The Billionaire's Bet

Chapter 6 : You're my escape...

What won't you do for love

⸻

EVANLY

If Justine was going to keep treating me like I didn't matter, like a fading afterthought, then what exactly was stopping me from stepping out of line? From choosing me for once?

Nothing. Not anymore.

I was too lonely to pretend I wasn't. So deeply alone it was beginning to rot me from the inside out. A woman could only take so much emptiness before she started to crave the wrong kind of comfort—before she started to crave him. And right now, I wanted to see Devon again.

He had started to attach himself to me like a shadow—quiet, watchful, inevitable. He was still a stranger to me, but somehow, he felt like a secret I'd known all my life.

The following day, I met him at the park. There was something chilling about how effortlessly he wore power. His tailored charcoal suit clung to him like a second skin, his presence loud even in silence. He wasn't just elegant—he was dangerous, magnetic, the kind of man you didn't meet by accident.

We walked through the fading gold of the late afternoon.

"Back from work," I asked, "or is this just how you roam around looking like a luxury perfume ad?"

His lips curled slowly into a teasing smirk. "Are you mocking me, Amorina? So cruel. I'm hurt."

His voice—velvety and low—sent a shiver down my spine. His eyes never left mine, stormy blue like deep water. I hated how they made me feel. Like drowning might not be such a terrible way to go.

"I just... I've never met anyone who dresses like that all the time. It's a little unsettling," I admitted, stopping in my tracks.

"You didn't grow up around wealth?" he asked, one brow arching as he lowered himself slightly, as if to study me better.

I paused. My throat tightened.

I had grown up around wealth. That wasn't the problem. The problem was I had grown up as the outsider in my own home. My mother made sure of that—cutting me off from the warmth everyone else was so freely given. My father was the only one who looked at me like I mattered. He tried. God, he tried. But even he wasn't enough.

"I... I can't answer that," I murmured, eyes drifting away.

But Devon wouldn't let me look away. His fingers tilted my chin up, his thumb brushing the side of my cheek so gently, so intimately, I forgot how to breathe.

"Don't do that. Don't hide from me," he whispered. "You don't have to be embarrassed. Not with me. I'm not here to judge you. I just want to know you... the real you. And if you're hurting, I want to help carry it."

Time paused. Just for a second, just for us. His touch was the kind that stole reason, that made me ache for something I didn't even understand.

Devon, who are you really? And what would a man like you ever want with a married woman like me?

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LATER THAT DAY

We laughed. We talked. And slowly, I let my guard down. Devon had a way of disarming me—not with force, but with charm and quiet warmth. He wasn't what I expected. There was something underneath the sleek exterior. Something soft. Something aching.

"You're not that bad, you know," I laughed softly, my eyes catching his as the sun dipped beneath the skyline.

"Told you," he smiled, and there it was again—that glint of something dangerous behind the sweetness.