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.

Chapter 23

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.”

shouted, her

the

stuck

“Adelaide!”

the harsh sound of a man

your lessons,

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

at me,” she

her to have to go through that. I could see the fear hidden in her eyes. I glanced at the mud on the ground and grabbed

gasped, the terror in her eyes so reminiscent

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

Chapter 23

did it all.”

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

the mud, she smelled like

again!” Adelaide grinned at me, waving to me as she made her way back through the hedge wall and to her own.

replaced with a metal fence twenty feet high after that and the next time we saw each other, she didn’t

never forget

only light I had in the house full of shadows. Every time my father’s lessons left me

away. I could even hear it in her voice. It

angel to me because every time I got hurt and sang it to myself, the pain always stopped.

streaming into

breeze blew through the open bay window, the white curtains softly fluttering in

against the headboard as I watched the sunrise, my hands brushing through her hair in a soothing motion. It was

grabbed it quickly to keep it

woman in my bed. Adelaide was

work with you,” the representative on the phone

Chapter 23

to sign the contract on Monday.”

forward to working with you on

Jian,” he

onto the nightstand, not paying it any more mind. A huge smile formed on my face as a deep feeling of satisfaction moved through me.

everything I had wanted. The multi-million dollar contract was mine. We wouldn’t need money from our

sheets that covered her, a soft and innocent look on her face. I

kiss to the ends

I had loved her, how strongly I

in my arms.

shifted, her hands reaching out for me. She grabbed onto the nearest pillow, cuddling into it with

wait for the moment when I could put

week until my sweet angel would be mine officially.

Only one

calendar hanging on the wall and groaned. Neither of us

number I knew could help

mumbled voice came through the phone, clearly still hungover.

Chapter 23