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.”

Adelaide!” she finally shouted, her

the sky as I laughed for the first time in what felt like forever. My chest

mean!” she said and stuck out her tongue

“Adelaide!”

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

your

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

at

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

the terror in her eyes so reminiscent

I told her. “I messed it up anyway so tell

Chapter 23

did it all.”

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

the mud,

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

didn’t. The hedge wall was replaced with a metal fence twenty feet high after that and the next time we saw each other, she didn’t recognize

never forget

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 remember her kissing my cheek. and singing that

even hear it in her voice. It always made met smile.

time I got hurt and sang it to myself, the pain

was bright, streaming into the

open bay window, the white curtains softly

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

phone began to buzz on the nightstand. I grabbed it quickly to

woman in my bed. Adelaide was still asleep

to work with you,” the representative on the

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Zhou can come to sign

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

Jian,” he replied.

more mind. A huge smile formed on my face as a deep feeling of

had gotten everything I had wanted. The multi-million dollar contract was mine. We wouldn’t need money from our families; I’d made sure of

a soft and innocent look on her face. I

pressing a soft kiss to the ends of it and drinking in

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

her in my arms.

she shifted, her hands reaching out for me. She

moment when

my sweet angel

week? Only one

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

already calling the number I knew could help me out. She

Lacey’s mumbled voice came through

Chapter 23