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.

Chapter 23

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.”

she finally shouted, her cheeks red with the

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

stuck out her tongue at

“Adelaide!”

heard the harsh sound of a

to your lessons,

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

at me,” she said

mad at me, I didn’t want her to have to go through that. I

she gasped, the terror in her eyes so

told her. “I messed

Chapter 23

did it all.”

in surprise, glancing down at her dress, and smiled brightly. “You

what to do. Beneath the mud, she smelled

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

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

I could never forget her

remembered her and even though she didn’t remember me, she was the only light I had in the house full of shadows. Every time my father’s lessons left me battered

hear it in her voice. It

was an angel to me because every time I got

streaming into the

the open bay window, the white curtains softly fluttering in the wind.

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

I grabbed it quickly to keep it from

voice to the phone, careful not to wake the sleeping woman in my bed. Adelaide was still asleep from the long, wonderful night we’d

would like to work with you,” the representative

Chapter 23

can come to sign the contract on

on this deal,” I

Jian,” he

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

dollar contract was mine. We wouldn’t need money from our families;

covered her, a soft and innocent look on her face. I was reminded of how young she truly was when she slept like this.

a soft kiss to the ends of it and drinking in the smell of her shampoo,

my feelings now, but she could never know how long I had

in my arms. She was finally

she shifted, her hands reaching out for me. She grabbed onto the nearest pillow,

couldn’t wait for the moment when I could put my mother’s ring

sweet angel

Only one

the wall and groaned.

number I knew could help me

through the

Chapter 23