Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 258

Chapter 223: He Should Have Been Home

(Aurora’s POV)

“Aurora.” She stretched my name out like she was testing how it sounded. “I had to borrow someone’s phone. I wasn’t sure you’d pick up if you saw mine.”

“What do you want, Martha?”

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A brief pause. Then the performance began – how she was doing, how the weather had been, how she’d heard I was doing well for myself. I let her talk. I knew what was coming.

“I heard you married someone important,” she finally said. “Someone with real connections. That’s

wonderful, sweetheart. Really. And I was thinking – once Leo finishes school, if there were any

opportunities at your husband’s company-”

“No.”

“-even something entry–level, just to get him started-”

“Martha. No.”

“He’s your brother.” Her voice sharpened. “You’d really turn your back on your own family?”

“I told Leo I’d cover half his university tuition. That’s what I committed to, and I’ll honor it. His living expenses and his career are his to figure out.”

“After everything I did for you-”

“Don’t.” I kept my voice flat. “Leo’s healthy. He’s been healthy for years. You don’t get to keep collecting on

that debt forever.”

The line went quiet for a moment.

“I see,” she said finally. The performance dropped entirely. Her voice went smooth and cold, the way it always did when she’d decided to try a different angle. “I understand.”

She hung up.

I stared at my phone for a moment. Something about the way she’d said *I understand* sat wrong with

1. me. Martha never accepted a no without a countermove already in progress.

I set the phone down and went back to work.

Leo called me that evening. Then again the next evening. By the third day, I picked up before the first ring

finished.

“She’s acting weird,” he said. “Really weird.”

“Define weird.”

“She threw out basically everything in the apartment. All the old stuff she used to say she was saving.

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Replaced the couch, got a new kitchen table. And then she sat me down and told me all the bank account numbers. The passwords. Where she keeps her emergency cash.” His voice dropped. “Aurora, she was talking like she was about to disappear.”

I felt the cold settle in my chest.

“And she keeps telling me if anything happens, go to you. She keeps saying that.”

“Leo.” I chose my words carefully. “Is this about Neil? Are you worried he’s involved somehow?”

A long silence.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just – he used to show up out of nowhere. And when he did, everything got

bad really fast. I thought maybe-”

“Leo. Neil is dead.”

Another silence. Longer this time.

“He ran up debts he couldn’t pay,” I said. “It caught up with him. He’s been gone for a while. He’s not

coming back.”

I heard him exhale – a long, shaking breath that told me exactly how much he’d been carrying around that

fear.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Okay.”

“Stay at school. Focus on your classes. Don’t come home every weekend just because Martha is acting strange – honestly, the less time you spend there right now, the better.”

“Is she dangerous?”

I thought about the way she’d said *I understand* and hung up without another word.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m paying attention. You just take care of yourself.”

After I hung up, I walked out to the balcony. The night air was cool and still. I stood there and let it settle

over me, trying to sort through what I actually knew versus what I was projecting.

I

Martha was planning something. Whatever it was, it involved Sienna – I was almost certain of that. The two of them had a history that predated me, and Martha had never done anything without calculating what she stood to gain.

I heard the balcony door slide open behind me.

Phineas draped something over my shoulders – a soft cashmere cardigan, still warm. He’d clearly just come from the shower; I could smell the faint clean scent of the soap we both used, the same brand, which had become one of those small domestic facts I’d stopped noticing until moments like this.

“It’s late,” he said. His voice was quiet. “You’ve been out here for a while.”

“Just thinking.”

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He stood beside me, not pushing. That was one of the things about him – he didn’t demand explanations.

“Three more days,” he said after a moment.

I looked at him.

“The wedding.” The corner of his mouth moved slightly. “You should sleep. I need you to look like you want

to be there.”

“I do want to be there.”

“Then prove it by going to bed at a reasonable hour.” He reached over and adjusted the cardigan on my

shoulders. “Come on.”

I followed him inside.

Three days later, Olivia threw me a bachelorette night at a private members‘ club in the city – the kind of place with low lighting and music loud enough that you had to lean in to hear anything. Phineas had arranged for security to wait outside without being obvious about it. We’d agreed I’d be home by nine.

It was barely eight–thirty when my phone buzzed.

Leo’s name on the screen.

I picked up immediately. But the voice wasn’t Leo’s.

It was Martha – breathless, her voice cracking at the edges in a way I hadn’t heard before.

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