Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 209

Two months had passed since the dinner with the Franconian investors, and things were finally starting to settle.

London fall had arrived in full force, turning Hyde Park gold and red in a way I could see perfectly from the office window. The mornings were colder now, demanding thick coats and scarves, and the afternoons grew dark earlier every day. I had gotten used to the city's rhythm, to Gwen's unwavering three-o-clock-tea routine, and to the red buses that still made me smile every time they rolled past the glass.

More importantly, I had gotten used to my new routine at work. The whispers in the hallways had faded until they were gone. People stopped giving me strange looks when I walked through the marble corridors of Kensington. Margaret went back to greeting me with her warm, genuine smile.

I was almost certain Nate had handled the situation behind the scenes. I never asked directly, but I noticed the way he always included me in important meetings, how he openly asked for my opinions with other colleagues present, and how he treated everything I said with the kind of professional respect I had been desperate for. His attitude set a tone for everyone else. Little by little, they went back to seeing me as the market-development specialist I actually was, not the Verdanian woman tangled in elevator gossip.

And yes, he was Nate now, and I was Annie… As friends.

The problem was that this friendship was getting more complicated than I expected.

Not because our dynamic was uncomfortable. It was the opposite. Nate was funny in a way that caught me off guard, making sharp, clever comments about difficult clients that made me laugh in the middle of serious meetings. He was unbelievably intelligent, not just in business but in literature, history, even Verdanian politics, which he claimed he'd started studying "for professional curiosity."

I learned he had a habit of arriving at the office at seven every morning to read newspapers from three different countries before starting his day. That he drank way too much coffee instead of tea, which was practically sacrilege. That he had an impressive vinyl collection at home. That he had studied at Oxford, spoke four languages fluently, and once spent six months backpacking through Costanora during university.

Every one of these little discoveries made it harder to hold on to the idea that we were "just friends."

And things became especially complicated whenever Alexandra appeared at his side.

She had become a regular presence over the past few weeks, always with some perfectly reasonable professional excuse like consulting for Valentian clients, meetings about Euradian partnerships, and market analyses that supposedly needed a Kensington family perspective. Alexandra always arrived looking flawless, like she'd stepped straight out of a fashion campaign, with her perfectly styled blonde waves and that immaculate smile.

And every time she laughed at one of Nate's jokes, resting her hand casually on his arm, or leaned over his desk to explain a chart with unnecessary closeness, something sharp twisted inside my chest.

I was jealous and I hated admitting it even to myself.

Especially because I had no right to feel jealous. Nate and I were only friends. We had established that clearly outside the restaurant that night, and since then our relationship had been perfect. Professional when it needed to be. Friendly when it made sense. Completely free of any sexual tension that might complicate things.

At least on his side.

On my side… well. My side was becoming harder to manage.

Because the more I got to know Nathaniel Carter as a person, the more I liked him. And it wasn't just liking. I was developing real feelings for him. The kind of feelings that made my heartbeat pick up the moment he entered a room. The kind that made me pay too much attention to the way he smiled while explaining something complicated. The kind that kept me awake at night replaying conversations we'd had during the day.

But Alexandra was… well, she was exactly the kind of woman who made sense for someone like Nate. She was sophisticated, elegant, well-connected, and perfectly at home in his social and economic world. She talked about expensive wines the way most people talked about bottled water, knew important people on three continents, and carried herself with the easy confidence of someone who'd always known exactly where she fit in the world.

I had no chance of competing with that, even if I wanted to. And I didn't want to compete. Not really.

At least that was what I kept telling myself every time I saw the two of them talking about some social event I didn't even know existed.

"He doesn't count."

"And why on earth does he not count?"

"Because we're friends now," I said, as if it were the most obvious fact in the world, "and I don't even think he's that hot anymore."

The lie came out so easily I almost believed it for half a second. Of course I still thought Nate was hot. Hotter, actually, now that I knew the incredible person hiding behind that absurdly perfect face and those green eyes that made me forget how to breathe.

"Right," Gwen said, clearly not buying a single word. "And what's your brilliant solution for this tragic problem?"

"I'm going to do what every single, successful woman does when she realizes the only part of her life that is a complete disaster is her love life."

"Which is…?"

"Download a dating app."

Gwen stared at me with a completely serious expression for at least fifteen seconds. Then her face began to twist. First a restrained smile, then a suppressed laugh, and finally she burst into laughter so loud a few coworkers turned to look.

"You…" she gasped between laughs, "you are about to take your chaos to an entirely new level. Congratulations, Annabelle. You have officially decided to turn your love life into a full-on romantic comedy."