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

my head to the sky as I laughed for the first time in what felt

and stuck out her

“Adelaide!”

we heard the harsh sound of a

your lessons,

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

be mad at me,” she said

didn’t want her to have to go through that. I could see the

she gasped, the terror in her eyes

I told her. “I messed it up

Chapter 23

did it all.”

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

the mud, she smelled like strawberries- so sweet

the hedge wall and to her own.

high after that and the next time we saw each other, she didn’t recognize

I did. I could never forget her after that day.

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 and bruised, I

go away. I could even hear it

I got hurt and sang it to myself, the pain always stopped.

streaming into the

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

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

grabbed it quickly to

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

you,” the

Chapter 23

come to sign the contract

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

he

paying it any more mind. A huge

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

and innocent look on her

a soft kiss to the ends of it and drinking

how long I had loved her, how strongly

in my arms. She was finally mine. My

She grabbed onto

for the moment when I

until my sweet angel would

Only one week?

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

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

Lacey’s mumbled voice came through the phone, clearly still

Chapter 23