Billionaire's Betrayal a contracted revenge (Aurelia) novel Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Aurelia’s POV

“What. Did he. Say.”

:

The bedroom was so cold I could see my own breath ghost in front of my face.

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I twisted the band on my finger and tried to make my mouth work. Rieck was sitting on the edge of the mattress, not touching me, and somehow that was worse than if he had. His eyes were pale. Not blue anymore. The kind of pale that lives at the bottom of a frozen lake.

“Why are you asking me this now?” My voice came out smaller than I wanted.

“Answer the damn question.”

“Rieck.”

“Loyalty is the floor of this contract, Aurelia. Not the ceiling. The floor.” He spoke very quietly. And that was new. Quiet Rieck was a worse Rieck than loud Rieck. “If you have been keeping things from me, I need to know. Right now.”

“It was nothing.”

“What was nothing?”

I swallowed and the wedding band turned again under my thumb.

“He… Kaelen… he was at the boutique. Just for a minute. He said something stupid. He was joking.”

“Joking?”

“About taking your territory. He laughed. He said territories change hands. That was all. Then Ronan came around the corner and he was gone before I could blink.”

Rieck immediately stood up.

He came around the bed slowly. One step. Then another. He stopped in front of me and looked down, and I felt the duvet slip out of my fingers because my hands had started to shake.

“Why,” he said, “did you not tell me?”

“Because it was nothing, Rieck, I…”

His hand came up and cupped my face. Not gently. Both palms. Warm against my cold cheeks. He tilted my chin up so I had to look at him and I couldn’t look away even when I tried.

“Kaelen,” he said very softly, “does not joke.”

“But he was laughing.”

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Chapter 18

“He was putting on a show.”

“Rieck, you’re hurting me.”

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His thumbs eased a bit. Not all the way. Just enough that I knew he had heard me.

“He stood within arm’s reach of you.” His voice had gone almost to a whisper. “In a public place. In my city. With my driver three steps away. And you came home, kissed me and acted like nothing happened.”

“I was scared.”

“Of what exactly?”

“Of you.”

His jaw tightened, hands fell to his sides, and he took a step back.

I watched the man I had touched a thousand times tonight close like a door. His shoulders set. His face emptied. His mouth went thin. The Rieck who had laced his fingers through mine in the dark went somewhere I could not follow, and what stood at the foot of the bed in his place was the man Hebvron had warned me about in chapter one of my new life. Not a husband. A weapon.

“Go to sleep,” he commanded.

“Rieck.”

“Go to sleep, Aurelia.”

With that, he walked out of the bedroom.

The phone woke me at eight forty.

I was alone in the bed. The other pillow was cold. The duvet on his side had not been moved. I reached for the buzzing thing on the nightstand without opening my eyes and put it to my ear.

“Mrs. Valerius?”

The doctor. Soft-spoken. Grey at the temples. The one who had told me four days ago that I had a synthetic hormone disruptor in my blood.

I sat up. “Yes.”

“I am sorry to call so early. I have been thinking about your case. I wanted to clarify something I should have said more plainly the other day.”

“All right.”

“The compound in those vitamins. I told you it was a hormone disruptor. That is true. But it is more specific than that. It is a contraceptive analogue. A long-acting one. The kind a fertility clinic would never prescribe to

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Chapter 18

a woman trying to conceive. It doesn’t just dampen your cycle. It actively prevents implantation.”

The room went very still.

“Mrs. Valerius?”

“I’m here.”

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“What I am saying is, the diagnosis you were given two years ago. The unexplained infertility. I don’t believe it was correct. I think you have been chemically prevented from conceiving the entire time. By the supplement.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Mrs. Valerius. Are you alright?”

“Yes.” My voice sounded like it was coming from another room. “Thank you, doctor. Thank you for calling.”

“If you would like to come in for further bloodwork…”

“I will. I will come in. Thank you.”

I hung up and sat on the edge of the bed with the phone in my lap and stared at the rug.

Two years of crying in the bathroom because the test was negative again. Two years of Dawson telling me to stop being dramatic. Two years of Charlotte rubbing my back and telling me sweetly that maybe my body just was not built for it. Two years of the wellness coach pressing a fresh bottle of pills into my palm at the door of the apartment with that warm, professional smile and saying, “take two with breakfast, sweetheart, your body will thank you.”

I got up and walked to the bathroom. I opened the drawer where I kept my things. The white bottle was there, half full, the label smooth and matte and printed with a little olive branch. ‘Daily Wellness Support. Formulated for Women.’

I picked it up.

My hand was steady.

That was the part that frightened me.

I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t shaking. I was looking at a bottle of pills with a quiet little smile on my face and thinking, very clearly, “I am going to ruin him.”

I put the bottle in the pocket of the robe on the back of the door. Then I walked back into the bedroom and looked at the empty side of the bed where Rieck had not slept. He had a war in front of him and I had one of

my own.

I would handle mine.

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Chapter 18

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He opened it in a linen shirt, barefoot, a glass of red wine in his hand. His face went through three different expressions in one second. Surprise. Pleasure. Then something much smaller and much colder when he saw the look on mine.

“Aurelia.”

I held up the bottle.

“Tell me what is in this.”

His eyes went to the bottle and stayed there for a long second too long.

“Come in.”

“No.”

He stepped into the hallway and pulled the door half shut behind him. He glanced down the corridor. Lowered his voice.

“Aurelia, sweetheart. Whatever you are about to say to me…”

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