Billionaire's Betrayal a contracted revenge (Aurelia) novel Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Aurelia’s POV

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His side of the bed was cold when I woke up with the sheets neatly tucked in like no one had ever slept there.

When I tried to sit up, I winced. There was a dull pain in my belly and my thighs were sore. My hip had a small purple bruise in the shape of a thumb.

For a moment, I thought about the night. His mouth on my throat. His hand pinning my wrist above my head. The moment I reached for his jaw and he caught my fingers, then laced them through his own, and pressed them into the pillow.

And after, when I rolled towards him and tried to touch his shoulder for comfort, he had shrugged me off like something spilled on his sleeve.

I pushed the thoughts away and walked over to the marble vanity in his discarded black shirt. The small white bottle sat where I had left it, and I shook two pills into my palm.

“Please,” I whispered to myself, swallowing them dry. “Let this one be different. Let me get pregnant and end this the way Hebvron promised.”

“Do you always have to take those?”

I turned so fast I nearly dropped the bottle.

Rieck was seated in the armchair in the far corner, the one facing the glass. Fully dressed. Watching. I had walked past him and not seen him.

His expression was as cold as steel.

“Rieck.” My hand flew to my chest. “I didn’t see you there.”

“I noticed.”

I closed my fist around the bottle. “They are just vitamins.”

“Vitamins.” He said the word like he was tasting it for poison.

Suddenly he stood up.

That was all. He just stood, and the air thickened. The temperature dropped a degree that had nothing to do with the window. He crossed the floor in slow steps, and I felt my back press against the cold marble of the vanity before I could move.

He stopped in front of me. Close enough that I could smell him now.

“Is there something you want to tell me, little wife?” he asked, his voice sending a shiver down my spine.

My throat immediately went dry.

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Chapter 10

Does he know?

“Like what?” I said.

His eyes moved across my face the way a man reads a contract for loopholes.

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“I don’t know,” he said softly. “Perhaps you heard some whispers at the mall yesterday. Something you forgot

to share.”

My heart skipped a beat.

Kaelen.

The memory hit sharp and fast-but I buried it.

Then I thought of the promise I had made to him.

“I heard nothing,” I lied.

His jaw ticked.

For a long moment he didn’t move, and I felt every lie I had ever told rise up

Then he stepped back.

“Be ready by six. Company dinner. Wear something dark.”

With that, he turned and walked out.

in

my

throat.

Rieck hadn’t said a word since I came down the elevator in black silk.

He just stared at the city passing by, his profile sharp under the streetlights. Ronan drove in silence, and I nervously twisted the lock of my clutch.

“Will Dawson be there?” I suddenly asked.

“Yes.”

“And Charlotte?”

“Probably.”

I nodded, staring at my hands.

“Aurelia.”

I looked up and his eyes caught mine.

“No drama tonight,” he said. “You are Mrs. Valerius. Act like it.”

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Chapter 10

“I will.”

Then he turned back to the window.

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I stared at his hand on his thigh. Long fingers. The same hand that had laced through mine last night.

You touched me like I was precious, and then you treated me like I was trash. Which one is real, Rieck?

The hall was decorated in gold and black, with chandeliers hanging overhead and white-gloved waiters serving guests. A string quartet played in a corner, adding to the elegant atmosphere.

Rieck walked me in with his hand resting on the small of my back. All eyes were on us as we entered, and a photographer captured the moment. I even overheard a woman whisper, “That must be her.”

He pulled out my chair at a round table near the front and whispered, “Stay. Ten minutes.”

Then he squeezed my shoulder for a second and was gone.

I sipped water and tried to look like a woman who belonged in a dress this expensive.

But somehow my thoughts drifted where I did not want them to. His body on me. The catch of his breath when I said his name. The rough scrape of his stubble against the inside of my thigh. He had been rough. He had also been, in the quietest moments, unbearably… sweet.

“Oh my god. Ri?”

I froze.

Charlotte slid into the chair beside me in a cloud of sickly lilies. Her blonde hair was elegantly styled, and her ivory satin dress hugged her growing bump. Her smile was sweet yet sharp.

“Sweetie.” She put her hand over mine on the table. “Look at you. Honey, this is such a big room for you.”

I pulled my hand out from under hers.

“Charlotte.”

“Dawson is here, you know.” She leaned in like we were girls again. “He says you are looking tired lately. Is the new husband working you that hard?” She giggled. “Or is that what he is paying you for?”

My cheeks burned.

“Charlotte, don’t.”

“No, no, I am happy for you.” Her eyes glittered. “Really. Not every girl gets to graduate from wife to hired help in the same family. You Valerius women are so… resourceful.”

My hand curled into a fist under the table. I opened my mouth, ready to tear her apart.

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Chapter 10

:

But then I heard him in my head. “No drama. No scenes.”

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So I swallowed all of it, lowered my eyes to my water glass, and whispered calmly, “Enjoy your evening, Charlotte.”

She chuckled mockingly, “Oh, Ri. Still soft. Still a little doormat, even in silk.”

“I should have your tongue for such disrespectful words.”

The voice came from behind me. Deep and quiet and cold.

Charlotte’s face went grey under her makeup. Her hand flew to her belly.

“Mr. Valerius. I… I was just”

“Leave.”

She left. She didn’t walk. She ran.

Then a large warm hand closed around my elbow.

“Come with me.”

He led me through a side door into a service corridor, then into a small quiet lobby with two leather chairs, one lamp, and no one else.

When he let go of me, he turned and his eyes… were glowing.

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