Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 18

Even in the darkness, I could sense his hesitation.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." I swallowed hard. "Please."

I heard him get up, his footsteps soft against the carpet. The mattress dipped slightly as he lay down beside me, keeping a respectful distance.

The heat of his body was palpable even without touching. My heartbeat slowed, despite another flash of lightning briefly illuminating the room. The thunder that followed didn't feel quite as terrifying now.

"Better?" he asked, his voice gentler than I'd ever heard it.

"Yes," I admitted, thankful for the dark hiding the blush on my face.

We lay in silence for a while, only the sound of the rain hammering against the windows filling the room.

"So… storms?" Christian finally asked, amusement lacing his tone. "Never figured you'd be afraid of something."

"Everyone's afraid of something."

"And yours is storms. Why?"

I sighed, rolling onto my side to face him in the dim light.

"It's a ridiculous story."

"Now you have to tell me."

I rolled my eyes, even though he probably couldn't see.

"When I was eight, my cousin Edward dared me to explore the storage room during a storm." I paused, the memory surprisingly vivid. "He said ghosts appear when it rains hard."

Christian let out a low chuckle.

"And you believed him?"

"I was eight!" I protested, swatting what I hoped was his arm. "Anyway, we were in this dusty old storage room my dad used for junk, when a lightning bolt struck really close to the house. The lights went out, and I swear I saw something moving in the dark."

"A ghost?"

"A cat. But at the time, I screamed so loud I tripped and fell off a wooden ladder my dad kept there. He used it to reach the higher shelves."

Christian laughed outright now.

"Did you get hurt?"

"Broke my arm. And ever since, every time a storm starts, I remember that moment of absolute terror."

A louder crash of thunder made me instinctively edge closer to him. His hand found mine in the dark, fingers lacing with mine in a steady, grounding gesture.

"No ghost-cat's gonna get you," he murmured, and even without seeing, I could hear the smile in his voice.

I laughed, surprised at how safe I felt at his side.

"Your turn," I said after a beat.

"My turn?"

"To tell me something embarrassing. Fair's fair."

He was quiet for so long I thought he wasn't going to answer.

"Christian?"

"When I was twelve, I fell into a pool trying to impress my grandfather's business partner's daughter." A soft laugh escaped him. "The problem was, I didn't know how to swim."

I gasped.

"What happened?"

"The gardener saved me. I coughed up water for an hour and swore off pools for a while."

I smiled in the dark, picturing a younger Christian being dragged out of the water.

"And you got over the trauma."

"How did you find out?"

"I caught her in my office, copying files. When I confronted her… she didn't even try to deny it. She said she'd been hired for that from the start. That our relationship was just… a means to an end."

The pain in his voice was almost tangible. In that moment, I understood why he kept everyone at arm's length, why he seemed so cynical about relationships.

"And the worst part," he went on, his voice now barely a whisper, "is that she was also having an affair with my best friend at the time. Richard. He… was in on it too. The two of them were planning to take everything to Montgomery together."

Without thinking, I shifted closer to him.

"Christian, that's awful."

"Yeah. It was." He let out a sigh that seemed to carry years of hurt. "After that, my grandfather nearly lost faith in me completely. Said I'd risked the family legacy for a woman. And maybe he was right."

I didn't know what to say. For the first time, I saw Christian as he truly was—not the arrogant billionaire, not the man who calculated every move, but someone deeply wounded. Someone who had lost the ability to trust.

Someone like me.

"I think that's why you and I…" he began, but stopped, as if reconsidering his words.

"What?"

"Nothing. Forget it."

On impulse, I reached out and touched his face in the dark.

"You're not to blame for what she did," I whispered. "Believing in someone isn't a weakness."

I felt his hand cover mine, holding it against his face.

"Even when that belief destroys you?"

"Yes. Even then." I swallowed hard, thinking of Alex, of Elise, of all the times I doubted myself after their betrayal. "Because the alternative is to never trust anyone again. And that… that would be the real defeat."

In the darkness, I felt more than saw Christian shift closer, his face now just inches from mine.

"Zoey…" he murmured, his voice carrying something I couldn't quite name.