Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 367

Chapter 367

Marcus’ POV

I watched Aphrodite the morning after our dinner of confessions and noticed something different in her posture. She seemed lighter, as if she’d finally set down an enormous weight after sharing her pain with me. And yet, there was a new fragility there too, like she’d replaced one burden with another. Maybe the fear of

wing exposed herself too much. Of having trusted a stranger with her deepest secrets.

She was on the deck, coffee in hand, staring out at the crystal-clear sea, but her shoulders were slightly hunched, as if the shadow of the night before still lingered. At that moment, I decided this day needed to be about lightness. About pulling Aphrodite completely out of the dark orbit of her past and back into our private paradise.

“How about a boat trip today?” I suggested, stepping up behind her and brushing a light kiss against her neck.” We could find a deserted beach, swim a little, pretend we’re the only two people in the world.”

“That sounds perfect,” she replied, turning to face me with a smile that still carried traces of last night’s vulnerability.

I needed the distraction too, I admitted to myself. Hearing her story and recognizing so much of my own experience in her words about last names swallowing identities had stirred things I preferred to keep buried. Sometimes it was easier to focus on taking care of her than to face my own family demons.

An hour later, we were at the resort’s private pier, greeted by a smiling staff member who guided us to an elegant boat fully equipped for a perfect day at sea. The weather was ideal with a cloudless blue sky, gentle breeze, and water so transparent we could see the sandy bottom meters below.

“So,” Aphrodite said once we were cruising away from the resort, the wind tangling her hair and a genuinely carefree smile finally back on her face, “I bet you’ve never had a nine-to-five job in your life.”

I laughed, relieved to see our game of assumptions returning in its lighter, playful form.

“I bet you were always the family rebel,” I shot back.

“Rebel?” she said, feigning outrage. “I was the perfect daughter until… well, until I wasn’t.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m a twenty-seven-year-old woman who ran away from her own wedding to go to the Maldives with a complete stranger,” she laughed. “I think the perfect-daughter ship has sailed.”

“To far more interesting places,” I added.

We spent hours like that, sailing between small, deserted islands, stopping to swim in water so clear it felt like floating in midair. Aphrodite grew more relaxed by the minute. She was laughing freely, teasing, being exactly the fascinating woman who’d made me agree to this madness in the first place.

When we stopped at a private beach for lunch, the staff member accompanying us set everything up flawlessly. There was a table right on the sand, chilled champagne, and fresh tropical fruit. I tipped him generously, as I always did, without a second thought.

“You’re always so generous,” he commented with a warm smile. “It’s a pleasure to welcome you back to the

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Maldives, Mr. Ke

“Cronus!” cut in befo

he could say anything else. “It’s Mr. Cronus, remember?”

My blood went cold instantly. Every muscle in my body tensed, and for a split second I forgot how to breathe. The staff member went on arranging the table, completely unaware of the bomb he’d almost dropped, but I could feel Aphrodite’s eyes on me, processing, registering.

“Thank you,” I managed, forcing my tone to stay casual. “You always do an excellent job here.”

I quickly changed the subject, pulling Aphrodite into a conversation about the surrounding islands, about the fish we’d seen while snorkeling-anything to steer her attention away from what had just happened. I used every ounce of charm I had, every skill I’d learned over the years to guide conversations wherever I wanted them to go. But I knew she’d noticed.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the way she watched me for a few minutes afterward, as if trying to solve a puzzle. The puzzle of realizing that I was, in fact, a man who frequented places like this. Places you didn’t come

to alone.

Thankfully, Aphrodite respected our agreement not to ask direct personal questions, but the tension lingered between us like an invisible cloud.

By late afternoon, when we returned to the bungalow, we settled into the loungers on the private deck with glasses of wine, watching the sun sink slowly toward the horizon.

Aphrodite looked more relaxed than I’d seen her since we arrived, as if she’d finally shaken off the shadow of the previous night’s confession. Her body was completely at ease in the chair, one leg tucked beneath her, eyes half-closed, half-open.

That was when her phone vibrated on the small table between us.

I caught the name at a glance. It was Dominic, followed by a red heart, flashing on the screen before she quickly turned the phone facedown. But it was already too late. The image lodged itself in my mind like a blade.

Dominic. The ex-fiancé. The man who had betrayed her, used her, planned to discard her once he’d gotten what he wanted. The man she’d run from at the altar.

The phone vibrated again, insistently, as if the man on the other end refused to be ignored. Then again. And again.

I didn’t say anything as our agreement forbade it, but inside, a discomfort began to grow, slow and heavy, like an approaching storm. Why hadn’t she blocked him yet? What still tied her to him? Fear of what he might do? An

motional dependency she hadn’t managed to break? Or was there something she still hadn’t told me, some

actical reason that forced her to keep that line of communication open?

I forced myself to respect our pact, but the unease kept pounding in my head like a relentless drum. Each vibration of the phone echoed in the silence between us, a reminder that no matter how isolated we were here, her past still had ways of reaching us.

When I looked at Aphrodite, I saw the discomfort clearly in the way she held her wineglass-too tight, her knuckles slightly white, as if she needed something solid to anchor herself. Her body had lost all the relaxation from moments earlier, replaced by a tension that radiated off her in almost tangible waves.

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And I hated it.

I hated knowing that man still had the power to invade our sanctuary, to shift the entire atmosphere between us with nothing more than the buzz of a phone. I hated feeling that, no matter how much intimacy we’d built, there was still space for him between us.

I made an impulsive decision.

I stood up, crossed the small space between us, and gently took the wineglass from her hand, setting it aside on the table. Without giving her time to protest or ask questions, I lay down beside her and pulled her onto my lap in a firm but careful motion.

“Apollo, what are you-

I didn’t let her finish.

I captured her lips with mine in a deep, intense kiss. It was possessive, charged with my need to pull her out of that spiral of tension and bring her back to me. Back to us. Back to this moment that belonged only to us.

She laughed softly against my mouth, the sound vibrating between us in a way that made my heart race.

“I bet you know exactly how to make a woman forget her problems,” she teased, her honey-colored eyes shining with amusement and desire.

“That’s not a bet,” I replied, my voice coming out rougher than I intended. “You already know that for sure.’

She smiled in that way that completely disarmed me and murmured, “How conceited.”

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