Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 85

Chapter 57: Slapping Jasper

(Aurora’s POV)

“Back off.”

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The voice came from behind me – sharp, flat, and carrying enough authority that even I felt my shoulders drop slightly.

Phineas crossed the courtyard in four strides, grabbed the man by the collar, and put him on the grass in one clean motion. He didn’t say anything else to him. He just turned away, like the matter was settled, and crouched down in front of me.

His eyes moved over my face, then down to my knees.

Without a word, he slid one arm under my legs and stood up.

“I can walk,” I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected, though there was still a tremor underneath it.

“Your knees say otherwise.”

“They’re fine-”

“Aurora.” He said my name once, quietly, and started walking.

I stopped arguing.

Back in the apartment, Phineas set me down on the sofa and disappeared. He came back with a first aid kit, set it on the coffee table, and knelt in front of me on one knee. He opened the kit, found the antiseptic, and pressed a cotton ball to the scrape on my right knee.

I hissed.

“Hold still.”

“I can do this myself.”

“I know.” He didn’t look up. “Hold still anyway.”

I held still.

He worked carefully, without rushing. The antiseptic stung, but his hands were steady, and I found myself watching the top of his head instead of the scrape. There was something disorienting about it – this man, who ran an empire with what appeared to be minimal effort and maximum intimidation, sitting on the floor of his own living room tending to someone

< Chapter 57 Slapping Jasper

else’s scraped knee.

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“You know,” I heard myself say, and my voice came out quieter than I meant it to, “I can’t remember the last time anyone did something like this for me. I think it was when my father was still alive.”

Phineas glanced up at me. His expression didn’t change. He held my gaze for just a moment, then looked back down and kept going.

A few minutes later, he pressed the last piece of tape into place and dropped the used cotton balls into the wastebasket. He stood, closed the first aid kit, and said, “Done.”

“Thank you.” I meant it fully. I was also becoming aware that I said those two words to him more than I said anything else. “I think that’s the most I’ve ever thanked anyone.”

The corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile, but something adjacent to it. He bent to pick up the kit and said, in a tone that was distinctly unhurried, “Just a verbal thank–you?”

I paused.

“Of course not,” I said carefully. “I could get you a small gift. If that works.”

He straightened up. The almost–smile held.

“No objections,” he said.

I woke up with a dull throb behind my eyes and the memory of the previous night sitting perfectly intact in my head.

The man’s hand on my shoulder. The fall. The scream. And then Phineas, appearing from somewhere I hadn’t expected, moving with a calm efficiency that was somehow more frightening than anger would have been.

I lay in bed for a moment, staring at the ceiling, then got up and made coffee.

By the time I was dressed and heading out, the lobby guard was deep in conversation with

the building superintendent, and I caught enough of it to piece together the rest.

“– arrested, apparently. Wife showed up at the station and made a complete scene-”

“The whole floor heard about it. Good riddance.”

I slowed my pace without stopping. So he’d been taken in. The building’s collective exhale was almost audible.

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* Chapter 57 Slapping Jasper

I stood outside on the front step, phone in hand, thumb hovering over the message field.

It took me about four seconds to decide, and another two to type it.

*So apparently the guy from last night got arrested. You’re annoyingly efficient, you know that?…Thanks. Don’t make it weird.*

I hit send and put the phone face–down in my bag.

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This was not a debt, I told myself. This was basic human courtesy. Acknowledging that someone had helped you was not the same as owing them anything. It was just manners.

I walked to the subway and spent the commute thinking about what to get him. The tie situation still bothered me – not because I’d given it to him, but because the circumstances had been so strange that it didn’t feel like a real gift. He’d essentially taken it. I wanted to give something deliberately, on my own terms.

A proper thank–you. Nothing excessive. Something that said *I noticed without saying anything else.

At lunch, I was still turning over options when my phone buzzed.

*Business dinner tonight. Don’t wait up.*

I read it twice.

It was a completely ordinary message. A courtesy heads–up, nothing more. But there was something slightly surreal about receiving it – the kind of message a person sends to someone who might otherwise expect them home. We weren’t that. We were two strangers sharing a legal arrangement and, apparently, a habit of notifying each other about our

schedules.

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