Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 257

(Aurora’s POV)

“I didn’t say it was.” He stepped back. “Go wash up. Then come to the dining room – Mrs. Potts left bisque on the stove and she’ll be upset if you don’t have any.”

Ten minutes later I was sitting at the dining table with a bowl of lobster bisque in front of me, warm and

rich and clearly made with far more care than the occasion required. Phineas sat across from me, relaxed

in his chair, watching me eat with an expression I couldn’t quite categorize.

“Gavin called me useless tonight,” he said, after a moment.

I looked up. “What?”

“He said I let my wife go out for the evening without even trying to come along.” His tone was perfectly

even. “He seemed to find it very funny.”

I nearly inhaled my soup. “Gavin said that?”

“He did.”

“He doesn’t usually seem like the type to – “I stopped. “Actually, I have no idea what type he is.”

“Apparently the type who mocks people.” Phineas reached for his water glass. “So you can stop defending

him.”

“I wasn’t defending him.”

“You were about to.”

I looked down at my bowl and took another spoonful. He wasn’t wrong, which was irritating.

“Since Gavin’s so entertained by all of this,” Phineas said, “he can figure out the rest on his own. No help

from either of us.”

I didn’t argue. Honestly, it seemed fair.

Later, after I’d gone upstairs, Phineas picked up his phone and typed a message to Gavin.

Three words: *You’re welcome.*

Gavin stared at it for a full minute. He read it again. He set his phone down, picked it back up, and read it a

third time.

He had absolutely no idea what it meant.

The next afternoon, Gavin met Olivia at a quiet café and laid everything on the table his terms, his commitments, his promise to keep clear boundaries with other women, to respect her choices, to not

make demands she wasn’t comfortable with.

Olivia listened. Then she asked the question she’d been working up to the entire conversation.

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< Chapter 222 Martha’s Call

Claim

“What about – physical expectations? After what I went through before, I need to know where you stand.”

Gavin’s mouth curved into a slow smile. “That would be a yes.”

Olivia stared at him.

“Not every day,” he added, generously.

She was speechless.

He didn’t mention that in his private estimation, *not every day* was more of a polite formality than an

actual commitment.

(Aurora’s POV)

Olivia called me the morning after she met with Gavin.

“I said yes.”

I set down my coffee cup. “To the marriage?”

“To all of it. Terms, timeline, the whole thing.” She paused. “He looked almost excited. He was trying to

hide it, but I could tell.”

“That’s not a bad sign.”

“No,” she said. “I don’t think it is.”

Mrs. Redmond apparently burst into tears when Olivia told her. The Sterlings moved fast after that – Lord Sterling arrived at the Redmond house two days later with a delegation that included Gavin, two family lawyers, and a portfolio of documents that covered three properties and a substantial equity transfer. The Redmonds and the Sterlings had done business together for years. This just made it official in a different

way.

I heard most of this secondhand, because Olivia called me while it was still happening.

“They’re literally negotiating right now,” she whispered. “In the next room. I’m sitting here like a piece of furniture.”

“You’re not furniture. You’re the point of the whole exercise.”

“Gavin just leaned over and said – and I quote – ‘Tomorrow’s a perfectly good day to go register. Why wait?”

I laughed. “What did you say?”

“I said yes again.” She sounded slightly dazed. “Aurora, I think I’m getting married tomorrow.”

“You are,” I said. “Congratulations.”

They registered at City Hall the next morning. I got a photo from Olivia – the two of them standing at the clerk’s counter, Gavin in a dark jacket, Olivia in a cream dress she’d pulled from her own boutique, both of them holding the marriage certificate.

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<Chapter 222 Martha’s Call

Then Gavin posted it on i********..

Claim

He’d clearly taken some time with the photo composition, which was exactly the kind of detail that made me suspect he’d been planning this moment for longer than he let on. The caption was short. The comments filled up within the hour.

Phineas saw it while we were eating breakfast. He looked at his phone, looked at the photo, and made a sound low in his throat that was somewhere between a scoff and a sigh.

“He’s insufferable,” he said.

“He’s happy.”

“He’s showing off.”

“Phineas. He just got married. He’s allowed to show off a little.”

Phineas set his phone face–down on the table with the deliberate calm of a man who had just muted

someone’s account and felt completely justified about it.

My phone buzzed with a message from Olivia: *Gavin is currently refreshing his i********: every four

minutes. I’ve counted.*

I smiled into my coffee and didn’t tell Phineas.

Three days later, my phone rang from an unknown number.

I almost didn’t pick up. But something made me press accept, and the voice on the other end was immediately familiar – thin, careful, with that particular quality of someone choosing every word for

maximum effect.

Martha.

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