Billionaire's Betrayal a contracted revenge (Aurelia) novel Chapter 138

16:50 Mon, Aug 31

Billionaire’s Betrayal, a contracted revenge

Chp 138: What His Silence Said.

Aurelia’s POV

They came apart the second they saw me.

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Selene came off him slowly, unhurried, like a cat stretching in the sun, and Rieck was on his feet before the couch had finished creaking, dragging his shirt off the floor.

I just stood there with my hand still on the door I’d opened, and I couldn’t make my body do anything at all.

Some far-off part of me was noting the details like evidence.

His belt. Her shoe on the floor. The lamp. As if remembering them might make them make sense.

“Aurelia.” One hand out, the way you reach for a scared animal. “This is not what it looks like.”

“Isn’t it?” My voice didn’t sound like mine.

“Listen to me. Look at me and listen.” He came around the desk. “She came here. She set this up. I… I didn’t touch her, I swear it, I would never…”

“You weren’t touching her?” A laugh tore out of me, ugly and wet. “I have eyes, Rieck. I’m not blind.”

“Aurelia, I…”

“Oh, let the poor girl breathe.” Selene’s voice interrupted from the couch. She hadn’t rushed to cover herself. She wanted me to see. “You always did want to save everyone, didn’t you? It’s exhausting to watch.”

“Shut up Selene.” Low. A warning.

But she ignored it.

She looked right at me, and she smiled.

“Do you want to know a secret, Ri?” My old name in her mouth. She wasn’t Charlotte, she had no right to it, but she used it anyway. “I carried his child once. Years ago. Before you were even a name to anyone.” Her hand drifted to her own flat stomach. “I lost it. Because of him. Because of what he did the night everything fell apart.”

At that moment I suddenly felt dizzy.

“Stop,” Rieck said. “That’s enough.”

“Enough?” Selene laughed, soft and delighted. “I’ve waited years to say it out loud. You don’t get to decide when it’s enough. Not anymore.”

“Selene…”

“And here is the best part.” She stood up now, slowly, gathering her dress against herself like a queen putting

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16:50 Mon, Aug 31

Billionaire’s Betrayal, a contracted revenge

35

55 Vouchers

on robes. “Hebvron came to me first. Long before you. The same offer. Marry his son, give the family an heir, take the money and the name.” Her eyes glittered. “I said no. I was smarter than that.” She tipped her head. “You said yes.”

I turned to my husband. The whole world narrowed to his face.

“Tell me she’s lying.” My voice cracked straight down the middle. “Rieck. Tell me it isn’t true. Any of it. Please.”

“One word,” I urged. “Give me one word and I’ll believe you over her. That’s all it takes. Just one.”

He opened his mouth. But nothing came out.

And his not saying anything said everything his mouth wouldn’t.

0200000000000

I don’t remember the drive.

I remember the door slamming, and the white leather and the black glass and how the whole beautiful penthouse suddenly looked like a hotel room I’d been living in by mistake.

I remember my knees going weak, and the cold floor, and the sound that came out of me that I didn’t recognize as human.

Everything came back at once. Dawson’s hands on Charlotte at the gala. The contract I’d signed with shaking fingers in the rain. Every promise Rieck had ever half-given me. Every locked door I’d told myself not to

knock on.

I’d done it again. I’d handed my whole heart to a cold man who kept another woman in his pocket, and I’d called it love, and I’d been so proud of myself for surviving Dawson that I never once looked up to see I’d walked straight into the same trap wearing a nicer dress.

Where was he now?

He was still there. Still with her.

My mind remembered it in colours I couldn’t stop. Her mouth, his hands, the sound she’d made, and I pressed my palms to my eyes until there were stars and it still wouldn’t stop.

I don’t know how long I was on that floor.

But it was long enough that the tears dried on their own.

Long enough to go cold.

He came home a little after two.

I was on the couch in the dark when I heard the elevator, and I didn’t turn on the light.

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16:50 Mon, Aug 31

Billionaire’s Betrayal, a contracted revenge

He found me anyway. He always found me.

“Aurelia.”

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“Was she lying?” I said to the window. “About the baby. About your father. Any of it. And please don’t hand me another locked door, Rieck. Not tonight. Tonight you open it or you lose me for good.”

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he sat, not close, and he started to talk, and the words came out of him like they were being pulled with a hook.

“There was a girl. A long time ago. Selene.” His jaw worked. “My father chose her. He does that. He decides who I am allowed to want and he arranges it, the way he arranges everything, and I was young enough to let him.” He took a deep breath. “There was a pregnancy. There was a night. There was a fall on a staircase, and it went wrong, and she lost it, and she has spent every year since making sure I never forget my part in it.” He looked at his hands. “My father built that whole thing. Same as he built ours.”

“And you didn’t think,” I said, shaking, “that I deserved to know I married a man with that in his past. That the woman haunting our marriage had a claim on you older than I am.”

“A claim.” He said it flatly. “She has no claim on me. She has a wound I gave her, and a knife she has sharpened on it for years. That’s not the same thing.”

“It looked the same from the doorway.”

“It was buried. I buried it.”

“You bury everything.” I stood up. “That’s all you do. You bury and you bury and you let me stand in the fallout wondering if I’m losing my mind.”

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