Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 292

Chapter 292

“Artichoke with Sicilian lemon?” I repeated, trying to sound casual while my mind raced to process the information. “That’s a pretty… exotic flavor.”

Before I could say anything else about that unsettling coincidence, the waitress smiled and leaned slightly toward our table.

“Oh, it’s been one of our house specialties for years,” she explained with clear pride. “People are skeptical the first time, but anyone who tries it never forgets it. It’s a unique flavor… really memorable.”

“It’s true,” Sarah agreed, nodding emphatically. “It’s the kind of flavor you either absolutely love or absolutely `hate. No in-between. I’ve seen people make a face just hearing the description.”

“Only Nate loves it,” Tori added in that slightly provocative tone I was beginning to recognize, taking a sip of her sparkling water.

Nate laughed, but I caught something faintly nervous in his expression, like the sudden spotlight on his peculiar favorite was making him uncomfortable. His shoulders had a tension they didn’t have minutes earlier.

“If it were just me, it wouldn’t be a house specialty,” he said, trying to redirect the attention. “Clearly other people appreciate bold culinary choices.”

As we debated the menu options, I chose a classic margherita, trying to keep things simple while my brain was in absolute turmoil. Oliver kept up the teasing, clearly delighted with the whole conversation.

“Artichoke doesn’t even sound like a real food,” he said, laughing as he made an exaggerated face. “It sounds like… some secret code word for emergency. ‘Houston, we have an artichoke!'”

Nate laughed genuinely this time, turning toward me with that smile that usually made my stomach somersault, except now it carried an entirely different weight.

“Then that’ll be our word,” he said, taking my hand across the table with that natural tenderness that usually unraveled me completely.

“Gross,” Tori cut in with her usual humor. “What are you two doing that requires a safe word?”

The whole table burst into laughter, and the conversation drifted into lighter, teasing territory, with Oliver inventing increasingly outrageous scenarios in which we’d need to use our “artichoke safe word.” Sarah added her own hilarious suggestions, and even Tori tossed in sarcastic comments that had everyone laughing harder.

But I could barely follow the jokes echoing around me.

My mind was entirely focused on one very specific memory-one of my last conversations with Wanderer.

[And who knows… maybe someday we’ll meet out there. I’ll take you out for an artichoke-and-Sicilian-lemon pizza. It’s my favorite.]

It could be just a coincidence. A strange, wildly unlikely coincidence. But it would be one more in a growing list that was starting to feel statistically impossible to ignore.

The fact that Wanderer knew my full name, including the middle name I almost never use. Something Nate had access to through my HR records.

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The piano was not exactly the world’s most common hobby.

The travel blog Oliver had mentioned, with almost the same name my mysterious online correspondent used.

The flowers Nate brought to my house “from the team,” the exact same arrangement Wanderer had left on my

desk.

And now this. The same specific, unusual pizza flavor. The same very niche passion hardly anyone else shared.

I tried to stay present, to pretend I was engaging in the friendly lunch chatter around me, but it felt like everything was happening behind a thick fog. The laughter sounded distant, voices muffled, like I was underwater struggling to reach the surface.

“Annie?” Sarah’s worried voice snapped me abruptly back to the reality of the pizzeria. “Are you okay? You went a little pale for a second.”

“I’m fine,” I lied quickly, forcing a smile I prayed looked convincing. “Just… trying to decide what to drink. So many options.”

When the pizzas finally arrived carried by the servers on trays that smelled absolutely heavenly, Nate lit up like a kid on Christmas morning. His artichoke-and-Sicilian-lemon slice honestly looked like a tiny culinary masterpiece: the golden crust perfectly crisp around the edges, cheese melted in little bubbling pockets, tender pieces of artichoke arranged harmoniously with delicate curls of Sicilian lemon zest scattered artfully across the

top.

“You have to try it,” he insisted with genuine enthusiasm, carefully cutting a generous bite and holding it out to me on the fork. “I know it looks weird at first, but trust me on this.”

I accepted the bite, painfully aware that everyone at the table was watching me, curious about my reaction. The flavor hit my tongue in complex layers-unexpected, distinct, unfolding slowly-but shockingly good. The bright acidity of the lemon balanced perfectly with the earthy, slightly bitter artichoke.

“Wow,” I admitted, genuinely surprised. “It’s actually really delicious. Way better than I expected.”

“See?” Nate smiled, pride blooming across his face, like my approval validated every year he’d spent defending his strange favorite against skeptics.

“You two really do complement each other,” Tori remarked, watching us with an expression I couldn’t quite decipher. “Even down to the apparently exotic taste in food.”

I forced a laugh that sounded fake even to my own ears, but the knot twisting in my chest only tightened. Every coincidence and every hyper-specific detail lining up with surgical precision was piecing together a picture I desperately didn’t want to accept… but could no longer deny logically.

I slid my phone into my lap under the table, fingers trembling almost imperceptibly as I scrolled through my saved contacts. The name was still there: Wanderer.

I had never been able to bring myself to delete our full conversation. I always found excuses-nostalgia, intellectual curiosity, the weird emotional thread I could never quite rationalize. But now, staring at that familiar name glowing on the screen, it felt like I was standing on the edge of finally opening Pandora’s box.

My heart pounded as I tapped the contact and typed slowly each letter feeling like a tiny betrayal of the innocence and denial I was still desperately clinging to.

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