Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 379

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‘Are you sure?” I asked, uneasy at the idea of being alone, even for a few minutes.

“Absolutely. The room’s right at the end of the hall. You can’t miss it. I’ll meet you there in five minutes.”

I followed the direction she’d indicated. The room at the end of the corridor was spacious, with light wooden floors, large windows overlooking a small inner garden, and mirrors that reflected the natural light softly. I pushed the door open, expecting an empty space-or maybe a few students getting ready for class.

But the moment I looked inside, my heart stopped.

Marcus was there.

Standing near the closed window, looking straight at me as if he’d been waiting for this moment for weeks.

I froze, my hand still on the door handle, unable to move, to think, to breathe. It was him. Really him. Not a

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hallucination or a desperate fantasy. The same man who had made me feel alive in the Maldives. Who had offered me a different life. The man I’d walked away from at the airport.

“I heard about the wedding,” he said, his voice calm, but heavy with an emotion I couldn’t quite name.

ou shouldn’t be here,” I managed to whisper, my eyes darting instinctively to the door behind me, already calculating escape routes. “How did you…? Why are you…?”

I scanned the room nervously, half-expecting Vivian or one of Dominic’s guards to burst in at any second.

“It’s okay,” Marcus said, taking a step toward me. “Olivia helped me set this up. No one can see us in here. The windows are tinted.”

“Olivia?” I repeated, still trying to process it. “She… you two know each other?”

“Briefly,” he answered, simply.

Even with his assurances about privacy and safety, my anxiety didn’t ease.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I repeated, my voice coming out louder than I meant it to. “It’s dangerous. For you. For me. For Olivia.”

“You’re the one who shouldn’t be here,” Marcus cut in, his voice sharpening. “Back in this life. About to marry a dangerous man. Playing the victim when you could choose to walk away from all of this.”

“You don’t understand,” I shot back, tears burning behind my eyes. “You shouldn’t get involved. What we had ended at that resort, in the Maldives. It was good. It was incredible. But it ended. Now we each go on with our lives, just like we agreed from the start.”

The words came out of my mouth, but they sounded hollow even to me. Like I was reciting a script someone else had written.

Marcus stepped closer, his blue eyes studying me with an intensity that made my heart race dangerously.

“Is that really what we agreed to?” he asked, stopping right in front of me. “That you’d come back and marry a criminal, and I’d pretend I never knew you?”

Before I could answer or protest, he leaned in and kissed me.

My first instinct was to resist-to push him away, to tell him it was wrong, that we couldn’t do this. But the moment his lips touched mine, every ounce of willpower I’d built over the past two months collapsed.

I melted into his arms like I was breathing properly for the first time in weeks, kissing him back with a desperation that scared me. As if I needed that contact to keep existing. As if all the life that had been drained out of me over the past two months came rushing back at once.

When we finally pulled apart, we were both breathless. Marcus cupped my face in his hands, forcing me to look straight into his eyes.

“Are you sure it’s over?” he asked, his voice rough.

I tried to regain control. Logic. All the reasons this was impossible.

“It’s for your own good,” I whispered. “You don’t understand the kind of people you’re dealing with. If they find

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out about you-”

“I won’t be okay knowing you married him,” Marcus interrupted, his hands still holding my face. “If you tell me you want help and that you want to get out of this, I’ll find a way. I can get you out.”

My heart slammed against my ribs at his words. The possibility of escape. Of freedom. Of a real life with him. It flared in my mind like light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

“I can’t say that,” I replied, even though every fiber of my being wanted to scream yes, that I wanted to run, that I wanted his help.

“Why?” he pressed. “Why can’t you accept help? Why do you choose to stay trapped when you could be free?”

I opened my mouth to answer, to explain about the threats, about my father, about the impossible complexity of everything. But before I could say a single word, that familiar, awful sensation rose in my throat.

The morning sickness came back full force.

I bolted for the small bathroom attached to the room, dropping to my knees in front of the toilet and vomiting violently. My hands shook as I braced myself against the cold porcelain, trying to ride out the endless waves of

nausea.

When I finally managed to lift my head, wiping my mouth with toilet paper, Marcus was standing in the bathroom doorway, watching me with an expression that mixed concern with something that looked an awful lot like understanding.

“Madeline,” he said quietly, his voice steady. “You’re pregnant.”

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