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Chapter 57 - Damage Control
Last Updated:
2025-04-25 13:42:30
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Claimed By The Billionaire Chapter 1 - Awake
Aria It’s loud. Too loud. It sounds too far away and near at the same time. I squint my eyes open and close them back immediately. Too bright! I try again—slowly this time—and adjust my eyes to the bright light. I take in my surroundings. The white ceiling is filled with bright fluorescent light right above me, and my bedside is filled with machines and monitors plugged into my body on my right. I look to my left and — Is that a person? Standing with his hands in the pockets of his three-piece suit, while facing the window, his broad back fills most of the window overlooking the hospital view. The rays of the sunshine on his hair make it a colour blend of salt and pepper. It looks messy, like it’s been run through several times. He certainly looks attractive from the back. Who’s that? I try to make out how familiar that build is from the back. It’s not. As if he read my thoughts, he turns around and meets my eyes. “You’re awake.” His face remains expressionless as he stalks t
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Aria A soft knock wakes me from my sleep. Bolting up from the bed, I take a look around, trying to remember where I am. Oh! Trapped. “Who’s there?” I answer groggily. All thanks to someone, I didn’t get enough sleep. I know it’s not Damon. Grumpy isn't that courteous. “Come in.” A petite and pretty lady comes in with her head bowed. She looks very young. Maybe a few years younger than I am. She stalks towards the table in the room and drops a bag on it. “Good morning, miss. Master Damon asked me to drop this off for you,” she said in a soft voice. “Oh, thank you.” I smile warmly at her. Her head remains bowed. “Not a problem, miss,” she turns to leave. I stand up from the bed and take a proper look at the room I’ve been in since yesterday. It’s beautiful. It turns out that there’s a curtain covering a window. I wonder why I didn’t see that yesterday. But then, I never really looked around. I walk towards the curtains and open them wide. “Oh my God!” I gasp. It’s a flo
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DamonI bring Ava to my home after our agreement and we spend hours going through the process of making her as presentable as possible.“You need to make all of this as believable as possible, alright?” I emphasize as I make Aria go over thousands of different outfits.“Why is this so important anyway? I mean, why are you so hell-bent on getting married so soon? And why me?” Ava grumbles.She looks exhausted from having to try on a million different outfits.I have a few women come over to the house, bringing rack after rack of expensive outfits.I'm sure she has no idea how much they cost me.“You need to look the part,” I emphasize.I’m getting tired of dealing with her unending questions. But I know she's my best bet to get Father off my back.It will undoubtedly give me the much-needed time to focus solely on the company and keep the sales numbers at the top.I still can't understand why, all of a sudden, the paparazzi’s focus has shifted from my sales numbers and stock prices to m
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Claimed By The Billionaire Chapter 57 - Damage Control
DamonI retire back into the adjoining suite, get off my clothes, and freshen up. In no time, I sleep off, my thoughts still running wild from all that happened today.Morning comes and the light pouring in through the slits in the blinds forces me awake. The house is quiet, too quiet for everything spinning in my head. A part of me wants to stay buried under the covers, just to delay facing the shit storm that’s coming. But I can't. I get up, splash water on my face, and throw on my running gear.The run is short but feels long. The air is crisp, cold enough to sting a little, but that’s the point. Pain distracts. Pain clears.With every step pounding against the pavement, I try to outrun the image of her curled up under the duvet, the way she pulled back from me yesterday, that damn look in her eyes. Something like disappointment. Something worse.I step back into the house, towel at my neck, sweat drying fast. My feet take me automatically to the adjoining suite, and I shut the doo
Claimed By The Billionaire Chapter 56 - Losing the Lead
DamonI watch her walk off.Something is definitely up with her. In all the weeks she’s spent here, in this house, she’s never wandered out to this part of the estate. She’s always either locked up in her room, quiet as a shadow, or bickering with Eunice over which vase belongs in which hallway. Never this.But tonight, she walked with purpose. Not angry. Not storming off. Just quiet. Deliberate. It throws me off.The second I caught sight of her slipping through the glass doors that lead to the garden, something in me reacted. Instinct, maybe. Habit, maybe worse. My legs moved before my brain finished forming the question: What the hell is she doing out there?She didn’t answer me. Not really. The usual retorts, the pushbacks. But this time, it didn’t feel like she was pushing me away just for sport. Something else is sitting beneath the surface.She’s hiding something.And the maddening part?I can’t tell what.But, how hard could it be to spill?'Spill? To you?' the voice in my hea
Claimed By The Billionaire Chapter 55 - Nineteen
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Claimed By The Billionaire Chapter 54 - The Taste of Pretend
AriaIt takes all of two minutes inside this room to remember where I am—back in the cage. Same city. Same house. Same man with a different mask for every room.Unpacking feels mechanical, like my hands are on autopilot. Dresses. Tops. A few random things from Paris that don’t belong here, not in this place where the little joy I had goes to die. The bed is too neat, too silent. The adjoining door to Damon’s room stands half open, and the air from it feels heavier than it should. Maybe it’s him.Maybe it’s me.I slide the zipper open on another suitcase and let the silence fill every crevice. It’s louder than words. Louder than what we didn’t say on the plane, louder than the lie he dropped before walking off: Whatever happened in Paris stays in Paris.Right. Convenient.The worst part? The fact that my brain keeps looping back to that night. Not the heat, not the thrill, but the way he looked at me like he forgot how to hate. Like he couldn’t tell where anger ended and want began. I
Claimed By The Billionaire Chapter 53 - Post-Paris
Damon“Alright, man. If you say so,” Kay says, and with that, the line goes dead.Leaning back into the headrest, I try to still everything. Thoughts, instincts, the tension that hasn’t left my shoulders since we touched down. The inside of the car is silent except for the hum of the engine. The moment feels stretched thin, like it might snap if I breathe too loudly.Gravel crunches under the tires. I didn’t even notice Mark turning into the driveway until we were already pulling in. The house rises into view, tall and sharp against the dull afternoon light, and just like that, reality comes barreling back.She moves before the car comes to a full stop. The door swings open, and she steps out fast. Too fast. The door slams hard behind her.Right. Here we go.If I was taming a dog before Paris, I’m fighting a tiger now. And not just any tiger—one I raised with my own hands. One I fed fury and independence, and then had the audacity to expect silence from.I step out, and my eyes land o
Claimed By The Billionaire Chapter 52 - Bruised Boundaries
Damon“Whatever happened in Paris... stays in Paris,” I say, stepping off the plane with my back to her, keeping my eyes forward because if I look back, even for a second, my eyes might give me away.The words taste like control but feel like betrayal. A contradiction in every breath. Relief flickers through me, quick and sharp, like I finally sealed off a door that would only lead to trouble. But underneath it, regret simmers. Something in my chest squeezes tight, and my brain shoves the memory back. And yesterday, I just had to leave. I had to. Because there were no words after what happened. No smug reply. No commanding reply. Hell, nothing. And I just had to leave like a coward.But that set the floor for what I just said to her. And it helps. Because I need time to put my thoughts together, even if it means she hates me, more now than before. Even if it's cowardly.The feel of her against me—warm, soft, willing—floods my senses for half a second too long. No.Not now. Not again
Claimed By The Billionaire Chapter 51 - Dresser Confession
AriaHours after the Duval disaster, we're back in the apartment, packing in silence for the flight back to New York. Back to the cage. Back to surveillance, secrets, and stiffly filtered air. I move around the room with slow, mechanical motions, folding clothes I don’t care about, pretending like this isn’t the same place where everything just spiralled out of control. And maybe if I move slow enough, time will slow down with me, and I won’t have to face what comes next.Damon’s here, too. Not that you’d know it. He hasn’t said a word in over thirty minutes, his back turned, his energy closed off like a door slammed shut. Colder than usual. Detached. His silence is a mood, but honestly, I’m too tired to match it. Too exhausted to figure out what kind of ice I’m walking on now.I do everything right. Act exactly as he says I should. Say nothing when he says so. Breathe evenly. And yet, still somehow, I feel like I’ve committed some crime. Like breathing wrong might trigger another exp
Claimed By The Billionaire Chapter 50 - Boardroom Burn
Aria"Put on something professional. You're coming with me," Damon says without looking up from his phone, the minute he steps back in, like it’s just a calendar reminder.I glance at him from over my coffee mug. “And what exactly am I dressing up for this time?” He finally meets my eyes. His stare is cool, detached, but underneath it, there's something unreadable. “It’s a meeting. A private meeting. You sit, you smile, you stay quiet through it all. That’s all.”“That sounds a lot like an order.”He slips his phone into his pocket and straightens. “This time, it’s a favour.”The word lands differently. Damon doesn’t ask for favours. That’s not how the script works. He demands. He orchestrates. But here he is, standing in the doorway, calling it a favor. That alone is enough to make me pause.I narrow my eyes. “What kind of favour?”“The kind that requires you to keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.”Sounds easy. But nothing with Damon ever is. Still, something about the way he s
Claimed By The Billionaire Chapter 49 - Collateral Comfort
Aria“I protect what’s mine.”“Performance or not.”The words settle in my chest like a brick, refusing to move even as the sun begins to rise. They linger long after the softness of his voice fades, long after the warmth of his hand trailing slow, absent circles on my arm turns to stillness. They hang quietly through the night, looping until the edges of morning peel back the dark.He couldn’t have meant it. At least, not in the way it sounded. Not in the way I processed it.But it felt like he did.Lying still with my eyes shut, I try to convince myself that maybe I dreamed it. That I imagined the way his arm pulled me closer. That my mind filled in the missing pieces of warmth I've long forgotten the feel of.Otherwise, it makes no sense.Eventually, the light pouring in through the curtains grows too strong to ignore, and my eyelids give way. The room comes into view slowly, drenched in that pale golden glow that always makes things seem softer than they are. But the illusion only
