria had repositioned herself beside William. A few of the Rathbone men had drifted over as well – Sebastian among them, his expression carefully

blank.

Jasper and Sienna stood together and offered their thanks to the family. Jasper’s voice was steady. Sienna’s smile was doing most of the work.

Then Phineas spoke.

“Let me introduce everyone properly.” His tone was easy, conversational, the tone of a man making small talk at a dinner party. “This is Aurora – my wife. Which, by family reckoning, makes her Jasper’s aunt.” He paused just long enough. “Don’t forget we’re doing this again at the end of the month. We expect to see

you there.”

The air at the table changed.

Aunt. The word landed and kept landing.

Jasper’s smile stayed exactly where it was. His throat moved. He reached for his whiskey glass and drained it completely, set it back on the table without a sound, and said nothing at all.

That was the end of it, really. The rest of the evening went through its motions. Phineas stood, offered me his hand, and we left before the dessert course had finished.

(Aurora’s POV)

<Chapter 207 The Toast

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The night air outside the venue was cool and immediate. I felt the tension I’d been carrying all evening release from my shoulders in one slow exhale.

Phineas glanced over at me.

“Better?” he asked. His voice had dropped into that register he only seemed to use with me – lower,

quieter, without the edge he kept for everyone else.

I smiled. “I’m okay.”

He laughed under his breath. Then his arm came around my shoulders, and he turned us toward the

parking lot.

(Author’s POV)

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