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.”

finally shouted, her cheeks red with the

as I laughed for the first time in what felt like forever. My chest felt light and warm, and she pouted, crossing her

said and stuck out her tongue at

“Adelaide!”

of a man screaming

Get back to your lessons, young lady!”

fell as she glanced at

be mad at me,” she said pitifully.

that. I could see the fear hidden in

her

her. “I messed it up anyway so

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did it all.”

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

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

her way back through the hedge wall

wall was replaced with a metal fence twenty feet high after that and the next time we saw each other,

did. I could never

light I had in the house full of shadows. Every time my father’s lessons left me battered and bruised, I remember her kissing my cheek. and singing that

pain, go away. I could even hear it in

every time I got hurt and sang

sunrise was bright, streaming into the

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

up in bed, my back against the headboard as I watched the sunrise, my hands brushing through her

phone began to buzz on the nightstand. I grabbed it quickly to keep it from making more noise.

low voice to the phone, careful not to wake the sleeping woman

you,” the representative on the phone

Chapter 23

Zhou can come to sign the contract on

look forward to working with you on this deal,” I said. “Zai Jian

Jian,” he replied.

paying it any more mind.

I had gotten everything I had wanted. The multi-million dollar contract was mine. We wouldn’t need money from our families; I’d made sure of

the white sheets that covered her, a soft and innocent look on her

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.

I had loved her,

hold her in my arms. She was finally mine. My wife.

out for me. She grabbed onto the nearest pillow, cuddling into

wait for the moment when I could put my

sweet angel

Only one

groaned. Neither of

number I knew could

through

Chapter 23