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

myself, and I burst into laughter, raising my head to the sky as I laughed for the first time

and stuck out her

“Adelaide!”

we heard the harsh sound of a man screaming for her over

to your lessons,

close to my father’s. Her face fell as she glanced at her dress and shoes

at me,” she

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 glanced at the mud on the ground

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

told her. “I messed it up anyway

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did it all.”

and smiled brightly. “You are nice!” she cried, jumping forward to

the mud, she smelled like

I’ll come to play 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 replaced with a metal fence twenty feet high after that

could never forget her after that

she was the only light I had in the house full of shadows. Every

could even hear it in her voice.

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

sunrise was bright, streaming

open bay window, the white

my hands brushing through her hair in a soothing motion. It

grabbed

the phone, careful not to wake the sleeping woman in my

to work with you,” the representative on

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come to sign

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

Jian,” he

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

was mine. We wouldn’t need money from

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

as I grabbed a lock of her long hair, pressing a soft kiss to the ends

could never know how long I had loved her, how strongly I had ached for her all these

her in my arms. She was finally mine. My

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

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

a week until my sweet

week? Only one

the calendar hanging on the wall and groaned.

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

mumbled voice came through the phone, clearly still hungover.

Chapter 23