Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 87

Chapter 59: Sienna’s Calculation

Chapter 59: Sienna’s Calculation

(Author’s POV)

The last conversation with Jasper had ended badly, and she knew it.

Sienna sat at her vanity, running a brush through her hair with slow, mechanical strokes, replaying it all. She’d pushed too hard.

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Said too much. She could see that now. But regret wasn’t the dominant feeling – it was something closer to calculation. She’d invested years in Jasper. Not just time, but strategy. Every carefully placed look, every moment of manufactured vulnerability, every conversation engineered to remind him that she understood him in ways Aurora never could.

She wasn’t letting go of that. Not now. Not when Aurora had finally done the sensible thing and filed for divorce.

That was actually useful. Sienna set the brush down and studied her own reflection. The divorce proceedings meant Jasper was under pressure – financial, reputational, emotional. Men under pressure needed anchoring. They needed someone calm and steady and present.

She just had to be there when the smoke cleared.

She arrived at manor mid–afternoon, wearing a soft camel–colored coat and carrying a small arrangement of white roses. Victoria opened the door herself and looked at her with the particular expression she’d been wearing for months now – not hostile, exactly, but cool. Measured. Like she was deciding something she hadn’t yet decided.

“Sienna,” she said, and stepped back to let her in.

Before Sienna could say anything, there was a small thundering of feet on the stairs, and Rosalind launched herself from the third step directly into Sienna’s arms.

“You came!” Rosalind pressed her face into Sienna’s neck. “I told Grandma you’d come.”

Sienna held her and felt the calculation in her own chest soften, just slightly. The child was genuinely warm. Whatever else was true, Rosalind’s affection wasn’t performance.

“Of course I came,” Sienna said, and kissed the top of her head.

Victoria watched this with something complicated in her expression. She didn’t comment.

They had barely settled in the sitting room when the front door opened and Jasper walked in. Sienna looked up, and the first thing she noticed was the color of his face- or the lack of it. He was pale in a way that went beyond tired. There were shadows under his eyes, and he

< Chapter 59: Sienna’s Calculation

moved with a careful, deliberate quality, like someone managing pain.

Victoria was on her feet immediately.

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“Jasper.” She crossed to him and put her hand on his arm. “You look terrible. Have you been sleeping?”

“I’m fine.” He said it automatically, the way people did when they weren’t.

“You are not fine.” Victoria’s voice shifted into something sharper. “You haven’t been fine since the accident, and you keep refusing to-”

“What accident?” Sienna asked.

The words came out before she could stop them. Both Victoria and Jasper looked at her, and she felt the floor shift slightly under the conversation.

“The car accident,” Victoria said, with a tone that implied this should have been obvious. “Three days ago. He was in the hospital for two days.”

Sienna stared at Jasper.

He didn’t meet her eyes.

She had not known. She hadn’t heard a single word about it – not from him, not from anyone. He’d been in a hospital for two days and hadn’t called her, hadn’t told her, hadn’t reached out

in any way.

“I didn’t know,” she said, quietly.

“Of course you didn’t,” Victoria said, settling back into her chair with barely contained bitterness. “He doesn’t tell anyone anything. He just suffers quietly and lets that woman make his life impossible.” She pressed her lips together.

“First the miscarriage, now this. Aurora has caused nothing but grief for this family. She couldn’t even keep a pregnancy, and now she’s filing for divorce and trying to take half of everything. She failed as a wife and she wants to be rewarded for it.”

Sienna watched Jasper’s face as his mother spoke. Something moved through it – a flicker, quick and then gone. His jaw tightened.

“Mom,” he said. “Drop it.”

“I will not drop it. She’s threatening you with recordings, Jasper. She’s holding your reputation hostage-”

“I said drop it.” His voice came out flat and exhausted. He waved a hand, the gesture

Chapter 59: Sienna’s Calculation

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dismissive and final. “She has a recording, she has photos, and she’s made it very clear what she’ll do with them. I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

He turned and walked toward the stairs.

Sienna spent another ten minutes with Victoria, saying the right things in the right tone – calm, sympathetic, gently redirecting. Then she excused herself and went upstairs.

The study door was ajar. She pushed it open.

Jasper was sitting by the window, forearms on his knees, staring at nothing. He looked up when she came in but didn’t say anything.

Sienna closed the door behind her and sat down across from him.

She looked at him – really looked at him – and felt a familiar ache. He was exhausted and cornered and too proud to admit either. She’d seen him like this before. She knew how to

handle it.

But first she let him talk.

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