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.”

shouted, her cheeks red with the effort.

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

and stuck

“Adelaide!”

heard the harsh sound of a man screaming for

Get back to your lessons,

fell as she

at me,” she

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 on the ground and grabbed a handful before splattering it all

she gasped, the terror in her eyes so reminiscent of my own.

I told her. “I messed

Chapter 23

did it all.”

smiled brightly. “You are nice!”

do. Beneath the mud, she smelled like strawberries- so sweet and sugary.

hedge wall and to her own. house. I waved back at her, watching her go until she was out of my sight.

didn’t. The hedge wall was replaced with a metal fence twenty feet high after

did. I could never forget her after that

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

even hear it in her voice. It

time I got

bright, streaming into

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

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

I grabbed it quickly to keep it

careful not to wake the sleeping woman in my bed. Adelaide was still asleep from the long,

to work with you,”

Chapter 23

sign the

working with you on

he replied.

any more mind. A huge smile formed on my face as a deep feeling of satisfaction moved through

multi-million dollar contract was mine. We wouldn’t need

white sheets that covered her, a soft and innocent look on her face. I was reminded of how young she

to the ends of it

I had loved her, how strongly I had ached for her all

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

stirred, groaning as she shifted, her hands reaching out for me. She grabbed onto the nearest pillow, cuddling into

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

week until my sweet angel would be mine

Only one week?

at the calendar hanging on the wall and groaned. Neither of us had planned anything for

I knew could help me

voice came through the phone, clearly still

Chapter 23