Billionaire's Betrayal a contracted revenge (Aurelia) novel Chapter 117

Chapter 117

Chapter 117

Rieck’s POV

Selene was really back.

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Not just back in the city I thought I had paid her to leave forever, but standing inside my own company, drawing a paycheck from my own accounts, sitting across a table from my own wife like the two of them had known each other for years instead of weeks.

I sat behind my desk, jaw tight, quietly replaying every version of how this could have happened by accident.

But none of them made any sense at all.

A woman doesn’t just stumble back into the one city she was paid to avoid and land a senior position at the company owned by the man who paid her.

Someone had engineered this, and engineering something like this took planning I hadn’t caught a single trace of, not one warning sign before she was already standing behind a desk with my wife’s approval stamped across the hire, as though she had just appeared out of thin air.

I intended to find out who.

Just then my phone buzzed against the desk.

The tech guy, the one I paid well to stay quiet and thorough, the same man who had quietly wired a small recording device into Aurelia’s bag before she left for the hangout.

“Talk to me.”

“Got the audio from last night. The hangout.” There was a pause, papers shuffling somewhere on his end. “Sending it now.”

The file loaded, and I pressed play, leaning back in my chair, ready for whatever Aurelia might have said about our marriage to a stranger over cocktails, some part of me already ashamed of how badly I needed to

hear it.

“Better than people would expect,” her voice came through steady and warmer than I expected. “He is intense, difficult sometimes. Cold, when he wants to be. But underneath it, he is thoughtful. Loyal, in his own way.”

In that moment something loosened in my chest. An unfamiliar feeling spread through me at hearing her defend me to someone who had no reason to hear it.

Then Selene’s voice, quieter. “He must have changed.”

Aurelia’s voice followed. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing. I’m thinking too much.” There was a laugh, thin and unconvincing. “To girls’ night.”

The recording clicked off there and the file suddenly ended.

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Chapter 117

I sat with the silence for a long moment, my jaw working.

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Selene had always known exactly how much to say and exactly when to stop saying it, a skill she had clearly not lost in the years since I last saw her.

After about an hour, the office door opened without a knock.

Selene stepped inside, folder tucked under one arm, with the same confidence she always carried. “I need your input on the marketing budget. Aurelia said you handle final approval.”

“Sit.”

She sat, crossing one leg over the other, studying me with an expression I remembered too well from another lifetime, one I had spent considerable money and even more effort trying to leave behind me entirely.

“You look tense, Rieck. Very tense.”

“I wonder why.”

“Is it so strange, seeing an old friend again?” She set the folder down, unopened, clearly more interested in the conversation than the paperwork she claimed to need approved. “I would have thought you might be happy.”

“Happy is not the word I would choose. Cautious, maybe. Curious, certainly.”

“Cautious.” Selene laughed softly, shaking her head. “You were always cautious, even when we were young. It used to drive me a little insane, honestly.”

“Hmm.”

Selene’s mouth curved into a small smile. “I left because I thought you would become a better man someday. Away from your father’s shadow. Away from all of it. I told myself leaving might actually help you.”

“I have always been a better man.” My voice came out low. “Just never for the wrong woman.”

Hurt flickered across her face. “That is unkind. Rieck.”

“It’s honest.” I held her gaze, unflinching, refusing to soften it for her comfort. “You wanted a version of me that didn’t exist yet, back then. I’m not sure he exists now either, but if he does, he didn’t build himself for you. He built himself for someone entirely different.”

“Rieck, you…”

“Why are you really here, Selene?”

“I needed a job.” She shrugged, too casual, too rehearsed. “I found one. That’s the whole story. Not everything has to be a conspiracy.”

“Don’t play dumb with me.” I leaned forward, my voice dropping into something closer to a growl than I intended. “You don’t just wander back into the one city you were paid to stay away from. Why are you here?”

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Chapter 117

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Just then the door opened again.

Aurelia stepped inside, glancing between us, some flicker of worry crossing her face at whatever tension was in the room. “Is everything alright?”

“Everything is fine.” Selene rose smoothly, gathering her folder, her composure sliding back into place. “I was just taking my leave.”

She slipped past Aurelia without another word, leaving the office colder than she found it, the door clicking

shut behind her.

Aurelia stared at her go, then turned back to me, studying my face with the attention she always gave me when something was clearly wrong, her eyes narrowing slightly at whatever remained of the tension still hanging in the air. “What was that about?”

“Marketing budget. Nothing important.”

She didn’t look convinced, but she let it go, the way she had been letting too many things go lately.

I said nothing that evening, sitting at the dinner table with my thoughts circling back to a version of the past I had spent years trying to bury deep enough that no one would ever have to dig it back up.

Things had not ended well between us. A relationship that soured fast, secrets on both sides, a wolf’s temper meeting a woman who knew exactly how to provoke it until it broke something neither of us could fully

repair.

I had paid her family to relocate quietly, paid Selene herself to disappear from this city entirely, very sure that the money would be enough to keep the past exactly where it belonged.

But now she was back, standing inside my own company, sitting across from my own wife, sharing secrets. over cocktails I had no access to.

“Rieck.” Aurelia studied me across the table, looking worried, her fork resting untouched against her plate. “You have barely said a word all evening. What is wrong?”

“Nothing.”

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