All Chapters of Contract Marriage With My Billionaire Boss : Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

AARONShe finally slipped under. My girl. My fighter. Breathing ragged against my chest, her fists tangled in my shirt like if she let go she’d drop straight into the pit her mother left behind.I didn’t move. Didn’t dare. One wrong shift, and the demons would come dragging her back into the blood. Not on my watch. Not while I had breath in me. So I sat there in the dark, one hand buried in her hair, the other heavy on her hip, staring at her face like my eyes alone could guard her sleep. As if keeping them open was the only wall between her and the hell Martha carved.The door creaked.I didn’t need to look. The air told me who it was before his boots even touched the rug.Colton.“What the hell were you thinking taking her there in the first place?” I hissed, voice low, sharp, honed like a blade in the quiet. “You should’ve stopped her. And the fucking guards—where the fuck were they?”Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t fair. The guards tried. They’d called me half a dozen times, v

VENUS They burned her. The fire devoured what was left of Martha Sinclair until there was nothing but brittle fragments and smoke curling into the night sky. I stood still through it all, rigid, my fists clenched inside Aaron’s coat pockets as though the leather could hide how badly my hands shook. Gianna flanked me on one side, her quiet, steady strength a balm I didn’t ask for but needed all the same. Sabine was on the other, silent but fiercely present, her gaze fixed on the flames like she could will them to erase every scar Martha left behind. And Aaron—always Aaron—stood behind me, close enough that I could feel the heat of his chest at my back. Colton was here too, he might've disliked Martha but he was somewhat greatful to her for raising me, even though it was in her fucked up way. Connor lingered nearby, silent sentinel, his hand tightening and loosening on the glass jar he’d eventually fill with Martha’s ashes. The blaze hissed and cracked, but there were no prayers, n

VENUS Rosemary’s hands trembled in mine. For a moment, the world was just her and me—Caroline’s poison still ringing in my ears, the weight of that secret pressing hot against my chest. Her lips parted, and her whisper scraped out like a blade dragged against stone. “Not a word, Venus. Not now. Not here.” Her grip tightened, surprisingly strong. “This is not the time, nor the place. The boardroom will be blood enough without spilling this secret too.” I wanted to argue. To spit fire. To tell her Aaron deserved the truth, deserved to know exactly what Caroline had stolen from him. But Rosemary’s eyes—dark, fierce, tired from carrying too many ghosts—stopped me. Not now. And she was right. Because when we stepped into that boardroom, another kind of war was waiting. --- The room stretched wide, gleaming and merciless, a cathedral built for power. The long glass table glittered beneath the overhead lights, lined with men and women whose eyes sharpened the moment Aaron strode in

VENUS The boardroom was still trembling with the echoes of applause when Aaron was swept up by a tide of stakeholders. Hands reached for him, voices overlapping, congratulations pouring in like a flood he endured with the same composure he wielded in war. Papers were thrust at him, questions murmured, promises whispered. I stayed tucked by his side at first, but his world was suddenly swarming with numbers, politics, logistics, things that weren’t mine to fix. I watched him, my storm in his element, the way he shifted from predator to ruler, charming and commanding in equal measure. But then my gaze caught on someone else. Connor. He stood by the far wall, leaning against the marble with his arms crossed, a permanent fixture of shadow and silence. No grin. No sarcastic quip tossed into the chaos. No cheeky wink my way like he always used to when Aaron bulldozed a room. Just… quiet. I saw it in his shoulders—the weight, the restraint. He was here, but he wasn’t him. And maybe b

VENUS The weeks that followed were a blur, like waking from a dream and realizing it hadn’t ended at all, it had simply followed me home. Aaron and I worked side by side now, his office my second orbit, my desk carved out as though it had always been waiting for me. And God, did the world notice. He’d lean over during briefings, not caring who saw, lips brushing the shell of my ear with some comment that made my pulse trip. His hand would linger at my back, not possessive, but a declaration: mine, always mine. And when we thought no one was watching, when in truth everyone was. His gaze would pin me across the room, and the fire in it would have me biting back a smile like a schoolgirl. Everyone could see it. Everyone. Even Rosemary, who one afternoon breezed into the office, eyeing the two of us with a grin that spelled trouble. She hugged me, kissed my cheek, and then said with the kind of casual menace only Rosemary Carter could muster: “You’re glowing,” she noted, eyes glitt