Billionaire's Betrayal a contracted revenge (Aurelia) novel Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Rieck’s POV

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I sat across from Kowalski, staring at him swirling his scotch as he listened to me with the glazed eye of a man already reading someone else’s contract under the table. We were on the forty-second floor of a glass and steel building by the waterfront, and he was picking at a bread roll like it owed him money.

“It is a beautiful proposal, Mr. Valerius.”

“But?”

“But my board is cautious right now.”

I set down my knife.

“Kowalski. Say the word you came here to say.”

He dabbed his mouth.

“I need time.”

I smiled the smile I reserved for men I was about to let disappoint me.

“Take all the time you need.”

I stood up, buttoned my jacket, and walked away from a one point four billion contract without one second look, because my wife had just been called a hired help by a pregnant cheat in ivory satin across the ballroom, and I could still smell the lilies on the air.

I found Aurelia exactly where I had left her, with her lipstick fixed and her back straight.

“We are leaving,” I announced.

She did not argue.

Ronan drove.

The city blurred by in streaks of gold and neon, but I didn’t pay attention to any of it. Instead, I was staring at her reflection in the window. Small hands folded in her lap. Wedding band twisting, twisting, twisting.

She thought I was angry at her.

But I was angry at many things. At Kowalski, for wasting my evening. At my father, for being an hour late in my head already. At a rival Alpha who had put his scent this close to my wife in a mall.

Aurelia wasn’t on the list. But she didn’t know that.

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Chapter 11

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The moment we got home, I loosened my tie on the way to the bar and poured myself a generous amount of bourbon I did not plan to drink.

“Rieck,” her voice called out.

She was standing in the middle of the living room in her silk dress and bare feet, heels dangling from two fingers.

“I am sorry,” she whispered.

I turned to face her.

“For what?”

“For Charlotte. I shouldn’t have let her sit down. I shouldn’t have let her speak to me like that. I heard what she said about me and I let it sit in my mouth and you were right, I was being weak, and I am sorry.”

Her jaw was set in the exact line Hebvron’s jaw set when he was trying not to be read.

I stared at her for a long moment.

“Come here,” I said.

She crossed the room then stopped three feet away like the floor had a line on it.

“Closer.”

She took one hesitant step forward.

“I am not angry at you, little wife.”

Her shoulders suddenly dropped. She had been carrying the weight of my mood like a sack of stones and I had not bothered to set it down for her.

“Then what is it?” she said. “Is it the deal? Did it not go well? I am not a businesswoman, but I am not stupid. Tell me. Maybe I can help.”

I laughed.

“What does a weak girl know of construction contracts, Aurelia?”

Her face flickered. But then the boldness came back.

“Try me.”

Two words. The same two words she had thrown at me the night before the first time I had ever laid hands on

her.

I set the bourbon down and walked to my study. Then I pulled a file from the drawer and walked back, dropping it on the glass coffee table. The cover of the file, labeled Kowalski Holdings, landed with a slap.

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Chapter 11

“Read it.”

She sat on the edge of the couch and opened it like a girl opening a test.

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“Convince him,” I added. “That man walked away from the table tonight because he thinks my offer is weak and my board is weaker. You want to prove you are not weak? Find me the line in that contract that brings him back.”

She looked up.

“You are serious.”

“I don’t repeat myself.”

Her hand was already reaching for the first page when my phone buzzed with a message. “Hebvron is coming up in five minutes.”

I closed my eyes for one second.

“Take that into the bedroom,” I said. “My father is on his way. You don’t want to be in this room when he is in

it.”

She held the file close to her chest and left.

Hebvron came in the way he always came in. No knock. Silver-tipped cane first, Arnell two steps behind him, a cloud of cigar and old leather filling my penthouse like he owned the air.

He settled into my armchair without being asked.

“Son.”

“Father.”

“Sit.”

“I prefer to stand.”

He smiled, but it was not a nice smile. It never was.

“A month,” he said.

“And?”

“A month into a marriage and the girl is not showing.”

I didn’t answer.

He leaned the cane against his knee and laced his fingers.

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Chapter 11

“I will ask you a question, Rieck, and I would like a straight answer. Are you bedding your wife?”

“That is not your business.”

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“Everything about that girl is my business. I bought her. I put the ring on her hand. I put her in this building. I will be the grandfather of the heir that ends Dawson. So yes, it is my business whether you are doing your half of the work or pouting in a guest room like a boy.”

“I have done my part.”

His eyebrows went up. “Once?”

“I tried.”

“Son, an heir in twelve months or the Northern Faction goes to your cousin Mattias. Mattias, who cannot run a dinner party. Mattias, whose mother would sell me to Kaelen for a warm coat. You know this.”

“I know this.”

“Then bed her. Bed her tonight. Bed her tomorrow. Bed her on the kitchen floor if you have to. I did not raise a son who lets a contract starve because he is squeamish about a woman’s feelings.”

“You should go, Father.”

He heard it. The drop in temperature. The thing under my voice that was not my voice. His eyes flicked up to mine and I knew mine were glowing because his pupils pulled tight the way men’s pupils pull tight when they see what I am.

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