Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 304

Chapter 304

Nathaniel’s POV

The last few days had been their own special kind of torture. My morning routine had turned into a pathetic ritual: pick up my phone, type out a message to Annie, delete it, rewrite it, delete it again-until I finally landed on something that didn’t sound too desperate. Good morning felt safe. Asking how she was felt risky-it might come across like I was demanding a response. Sometimes I commented on something mundane from my day, hoping it would sound casual.

It was an impossible balance between staying present and not invading the space she so clearly needed. Every word was weighed and reweighed before I hit send. Every message was a careful attempt to show I hadn’t given up, without sounding like I was begging.

But the worst part came after every message was sent. My heart raced every time my phone lit up with a notification, some ridiculously hopeful part of me convinced it might be Annie. That maybe this time she’d decided to talk. That maybe she was ready to hear me.

It never was.

It was always work emails, app notifications, messages from other people who couldn’t hold my attention for more than two seconds. Disappointment became a constant companion, a familiar weight settling in my chest with every false alarm.

I tried distracting myself in every way possible. I went back to the gym with an intensity I hadn’t had in months. I ran through the streets of London until my lungs burned. I read books I couldn’t actually absorb. None of it fully worked. Annie was always there, on the edges of every thought, in every silence between words when I talked to other people.

The guilt was constant and corrosive. I replayed a thousand different scenarios where I could have told her the truth-perfect moments I’d let slip by out of fear or terrible timing. That night on the bridge in Bath, when I almost confessed everything. The intimate moments we shared when honesty should have mattered most. Every missed opportunity haunted me.

Then Gwen called, somehow making everything even worse-if that was possible.

“Nate, you’re an idiot,” she said without preamble the second I answered.

“Hi, Gwen. Good morning to you too.”

“Don’t get sarcastic with me. Annie called me completely devastated, and I had to sit there while my friend accused me of betraying her-because you didn’t have the guts to tell her the truth before she figured it out on her own.”

The guilt intensified, turning almost physical.

“I was going to tell her-

11

“When?” she cut in. “When exactly were you planning to tell her, Nate? Because from what I understand, you spent days together in Bath, had countless opportunities, and you just… didn’t.”

“I didn’t want to ruin-”

1/3

“Ruin what? A relationship built on a fundamental lie?”

Her words cut deeper than anything Annie herself could have said.

“Does she hate me?” I asked, hating how vulnerable my voice sounded.

“She doesn’t hate you, Gwen sighed, her tone softening slightly. “But she’s confused and hurt. Honestly? That’s on you. You should’ve told her from the beginning. Or at least when you realized you were actually falling in love with her.”

“I know,” I admitted miserably. “I know I messed everything up.”

“You haven’t ruined everything yet,” she said after a pause. “But you need to fix this. For real this time. No more lies. No more omissions.”

I agreed, even though I had no idea how I was supposed to do that when Annie wasn’t even talking to me.

Oliver was the only person in my family I allowed myself to open up to, mostly because I trusted him to keep it to himself. I called him one night when I couldn’t hold it in anymore and gave him a condensed version of the situation.

“Jesus, Nate,” Oliver said on the other end of the line. “You really managed to land yourself in a mess.”

“I know,” I replied, running a hand through my hair. “And now I don’t know how to fix it.”

“You need to talk to her,” Oliver said. “This silence thing can’t go on forever.”

“She doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“Maybe she’s just not ready yet. That doesn’t mean she never will be.”

His words gave me a small spark of hope, though I wasn’t sure I deserved to feel it.

Alexandra tried to get in touch several times, clearly sniffing out drama and opportunity. She didn’t know about the fight, of course, but she was very invested in finding out my plans. Her messages sounded innocent enough, asking what I was doing for New Year’s, whether I needed a date for the company party, if Annie and I were going together. I ignored every single one. The last thing I needed was to hand Alexandra more ammunition for her games.

Tori, on the other hand, called every five minutes with party-related questions that revealed both her excitement and her social anxiety.

“Nate, what color should I wear? Is royal blue too much for a corporate party?”

“Tori, you look good in literally everything.”

“But who important is going to be there? I need to mentally prepare for conversations.”

“The usual executives. A few key clients…”

“Will Marcus Kensington be there?”

Ah. So that was it.

2/3

“Probably not,” I said, keeping my tone neutral. “Why the sudden interest?”

“No particular reason,” she replied a little too quickly.

When December 30th finally arrived, I felt a mix of anxiety and relief. Tomorrow, at the very least, I would see Annie again. She hadn’t canceled her attendance at the party. I’d discreetly checked with the events team, who confirmed she was still on the guest list.

That gave me a sliver of hope. If she truly wanted nothing to do with me, if she were completely closed off to any possibility of reconciliation, she would have avoided an event where she knew I’d be there. The fact that she still planned to attend suggested that maybe she was open to talking.

`It would be neutral ground. A setting where we’d both have to maintain a certain level of composure,

surrounded by colleagues and clients. Maybe that was exactly what we needed. A place where we could see each other, take stock of where we stood, and maybe find a way to start rebuilding what I’d broken with my cowardice.

That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, rehearsing a thousand different versions of what I might say to her. How to explain months of silence about something so fundamental. How to make her understand that it was never about deceiving her, but about being terrified of losing her.

How to convince her that, despite everything, what we had was real. That every moment between us, every conversation, every touch, and every laugh had all been genuine, even if it was built on a foundation that now felt so fragile.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’d have my chance to try to fix what I broke.