Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 251

Chapter 216: The Stranger in the Bar

(Author’s POV)

“I’ll check my schedule.” She said it the way people said it when they meant no. She was already turning

toward the exit.

She didn’t look back.

Behind her, Gavin stood alone at the table for two, staring at the empty chair. He let out a slow breath and allowed himself one short, humorless laugh.

He’d handled hostile witnesses with more success than this.

He pulled out his phone and called Phineas.

“Come have a drink with me,” he said. “I need to decompress.”

“Some of us have wives to go home to,” Phineas said.

Gavin rolled his eyes so hard it was almost audible. This man, two months ago, had been the most

ruthlessly efficient person he knew. Now he was using the word *wives* like it was a personality trait.

There was a brief murmur in the background – a woman’s voice, soft and indistinct.

Then Phineas said, “Send me the address.”

Gavin stared at his phone. He’d known Aurora for years, and he’d never once seen her convince Phineas

Everett to do anything. Apparently marriage changed the calculus entirely.

He typed out the address and hit send.

Then, halfway through putting his phone back in his pocket, he stopped.

Aurora’s best friend.

He thought about the woman who had just walked out of this restaurant – the set of her shoulders, the

careful blankness of her smile, the way she’d delivered that parting line like she’d practiced it.

*Olivia Redmond.*

He stood very still for a moment.

Then he flagged down the waiter and ordered a whiskey to go.

The reunion was being held in a private dining room on the second floor of a venue that Olivia had been to exactly twice before, both times for events she’d also not wanted to attend. The music was too loud. The lighting was aggressively festive. She spotted at least four people she only remembered vaguely and would have to pretend otherwise.

She was three steps into the room when she saw him.

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Chapter 216 The Stranger in the Bar

Liam Carter was sitting in the middle of the group, jacket on, looking like someone who had grown comfortably into his own face. The awkward edges she remembered from school had smoothed into something more settled. He was laughing at something someone had said, and the sound of it hit her

somewhere she didn’t want to examine.

“Olivia!” The class president materialized at her elbow. “You made it! Come on, everyone’s here.”

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She let herself be pulled into the group. Smiles, hugs, the usual chorus of *you look amazing* and *it’s

been forever*. She did it all on autopilot, nodding and laughing in the right places, until someone said the

word.

*Engaged.*

“Liam just got engaged, did you hear? Tell her, Liam.”

Liam glanced up and met her eyes for the first time. His expression was unreadable.

“It’s recent,” he said simply. Then, without missing a beat: “What about you, Olivia? You must have been

snapped up ages ago.”

“Oh, absolutely,” the class president agreed. “Someone like you-”

“My boyfriend dropped me off,” Olivia said. She picked up a glass of red wine from the nearest tray and

took a sip. “He had something on tonight.”

The lie came out smooth. She was almost impressed with herself.

The rest of the evening passed in the way these things did – loud and warm and slightly exhausting,

everyone performing a version of themselves that was slightly more successful than reality. She and Liam

existed in the same room without once speaking directly to each other again. She was aware of him the

way you’re aware of something that used to mean something to you: peripherally, persistently.

By nine–thirty she’d had three glasses of wine and her heels were killing her.

She slipped out toward the restrooms, fully intending to collect her coat and disappear before anyone

noticed.

She came out of the restroom and walked straight into a chest.

The smell hit her first – tobacco and cedar, something clean underneath. She grabbed the doorframe to steady herself and looked up.

Liam.

“Heading out already?” His voice had an edge to it. “Or are you going to meet this boyfriend of yours?”

She looked at him. The wine had softened the sharp edges of the evening, and she was tired of performing.

“I hope you and your fiancée will be very happy together,” she said.

Chapter 216 The Stranger in the Bar

Something crossed his face. His jaw tightened.

“Don’t,” he said, and his voice came out cold and flat. He turned and walked back down the corridor

without another word.

Olivia stood in the hallway and breathed.

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She made her way downstairs slowly, one hand trailing along the wall. The ground floor bar was still busy, voices overlapping, music thumping from somewhere. She found an empty stool at the end of the bar and sat down heavily, resting her elbows on the counter.

She didn’t notice the man until he was already in her space.

He was wearing a leather jacket, the kind that had seen better decades, and he smelled like a cologne that had been applied with no restraint. He’d been talking for at least two minutes before she fully registered what he was saying, and by then he was leaning in and she was leaning back and there was

nowhere left to go.

Then someone stepped between them.

“There you are.” The voice was calm. Familiar.

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