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

I laughed for the

said and stuck out

“Adelaide!”

as we heard the harsh sound of a man screaming

Get back to your lessons,

tone sounded very close to my father’s. Her face fell as she glanced at

at

have to go through that. I could see the fear hidden in her eyes. I

the terror in her

her. “I messed it up anyway so

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did it all.”

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

do. Beneath the mud,

back through the hedge wall and to her own. house. I waved back at her, watching

hedge wall was replaced with a metal fence twenty feet high after

did. I could never forget her after that day.

shadows. Every

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

because every time I got hurt and

bright, streaming into the room.

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

hands brushing through her hair in a soothing motion. It was so soft, and

the nightstand. I grabbed it

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

would like to work with you,”

Chapter 23

come to sign the

to working with you on this

Jian,” he

phone went dead, I tossed it onto the nightstand, not paying it any more mind. A

mine. We wouldn’t need

bare beneath the white sheets that covered her, a soft and innocent look on her face. I was

a soft kiss to the ends of it and

had loved her, how strongly I had

her in my

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

couldn’t wait for the moment when I could put

until my sweet angel would be mine

week? Only

wall and groaned. Neither of

calling the number I knew could

Lacey’s mumbled voice came through the

Chapter 23