ACCIDENTALLY MARRIED TO THE BILLIONAIRE SINGLE DAD (Gabrielle and Damon) novel Chapter 183

DAMON’S POV

FLASHBACK

The morning I signed the last of the divorce papers, I felt nothing.

Cassie wept across the table from me.

Her mascara had tracked two perfect lines down her face and her lawyer kept sliding boxes of tissues toward her.

Mine kept sliding documents toward me.

I signed each one without hesitation.

Cassie looked up at me between pages, her eyes red and swollen, and said, “Please. Damon. Please look at me.”

I looked at her but I knew it wouldn’t help.

There was nothing in my expression worth finding except hate—for myself.

I hated myself for sitting there and looking into my now ex-wife’s eyes as she cried without even feeling the slightest bit of guilt.

Anger blazed in her eyes. “You’re a cold-hearted monster, Damon. I hate you.”

She wasn’t wrong.

I was a heartless monster who strangled his own father with his bare hands. Maybe loosing the ability to feel was my punishment for that.

I would hate me too.

Her eyes instantly softened. “But I love you. I know we discussed this at the beginning, but I trusted that things could change. Let’s try again.”

If only she knew she wasn’t the problem.

I had to let her go so she could find her happiness, because I knew she wouldn’t find it with me.

I wasn’t capable of giving anyone the love they deserved.

And after my fifth failed marriage, I had given up hope of getting married again.

Cassie would be the last.

“You’re a machine,” she said finally, when I didn’t respond.

I didn’t argue.

I signed a million dollar cheque and passed it to her through my lawyer. Then I had my driver take her to the house I had bought in her name.

For what I lacked emotionally, I made up for it in financial generosity.

By nine o’clock I was at Noir with a model whose name I had already forgotten draped across my arm.

I felt dead inside and I was already thinking about leaving before we’d even arrived.

I was on my way to the VVIP lounge when it happened.

Her.

I stopped walking, and the model said something but I didn’t hear it.

She was at the bar, and she was a mess— her red lipstick smudged, her face tear-stained, and her wedding dress torn as she took shot after shot.

That was the first thing I registered.

Because I knew what she looked like put together.

I had memorized it two years ago, without meaning or wanting to.

❧

It was Tuesday morning in the lobby of one of my companies when she’d collided with my chest and grabbed fistfuls of my shirt to keep from falling.

Her eyes had been squeezed shut—terrified, almost, the way people get when they’re braced for impact—and I’d caught her without thinking.

Then I stood there like an idiot while my heart did something I had never once felt it do in fifteen years.

It jolted.

Like a cable pulled taut.

I noticed her rose-red lipstick first, then the small divot above her upper lip, and her lashes against her cheek.

I noticed she was holding her breath as she stared at the scattered files on the floor.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, moving from my hold and bending to pick them up.

I walked away before she could even look at me.

I didn’t know why.

I only knew I went through the nearest door and put my back against it, while my heart knocked around in my chest.

Me.

Damon Gravari.

Hiding behind a door in his own company building because of some strange woman.

I watched through the gap as she turned around, searching for the person she had bumped into.

Her eyes swept the lobby—and God, her eyes were brown and wide, a little too big but in a way that made perfect sense.

She was… breathtaking.

She didn’t find me though.

I didn’t let her.

And after she left the building, I asked for her internship application to be sent directly to my office.

I got it and against work ethics, I took her contact information and saved it as: Red Lips.

Then I called her.

She picked up on the second ring. “Gabrielle speaking. Who is this?”

My breath caught in my throat, and my heart jolted painfully again.

I ended the call immediately and sent a message to my staff so they could transfer her to another branch instead.

Then dialed my doctor’s number from the car and told him I was coming in because something was severely wrong with my heart.

He ran every test he could and told me that I was in perfect condition.

I knew he was wrong.

Because my heart had never done what it did with her before.

I left the country a few days later and went to the Middle East where I married Malika to close an oil business deal.

“Oh, Damon,” she cried.

I stood up and pulled her into a hug.

“I love you too,” she whispered against my chest, her tears soaking through my shirt.

I held her in my arms until I felt her body relax completely—until she stopped sobbing.

Then I pulled back to look into her eyes, wiping her tears away with my thumb. “Can’t have a wedding without a proposal, can we?”

She laughed softly. “No. Speaking of weddings, fuck waiting. Let’s get married as soon as we move to Italy.”

“I agree,” I said, my arms moving lower. “I can’t wait to see you walking down the aisle in a wedding dress. You’ll be the most beautiful bride.”

I could almost picture it—her arms linked with her father as she walked to me, a smile on her face and her eyes shining like precious jewels.

Her face turned a faint red, almost matching her lipstick.

I lifted one of my hands and traced her bottom lip with my thumb. “My delicate flower.”

I kissed her before she could respond, my hand moving to her waist as I held her close.

Then I broke the kiss and gently pressed her head to my chest, just wanting to hold her under the moonlight.

But my wife had other plans.

I felt her hands undoing my zipper, and before I could even decide on how to react, her soft hand wrapped around my cock.

“Gabrielle—”

“It’s mine, remember?” she cut me off, her hands moving slowly over my length. “I want you, husband.”

That was it.

My restraint broke.

We stripped out of our clothes and fell onto the floor thickly covered in petals, our hands all over each other.

I intertwined one of my hands with hers and placed it above her head as I thrust into her warmth.

“Oh my god, Damon,” she moaned.

I fucked her for as long as she’d let me, neither of us willing to let the other go.

I pulled away to look at her as she writhed under me, her lips matching the roses beneath us as she moaned my name.

Worth it.

All my sufferings—everything that led to this moment was worth it.

My pace increased.

She came but she still wasn’t satisfied.

And neither was I.

Being with and inside Gabrielle felt like bliss, warmth, home, and I didn’t want to leave for one fucking moment.

I switched positions and put her on top, my hand caressing her belly while she rode me.

I loved her already, and knowing she was carrying my child made me want to worship her in every way I knew how—and then some.

And I intended to spend the rest of my life doing exactly that.