Secret Billionaire’s Contract Bride: Marrying My Enemy’s Lover

Chapter 23

POV: *Damon*

I’d first met Adelaide when I was six. And since that day, I threw myself

into her trap.

I’d run out of another one of my father’s lessons, hiding in the gardens between our houses. She’d crawled into a hole between the massive shrubs, ending up on our side of the spacious gardens.

She had wide, pretty eyes and long silky hair pulled into a single braid. Even covered in mud with twigs sticking in her hair, I remember I thought she was cute. She bent down to my eye level as I sat curled up with my back to one of the shrubs.

“Why are you crying?” she asked, so innocently.

I glared at her, my eyes perfectly dry.

“Leave me alone,” I spat.

“How rude,” her red cheeks puffed up with air as she placed her hands on her hips. “I’m only trying to help. That’s not very nice.”

“So?” I looked away, sulking. I didn’t want her help.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, her face crumbling up as if she was in pain. I was startled at the time to see tiny diamond-like tears fill the corners of her eyes. Was she crying for me?

She reached up one of her hands to touch my bruised and battered cheek, and I flinched away on impulse.

“I’m sorry,” she said, mournfully.

I stared at her, confused and wary of the strange girl who had appeared out of nowhere. Her eyes lit up all of a sudden, and she grinned. Her grin alone was enough to make me feel at ease with her.

“I know! My mama used to do this to me when I got hurt,” she told me, proudly before leaning forward and placing a tender kiss on my cheek.

“Pain, pain, go away!” she recited, throwing her hands into the air like it was a magic spell.

I grabbed the cheek she had kissed, stunned to my core as I stared at her.

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My cheeks began to warm-growing hotter and hotter.

“What’s your name?” I demanded, scrubbing her kiss off my check in my embarrassment. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She beamed, seemingly not caring about my threat. Even then she had the most beautiful smile.

“My name’s Addeway,” she said, her tongue slipping at the end. She frowned, repeating the word, but she was missing her two front teeth and she kept whistling out the end of her name.

She looked adorable, all frustrated as she kept trying to say her name and failing.

“Okay. Addeway,” I raised an eyebrow at her, trying hard not to smile.

“No, Adellay!”

“Sure thing, Addellay.”

her cheeks red with the effort.

laughed for the first time in what felt like forever. My chest felt light and warm, and

and stuck out her tongue at

“Adelaide!”

of a man screaming for

Get back to your lessons,

man’s tone sounded very close to my father’s. Her face fell as she glanced at her dress and shoes all covered in mud.

be mad at me,” she

like when my father was mad at me, I didn’t want her to have to go through that. I could see the fear hidden in her eyes. I glanced at the mud

the terror in her eyes so

I told her. “I messed it up anyway so tell him I

Chapter 23

did it all.”

glancing down at her dress, and smiled brightly. “You are nice!” she cried, jumping forward to hug

stiffened immediately, unsure what to do. Beneath the mud, she smelled like strawberries- so sweet

again!” Adelaide grinned at me, waving to me as she made her way back through the hedge wall and to her own. house. I waved back at her, watching her go until she was out of my

twenty feet high after that

did. I could never

full of shadows. Every time my father’s lessons left me battered and bruised, I remember

even hear it in her voice. It

to me because every time I got

streaming into the room.

chill of the morning breeze blew through the open bay window,

watched the sunrise, my hands brushing through her hair in a soothing motion. It was so soft, and I loved waking up next to

phone began to buzz on the nightstand. I grabbed it quickly to keep

wake the sleeping woman in

to work with you,” the representative on the

Chapter 23

to sign the contract on

look forward to working with you on

he replied.

it onto the nightstand, not paying it any more mind. A huge

multi-million dollar contract was mine. We wouldn’t need money from our families; I’d made

at her, bare beneath the white sheets that covered her, a soft and innocent look on her face. I was

as I grabbed a lock of her long hair, pressing a soft kiss to the ends of it and drinking in the smell of her shampoo, it still smelled. like strawberries.

know how long I had loved her, how strongly I had ached

could finally hold her in my arms. She was finally mine.

me. She grabbed

on her finger-her engagement ring. I couldn’t wait for the moment when I could put my mother’s ring on her

my sweet angel would

Only one week?

on the wall and groaned. Neither of us had

for my phone, already calling the number I knew could help me out. She owed

through the phone,

Chapter 23