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

and I burst into laughter, raising my head to the sky as I laughed for the first time in what felt like forever.

stuck out her tongue

“Adelaide!”

sound of a man screaming

back to your lessons, young lady!”

my father’s. Her face fell as she glanced at

at me,”

moment, I sympathized with her. I knew what it was 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

gasped, the terror in her eyes so reminiscent

her.

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did it all.”

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

stiffened immediately, unsure what to do. Beneath the mud, she

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

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

could never forget her after that day.

she was the only light I had in the house full of shadows. Every time my father’s lessons left me battered and bruised, I

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

I got hurt and sang it

was bright, streaming into

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

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

buzz on the nightstand. I grabbed it

wake the sleeping woman in my bed. Adelaide was still asleep from the long, wonderful night we’d

with you,” the representative

Chapter 23

to sign the

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

Jian,” he

nightstand, not paying it any more mind. A huge smile formed on my face as a

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

glanced down at her, bare beneath the white sheets that covered her, a soft and innocent look on her

hair, pressing a soft kiss to the ends of it and drinking in the smell

she could never know how long I had loved her, how

could finally hold her in my arms. She was

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

moment when I could put my mother’s ring on her finger-to bind

my sweet angel would be

Only one week?

groaned. Neither of us had planned anything for

phone, already calling the number I knew could help me out. She owed me a favor anyway.

voice came through the phone, clearly

Chapter 23