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.”

her cheeks

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

“Adelaide!”

sound of a man screaming for her over the

to your

Her face fell as she glanced

gonna be mad at me,” she said pitifully.

moment, I sympathized with her. I knew what 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

in her eyes so

that I did it,” I told her. “I messed it up anyway so tell him

Chapter 23

did it all.”

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

stiffened immediately, unsure what to do. Beneath the mud, she smelled like strawberries- so

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

high after that and the next time

did. I could never forget her after

remember me, she was the only light I had in the house full of shadows. Every time my father’s lessons left

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

I got hurt and sang it to myself,

was bright, streaming into the room.

the open bay

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

nightstand. I grabbed

woman in my bed. Adelaide was still

you,” the representative

Chapter 23

can come to sign the contract on

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

he replied.

more mind. A huge smile formed on my

I had wanted. The multi-million dollar contract was mine. We

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

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

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

my arms.

she shifted, her hands reaching out for me. She

the moment when I could put my mother’s ring on her

until my sweet angel would be

Only one

the wall and groaned. Neither of us had

knew could help me

came through the phone,

Chapter 23