Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 370

Chapter 370

Madeline’s POV

A laugh escaped my lips. Not a laugh of amusement, but something hysterical and shaky, born from the complete shock of everything that had happened in the last few minutes. The sound echoed through the room in a way that was almost unsettling, and when I finally managed to stop, the words spilled out without any filter.

“You’re insane,” I said, shaking my head hard. “This is the most absurd idea I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Apollo kept looking at me with that seriousness that didn’t match the utterly unhinged situation he was proposing. As if asking a stranger to marry him were the most natural thing in the world.

“How can you propose to someone whose name you don’t even know?” I went on, feeling a mix of disbelief and something dangerously close to hysteria. “This is… this is complete madness.”

“And is it necessary?” he asked calmly, as if we were discussing a dinner menu. “Knowing your name? I may not know your name, but I know who you are.”

“No, you don’t,” I shot back immediately. “You have no idea who I really am.’

But he continued as if he hadn’t heard me.

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“I know you laugh even when you’re hurting, because you’d rather use irony as a shield than let people see how vulnerable you are. I know you’re afraid of deep water, but you still dive in because you don’t want to miss the experience. I know you always look for lightness in the heaviest moments, like it’s your responsibility to make everyone else feel okay.”

Each word hit me like a punch to the gut-because it was true. All of it.

“I know you blame yourself for things that were never your fault, and that you’d rather carry the weight alone than ask for help,” he continued. “I know that when you smile for real, you get these two beautiful dimples. I know your eyes turn golden in the sun. And I know you were brave enough to run from a wedding at the altar, but you still feel like a coward for leaving people behind.”

“Stop,” I whispered, because his words were dismantling every defense I’d tried to build.

“I know you want to be seen for who you are, not for who your family expects you to be,” he went on relentlessly. “And I know that in these six days, you’ve shown me more of who you truly are than most people show in years.”

“You’ve only met the version of me I chose to show you during these six days,” I managed to say, trying to regain some sense of logic. “You don’t know anything about my real life, my real problems, the complications that come with me.”

“And does that matter?”

“Of course it matters!” I burst out. “Marriage isn’t a solution to threats. This is crazy. It’s-”

“You don’t understand,” he interrupted, and for the first time since he’d made that absurd proposal, I saw a crack in his composure. “I can protect you. My family-”

“No personal information,” I cut in sharply, lifting my hand between us like a barrier. “I don’t want to know

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about your family. I don’t want to know your last name. I don’t want to know anything.”

I made a wide gesture, taking in the room, the view beyond the windows, the entire paradise that had become our private world.

“Tomorrow, we get on that flight back to Verdania, and this…” My voice faltered slightly, but I forced the words out. “This ends.”

The silence that followed was deafening. Apollo watched me for a long moment, and I could see frustration building in his eyes, tangled with something that looked dangerously like hurt.

“And what are you going to do?” he asked at last, his voice lower, tightly controlled. “What are you going to do when you get back to Verdania?”

“That’s none of your business,” I replied coldly, hating how harsh I sounded but knowing it was necessary.

He took a deep breath, as if fighting the urge to say more, then simply nodded. After that, he stepped away.

The rest of the night passed in a tense, uncomfortable silence. We ordered room service, but everything felt different from the other nights-there was no teasing, no laughter, none of the guessing game that had become our private language. It felt like two strangers sharing the same space, polite but distant.

When we finally went to bed, we lay side by side without touching, each of us confined to our own half of the mattress, as if an invisible line separated us. The bed that had been our refuge, our playground, our private world now felt too big, too cold.

I stared at the ceiling, listening to his breathing beside me, knowing he wasn’t asleep either. The sound of the waves, which had always calmed me felt melancholic, like a soundtrack for the end of something beautiful.

In

my

mind echoed the bitter certainty that we had destroyed what we’d built during those days in paradise. Maybe it was better this way, I tried to convince myself. Maybe it was the universe’s way of showing us that this could never have worked in the real world anyway.

Because how could I bring Apollo into the web of corruption, lies, and danger waiting for me back in Verdania? How could I expose someone so… pure… so principled… to people willing to point a gun just to get what they wanted?

I couldn’t allow someone as good as Apollo to have a weapon aimed at his head because of me. I couldn’t be responsible for dragging yet another person into the pit my life had become.

So, as much as it hurt, as much as part of me desperately wanted to accept his crazy offer and run away with him forever, I knew the right answer was no.

Tomorrow we would return to Verdania. Tomorrow this would end. And maybe, if I was lucky, I’d be able to keep these days as a beautiful memory before everything collapsed.

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