Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 274

Chapter 239 Guess All You WATE

Chapter 239: Guess All You Want

(Aurora’s POV)

+25 Pority

He had the grace to look slightly sheepish. “I’ll cancel all morning meetings when you’re around.”

“That’s not – that’s not the point.” I pointed at my neck. “Look at this. Full-coverage foundation won’t even fix this. I have to see these people today.”

“I’m sorry.”

He said it with complete sincerity. His face, however, was the face of someone who was not sorry at all. Someone who was, in fact, quietly satisfied in a way that made me want to throw a pillow at

him.

“You’ll do it again,” I said.

“I’ll be more careful.”

“That’s not a no.”

He picked up his coffee from the nightstand, took a sip, and said nothing.

I took the pillow and threw it at him.

He caught it.

The next two days were quieter. Phineas pulled back, I buried myself in work, and we maintained a professional distance that I found both easier and somehow more aggravating than the alternative. By the last evening, I had almost convinced myself that the remainder of the trip would pass without incident.

Then someone suggested Truth or Dare at the bar.

Harrison had taken the no-family contingent out after dinner, and Phineas had been pulled along by the general momentum of the group. I sat across the table from him and told myself this was fine.

The bottle spun. It stopped in front of Phineas.

A colleague – someone who spent most of his time lurking silently in the group chat – looked up with the energy of a man who had been waiting for exactly this moment. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Phineas said.

The table erupted. Everyone leaned in. The colleague cleared his throat like he was delivering a

verdict.

“Is your wife one of our colleagues?”

The table went completely silent.

111

cte: 239 Garas Alf You Want

+29 Porto

I stopped breathing. I looked at Phineas across the table and put every ounce of intention I had into my eyes. *Say no. Just say no. Please, for the love of everything, say no.*

He looked back at me.

The corner of his mouth moved.

“You want the honest answer?” he said.

“You picked Truth!” three people said simultaneously.

Phineas set down his glass. “Then yes,” he said. “She is.”

The table exploded. Everyone twisted to look at everyone else, scanning faces, running calculations, whispering. I sat completely still and kept my expression at a neutral that I hoped

read as curious rather than cardiac.

Phineas glanced at me – one easy, unhurried glance – and then said, “Don’t bother guessing. You probably won’t figure it out. And even if you do, don’t say it out loud.” He paused. “Otherwise I’ll be going home to kneel on Lego bricks.”

The table erupted in laughter, loud and genuine, and just like that the interrogation dissolved into jokes about marriage and household punishments and someone’s story about their mother-in-law.

Phineas picked up his glass and took a sip like nothing had happened.

My heart was still hammering. But I understood what he’d done – confirmed enough to satisfy the question, deflected everything else with a single self-deprecating line. He’d protected me with a joke, and he’d done it so smoothly that no one had even noticed the maneuver.

I looked at him across the table.

He didn’t look back. He was already talking to Harrison about something else entirely, relaxed and unhurried, as if the last thirty seconds hadn’t happened at all.

I picked up my own glass and said nothing.

The bus ride back was forty minutes of sustained social pressure.

It started before we’d even pulled out of the resort parking lot. Two colleagues cornered Sylvia in the aisle, blocking her path to her seat with the energy of people who had spent the night running calculations and arrived at a conclusion.

“Come on,” one of them said. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

Sylvia looked like she wanted to dissolve into the floor. “It’s absolutely not me. I have never spoken more than three words to Mr. Everett in my life.”

“That’s exactly what someone in a secret relationship would say.”

F

Chapter 239 Guess All You Want

“I’m single! I would know if I was in a relationship!”

+25 Points

She was nearly in tears. Her voice had gone up half an octave, and the more she denied it, the more entertained everyone looked, which was making it worse.

I leaned over from the seat behind her. “It’s not Sylvia.”

Everyone turned.

I kept my voice casual. “I told you, I’m already married. But if you keep pointing fingers at my colleagues, my husband’s going to hear about it and assume someone here is flirting with me. He’ll make my life miserable.” I paused. “So please. For my sake. Drop it.”

That landed a laugh, which was exactly what I needed. The tension broke. A few people looked skeptical – someone muttered that Phineas’s line last night could have been deliberate misdirection – but without any real evidence, the interrogation fizzled.

Sylvia collapsed into the seat next to me, exhaling like she’d just survived a tribunal.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Don’t mention it.”

I spent the rest of the ride pressed against the window, scrolling through my phone with the focused attention of someone who was definitely not thinking about the man sitting four rows

ahead of us.

The moment the bus stopped, I was on my feet. I had my bag, I had the door, and I had an Uber already pulling up to the curb. I did not look back. I got in, gave the driver the address, and stared out the window as the resort disappeared behind me..

My phone rang before we’d gone two blocks.

I looked at the screen. Phineas.

I answered.

“Where are you going?” His voice was flat, but I could hear the edge underneath it.

“Home.”

“You just walked off without a word.”

“I said goodbye to my colleagues.”

“Aurora.”

“What?”

***

111