Marry Ex's Billionaire Uncle After Divorce (Aurora and Jasper) novel Chapter 98

Chapter 66: Lucky–1

Chapter 66: Lucky–1

(Aurora’s POV)

Saturday came.

Leo was the calmest person in the building.

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He was already dressed in his hospital gown when we arrived. He looked at Martha, who was gripping her handbag with both hands and hadn’t stopped moving since six in the morning, and then he looked at me.

“You two need to relax,” he said.

“Don’t tell me to relax,” Martha said.

“I’m fine. I feel good.” He glanced toward the double doors at the end of the corridor. “I’m going to walk out of there and eat an enormous burger and go back to school, and everything is going to be completely normal.”

“Leo – ”

“I promise.” He looked at me. “I promise, Aurora.”

The orderlies came for him at ten o’clock. He waved at us over his shoulder as they wheeled him through the doors, completely unbothered, like he was heading somewhere ordinary.

The doors swung shut.

Martha lasted about forty minutes before she started pacing. By noon she couldn’t sit still at all. She stood up, sat down, stood up again, and somewhere in the middle of the third hour

she turned on me.

“This is your fault,” she said. “All of it. If you hadn’t been so stubborn, if you had just swallowed your pride and gone to Sienna when I told you to, this would have been over weeks ago.”

I didn’t answer.

“He’s all I have.” Her voice broke. “He’s my only child. If something happens to him –

I looked at the closed doors and stayed quiet.

At two in the afternoon, the doors opened.

Martha and I were both on our feet before the surgeon had fully stepped through. We

Chapter 66: Lucky–1

reached him at the same time.

Dr. Mercer pulled down his mask. He was exhausted. He was smiling.

“It went perfectly,” he said. “He’s going to wake up once the anesthesia clears. Everything looks excellent.”

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Martha made a sound I had never heard from her before and covered her mouth with both

hands.

I stood in the middle of the corridor, tears running down my face, and thought about Leo’s eighteenth birthday. Next year, I was finally going to be able to celebrate it properly.

(Author’s POV)

Leo’s eyes opened slowly, blinking against the light.

Martha was at his side before he could say a word, both hands wrapped around his, leaning so close she was practically hovering over him.

“Leo? Leo, can you hear me? How do you feel? Does anything hurt? Your chest – is your chest tight? What about your arm where the IV is, does that – ”

“Mom.” Aurora touched her shoulder gently. “Give him a second. He just came out of

anesthesia.”

Martha turned and shot her a look. “I’m just asking. I’m his mother. I’m allowed to ask.”

“You’re allowed to let him breathe first.”

Martha opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked back at Leo.

Leo turned his head toward Aurora. He looked exhausted, pale, and slightly dazed, but his eyes were clear. He gave a small, slow shake of his head.

“Don’t,” he said, his voice hoarse but steady. “Don’t say anything to Aurora.”

Martha blinked. Something shifted in her expression – surprise, then a flash of something harder to name. She looked at the two of them, Leo’s eyes meeting Aurora’s with the easy quiet of two people who had been through something together, and she pressed her lips into

a thin line.

Leo managed a weak smile. He looked at Martha first.

“Thank you for staying,” he said.

Then he looked at Aurora.

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Chapter 66: Lucky–1

“And you.” His voice dropped. “You didn’t sleep in that chair for nothing. I’m going to be around to celebrate your birthday next year. I promise.”

Claim

Aurora laughed, which was the only thing she could do, because the alternative was crying in the middle of the recovery ward.

Martha’s eyes went red at the corners. She looked down at Leo’s hand in hers and said quietly, almost to herself, “I feel like we can finally breathe again.”

No one argued with that.

While Martha settled into her usual chair and started talking – about the hospital food, about the nurses, about the parking situation – Aurora slipped out into the corridor with a bouquet of flowers she’d picked up from the gift shop downstairs.

She found Dr. Mercer at the nurses‘ station. He looked tired but satisfied, the way he always did after a long surgery that had gone right.

“The flowers are unnecessary,” he said, but he took them.

“The surgery went perfectly,” she said. “I know you told me that already. I just needed to say thank you again in person.”

He smiled. “Leo’s numbers are strong. We’ll run the standard post–transplant panels over the next few days. If everything holds, he should be ready to go home in three to five days.”

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