All Chapters of His Dirty Little Niece: (Uncle X, I want you): Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Xavier's POV"She went where?" I asked."Ellison Road, sir." Ray's voice came flat and professional through the phone. "With the boy. They were parked there for close to an hour, then he drove her back."I set my pen down slowly on the desk, the information settling in a way I didn't particularly enjoy, the image of Aurora in a car with some boy for an hour sitting behind my eyes like a splinter I couldn't reach."Was there any physical contact?""No sir. They kept a clean distance the entire time.""Keep watching her." I hung up and stood from my desk, moving to the window where the city stretched out below me, busy and completely unbothered by the fact that my eighteen year old niece was riding around Ellison Road with some boy while I sat here counting down to a wedding I didn't want.Six days.Six days and Diana would legally be my wife and the thought sat in my chest like a swallowed stone that I couldn't dislodge no matter how many times I reminded myself it was the right thing

Aurora's POV Xavier arrived in twenty minutes, which told me he had been closer than he let on, probably already on his way before I called, probably already uneasy before I gave him a reason to be, and when I opened the door he stepped inside and moved straight to the window without saying a word to me first, pulling the curtain back just enough to look at the street. "The black car," I said from behind him. "Three houses down." "I see it." He let the curtain fall and turned, his eyes doing that thing where they moved over me quickly and thoroughly like a scan, checking for damage before he allowed himself to relax even slightly. "Are you hurt?" "I am fine. I just felt someone watching me at school and then I saw the car and—" "You did the right thing calling me." He crossed to where I was standing and I hated how immediately my shoulders dropped when he was close, like my body had its own separate agreement with him that my pride hadn't been consulted on. "Pack a few things ton

Xavier's POV "The car is ready, Xavier." Steve appeared in the doorway of the dressing room, voice careful and even, the tone he used when he was delivering information and sitting on his opinion at the same time. I stood before the mirror in a charcoal suit I had no desire to be wearing, adjusting my cufflink with the focus of a man whose hands knew what to do while his mind was somewhere else entirely. "Ten minutes," I said. "The guests are already seated. Diana is—" "Ten minutes, Steve." He stepped back from the doorway and I put the cufflink down and picked up my phone for the fourth time in twenty minutes, Ray's number already dialing, going straight to voicemail the same way it had the three times before. Something shifted in my chest. Ray didn't miss calls. Two years, first or second ring, without exception, and four missed calls in a row meant something had already gone wrong before I knew to look for it. I called Aurora next. Straight to voicemail. I stood still fo

Aurora's POVThe moment I said those five words and held up that crumpled paper the hall went so quiet I could hear the candles.Diana's smile stayed up. Her eyes went somewhere else entirely."She is lying." She turned to the room, voice warm and reasonable. "This child has been trying to destroy my relationship with Xavier from the day we arrived. Ask anyone who has watched this play out, she has been obsessed and unstable and this—" she gestured at me, at my torn clothes, at my bleeding palms, "—this is a desperate teenager who ran out of options."Murmurs moved through the seats, some nodding, some skeptical, and I felt the room shifting the way rooms did when a confident woman decided what the narrative was going to be."Show us proof," a man three rows in said flatly.And there it was.The thing sitting cold and heavy in my chest since I woke up in that car."Her proof was taken," Steve said from the side of the room. "Her phone, her photographs, everything was confiscated by th

Xavier's POV Diana was sitting on the edge of the bed in the guest room when I walked in, still in the wedding dress, shoes off, the veil discarded on the floor beside her like something she had already decided was useless. She looked up when I entered. "I was wondering when you were coming," she said. "We need to talk about the baby." She exhaled slowly through her nose. "Xavier—" "Sit down, Diana. This will not take long." She was already sitting but she straightened slightly, and I pulled the chair from the corner of the room and sat across from her and looked at her the way I had been looking at her all day, clearly, without the interference of whatever I had been telling myself about her for the past year. "I am not marrying you right now," I said. Her jaw tightened. "We already established—" "I am not marrying you right now and I am not making any permanent decisions until that baby arrives and a paternity test confirms it is mine." I held her gaze. "Those are my terms