Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 52

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Chapter 36: Public Humiliation–1

Chapter 36: Public Humiliation

(Author’s POV)

The junior analysts in the open–plan office didn’t see it coming.

Three of them were clustered around a desk, coffee cups in hand, murmuring about the previous day’s failed negotiations. When the elevator doors opened and Sienna stepped out in her Chanel suit, heels striking the floor like a metronome, most of them had the good sense to look away.

One didn’t.

A new girl, barely three weeks into the job, looked up with an earnest smile. “Miss Rathbone, how did the meeting with Professor Lewis go yesterday? Should we start drafting the follow–up contract?”

Sienna stopped walking.

The entire floor seemed to hold its breath.

She turned slowly, crossed to the girl’s workstation, and stood over her with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Without a word, she reached out and pressed the laptop shut. Deliberately. Her fingers caught the girl’s hand beneath the lid.

The girl flinched but didn’t pull away.

“Since you have so much time to worry about my schedule,” Sienna said, her voice soft and perfectly pleasant, “maybe you’d like to go negotiate the deal yourself?” She tilted her head. “Or did you think the company pays you to keep tabs on your superiors?”

The girl’s face drained of color. “I’m sorry, Miss Rathbone. I didn’t mean-”

Sienna was already walking away.

The elevator doors closed behind her. The floor exhaled.

Someone passed the girl a box of tissues. Another colleague crouched beside her chair and lowered their voice to a whisper.

“God, I miss Aurora. And not just because she was easy to work with.” He glanced toward the elevator. “When she was here, none of this ever happened. She’d kill a crisis before it even had a pulse. Sienna doesn’t solve problems. She is the problem.”

Chapter 36: Public Humiliation–1

Nobody disagreed.

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Upstairs, Sienna smoothed her jacket outside Jasper’s office, arranged her expression into something confident, and pushed the door open.

Jasper was behind his desk, one hand pressed to his temple, staring at a project timeline that looked like it had been through a blender. He didn’t look up.

“Well?” His voice was flat. “Did you get the exclusive licensing deal or not?”

Sienna sat down across from him and crossed her legs. “Honestly? Lewis is completely impossible. We spoke on the phone and it seemed fine, but in person he’s erratic. I don’t think he has any real intention of partnering with anyone. Half the things he said didn’t even make sense. The man might be losing it.”

Jasper finally looked up.

He stared at her for a long moment. She was still talking–something about Lewis being difficult, about the university bureaucracy, about how it wasn’t her fault–but Jasper had stopped listening.

His eyes drifted to the mess on his desk. Stalled reports. Unanswered client queries. A project proposal that had been sitting in his inbox for eleven days because no one had prepared the supporting documents. Small things. The kind of small things that used to simply get done.

Aurora used to do them.

He had never thought about it that way. He had assumed the company ran smoothly because he ran it well. That the meetings were always prepared, the files always in order, the problems always pre–empted, because that was simply how things worked.

It wasn’t. It was her. She had been the invisible architecture holding everything upright, and he had never once looked at the walls long enough to notice.

“Enough.” He cut Sienna off mid–sentence.

She blinked. “Jasper, I was just explaining-”

“I heard you.” He stood, straightening his tie. “I’ll use Chancellor Miller’s connections to get Lewis to dinner tonight. A private club. Somewhere he can’t easily refuse.” He looked at her directly. “You’d better hope this works.”

Sienna nodded, but the flicker of unease in her eyes was impossible to miss.

Across the city, in a lab that smelled of antiseptic and ambition, Aurora noticed none of this.

Chapter 36: Public Humiliation–1

Claim

She was focused on the pipette in her hand, transferring a sample with the kind of precise, unhurried attention that made her colleagues nervous to interrupt her. The hum of the centrifuge filled the room. Sylvia worked quietly at the adjacent bench.

Down the hall, Director Harrison was walking Professor Lewis to the elevator.

Harrison was still processing his luck. “Professor Lewis,” he said, “I have to ask. Is it because Aurora is your student? Is that why you chose us?”

Lewis stopped at the elevator doors and turned around. His expression was patient but firm.

“No,” he said simply. “I chose Everett Bio–Tech because of the protein–folding data model Aurora sent me last night. That framework is genuinely novel. If I stayed out of it, I’d be the one falling behind.” He pressed the elevator button. “Don’t mistake personal loyalty for professional judgment. I don’t do favors.”

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