Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 54

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Chapter 37: He Doesn’t Know How to Love

Chapter 37: He Doesn’t Know How to Love

(Author’s POV)

Lewis turned to Chancellor Miller, who looked like he wanted to disappear into the upholstery.

“Don’t invite me to anything like this again. I don’t work with people who betray those who trust them. And I certainly don’t work with fools.”

He walked out without looking back.

The door clicked shut.

Jasper and Sienna sat motionless before a table of untouched food worth several hundred dollars a plate. Chancellor Miller’s gaze moved between them slowly, with the quiet, assessing look of a man recalculating exactly who he had just done a favor for.

Chancellor Miller looked at Jasper once, long and disappointed, then shook his head without a single word and walked out after Professor Lewis.

Sienna’s tears came immediately. She pressed her fingers to her mouth, but the crying wasn’t quiet or restrained. It was furious.

“That old man is completely out of line.” Her voice cracked. “He humiliated me. To my face. In front of everyone.”

Jasper pressed two fingers to his temple.

“He had no right to speak to me like that,” she continued. “Jasper, we loved each other first. Before any of this. Before Aurora ever entered the picture. By any reasonable measure, she’s the one who came between us. She’s the intruder, not me.”

“Sienna.”

“I’m serious. If anyone should be called a-”

“Sienna.” His voice was flat and cold. “Why did you tell him you were my fiancée?”

She blinked. “Because I am.”

“You’re not.” He stood up, straightening his jacket. “Legally, I am still married. I cannot divorce Aurora without consequences for the Everett board, for the family’s public standing, for everything my mother has spent thirty years building. You know this.”

Chapter 37: He Doesn’t Know How to Love

“Then when-”

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“In our social circles, reputation is currency.” He cut her off without raising his voice. “And you are my brother’s widow. Whatever is between us cannot be public. Not now. Possibly not ever. I should never have brought you tonight.”

Sienna went very still.

When she spoke again, her voice had dropped to something quieter and more dangerous. “If you never divorce her, then what exactly am I to you?”

Jasper didn’t answer.

“You haven’t forgotten what happened in the club room, have you?” She looked up at him directly. “Or do I not even get to know where I stand after that?”

He pressed his lips together. “I was drunk that night. I’m sorry.” He looked away. “I can’t make you promises.”

He knew what his mother had made clear. He could give Sienna his time, his money, whatever warmth he had left to give. But the title of Mrs. Everett belonged to Aurora. That was the line he could not cross without destroying everything.

Sienna wiped her face with the back of her hand. Then, carefully, she said, “What if Aurora decides she wants the divorce? What if she’s already pushing for it?”

The shift in Jasper was immediate.

His expression darkened. He crossed the room in two steps and closed his hand around her wrist, tight enough that she gasped.

“Has she said something to you? Has Aurora contacted you? What did she tell you?”

‘Jasper, you’re hurting me-”

He released her wrist and stepped back. His jaw was tight. He stared at her for a moment longer, something unreadable moving behind his eyes.

Sienna understood, with sudden and uncomfortable clarity, that whatever Aurora represented to Jasper went far beyond what she had calculated. She wasn’t going to win this argument

tonight.

“Nothing,” she said quickly, rubbing her wrist. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just hungry. Can we order something?”

Jasper picked up his car keys from the table.

< Chapter 37: He Doesn’t Know How to Love

“I’ll have my driver take you home.”

Sienna stared at him. “You’re leaving?”

He was already walking toward the door.

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She stood at the entrance of the restaurant and watched his car pull away from the curb and disappear into the city traffic. The valet attendant hovered nearby, pretending not to notice.

It was the first time he had ever left her standing alone like that.

She looked down at her wrist, where his grip had left a faint red mark. She thought about Aurora. She thought about Rosalind. She had always assumed the child was the anchor keeping Jasper tethered to Aurora’s name, but tonight suggested it was something more complicated and more stubborn than that.

Her jaw set.

If a child was what kept a man, then perhaps what she needed was a child of her own.

(Aurora’s POV)

My phone buzzed on the lab bench at five forty–five, just as I was logging the last set of

results.

Professor Walsh’s name was on the screen.

“Aurora.” His voice was the same as always. Measured, slightly formal, the kind of voice that made you sit up straighter. “Mrs. Walsh and I would like you to come for dinner this weekend. She’s been planning the menu since Tuesday. Apparently you mentioned once that you liked her lamb chops.”

I hadn’t remembered saying that, but Mrs. Walsh had the memory of an archivist when it came to other people’s food preferences.

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