Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 626

Chapter 626

Gwen’s POV

I stood up so fast my chair nearly tipped over.

“Nick!” I called again, louder this time.

He didn’t stop or look back. He just kept walking through the restaurant with long, determined strides.

I grabbed my purse, muttered a rushed apology to a completely confused Paul, and hurried after him.

By the time I reached the street, Nick was almost halfway down the block, walking fast, shoulders rigid, hands shoved into his pockets.

“Nick!” I shouted, running toward him. “Wait!”

He slowed.

Stopped.

But didn’t turn around.

I reached him, slightly out of breath, my heart racing. Not from the run. From the panic clawing up my

chest.

“Nick, please,” I said, touching his arm.

He turned then.

And the look on his face cut straight through me.

It wasn’t anger.

Or not just anger.

It was humiliation. Shame. A deep, aching hurt.

“Why did you leave like that?” I asked, my voice shaking.

He stared at me like I’d asked the most absurd question in the world.

“Do you really know me so little that you have to ask?” he shot back, disbelief laced with pain.

“I…” I started, but the words wouldn’t come.

“You invited me to see your life in Florentia,” he said, gesturing vaguely around us. “And I agreed. I came.

er imagined… you never told me… that you were this kind of person.”

…at kind of person?” I asked, feeling tears burn behind my eyes.

His green eyes, the ones I loved, were now filled with something raw and wounded.

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“The kind who spends in one night at dinner what I have in debt,” he said, each word forced out like it hurt. “The kind who lives in a world so far from mine that… I don’t even know how we got here.”

“That’s not fair,” I said, shaking my head. “You’re reducing everything to… to money.”

“Because it is about money!” he snapped, his voice echoing down the street. “It’s about the fact that you clearly have a lot of it and I clearly don’t. And you hid that from me, Gwen. You deliberately hid it.”

“I didn’t hide it,” I said weakly, knowing it wasn’t true even as the words left my mouth.

“No?” He raised an eyebrow. “Then tell me, at what point in the last few months did you mention you live in a penthouse in the center of Florentia? That you have three cars? That you eat in restaurants where the menus don’t even list prices?”

I opened my mouth then closed it.

There was no good answer.

Because he was right.

I had hidden it.

“I just…” I tried again, desperate. “I just wanted you to know me first. Me. Not… not all of that.”

“But all of that is part of you!” he argued, throwing his hands up. “You can’t split it off like it’s some separate identity!”

And that was exactly what I’d been trying to do, wasn’t it? Gwen Parker versus Gwen Kensington.

People walked past us on the sidewalk, glancing curiously at the couple clearly arguing in the middle of

the street. I didn’t care.

We stood there, staring at each other, silence heavy and suffocating.

Then Nick slowly shook his head. That devastated look still there.

“This isn’t going to work,” he said quietly, but firmly.

“No. No, no,” I said immediately, panic flooding my chest. “Nick, don’t-”

“We’re completely different,” he continued, like I hadn’t spoken.

“We are,” I said quickly, grasping at anything. “We are different. But we also have so much in common. Especially what we feel for each other. Doesn’t that matter?”

“How is this supposed to work, Gwen?” he asked, and the pain in his voice physically hurt. “I can barely v own bills. I have a debt hanging over my head that could cost me everything. And you… you live Ond where forty-two thousand dollars is probably what you spend on… I don’t even know. Clothes? Dinners? Cars?”

“You’re being too proud,” I shot back, frustration and desperation tangling together inside me.

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“It’s not pride,” he said firmly. “It’s reality. It’s looking at things the way they actually are instead of the way we wish they were.”

“But I don’t want them to be different,” I insisted, my voice breaking. “I want you. Exactly as you are. The money doesn’t matter to me.”

“But it matters to me,” he said, and his voice cracked too. “It matters when I can’t give you even a fraction of what you already have. When I can’t take you to a place like that without feeling completely… inferior.”

“You’re not inferior,” I said with absolute conviction, stepping closer to him.

“Aren’t I?” he asked, bitterness cutting through the air. “Then why do I feel that way? Why did I feel that way all day? In your apartment. In your car. In that restaurant. Feeling like I… like I wasn’t good enough to stand next to you.”

“Nick, you are more than good enough,” I said, my voice thick now, tears finally spilling over. “You’re… you’re everything I want.”

He went quiet for a long moment, just looking at me. That torn expression still there.

“You don’t understand,” he said finally, softer now, but no less certain.

“Then explain it to me,” I begged. “Please.”

He ran a hand through his hair, the way he always did when he was overwhelmed.

“I feel like I don’t know you,” he said, the words raw and painfully honest. “Like I never really did. I’m in love with the Gwen I met in Montelira. The woman who showed up at my inn, who played with Bella, who made pizza with me in the kitchen, who laughed at my mother’s stories.”

He paused, looking at me like he was trying to reconcile two images that wouldn’t fit together.

“But this…” he continued, gesturing vaguely toward me, toward the restaurant behind us, toward everything Florentia represented. “This Gwen from Florentia… it’s like you’re two completely different people. Like I never actually knew you.”

“That’s not true,” I whispered, but my voice lacked conviction.

Because part of me knew he wasn’t entirely wrong.

I had built two versions of myself. And now they were colliding in the worst possible way.

We stood there, staring at each other, silence thick between us.

Until finally, Nick asked the only question that truly mattered.

me, Gwen… who are you, really?”

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