Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 677

Chapter 677

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Chapter 677

Gwen’s POV

The door was locked. The click still echoed in my head like a warning. No one was coming in here by accident. Outside, the muffled noise of the event carried on. Laughter, footsteps, a microphone being tested.

In here, I was just a woman trying not to fall apart.

Renee, on the other hand, looked far too comfortable. Leaning against the sink with the posture of someone who felt like she owned the place, as if an event restroom were just another extension of her world.

I stepped further into the room, making it clear that I wasn’t going to back down simply because she fed on retreat.

“I know exactly what you want,” I began. “And let me save you some time. You’re never getting a cent of my money.”

“Oh…” she said, sounding almost pleased. “That’s adorable. The billionaire thinks the center of the universe is her bank

account.”

It might have been funny if it hadn’t been so calculated. If she weren’t trying to turn me into a caricature. The untouchable rich woman who buys everything and therefore deserves to be taken from.

I took a slow breath through my nose and kept my voice even.

“You can pick whatever fight you want, Renee. But we’re going to handle this the right way. The way that actually matters. Because we know the law is on our side.”

I said “we” and felt the weight of it. Nick. Bella. My baby.

Renee tilted her head as if she were listening to someone talk about fairy tales.

“The law?” she repeated slowly. “The law is always on the mother’s side.”

A wave of nausea rose in my stomach. I couldn’t tell if it was the pregnancy or the anger. Maybe they felt the same. Something hot and unavoidable coiling low in my gut.

“Not when that mother tries to kill the stepmother,” I shot back, and the word stepmother scraped against my throat with bitter irony. “Not when that mother sets fire to the house her daughter is sleeping in. Not when that mother hides behind cheap talk of parental alienation to poison the girl’s mind and then plays the victim afterward.”

I saw her smile freeze for half a second.

Renee slowly uncrossed her legs, as if she were rising from an invisible chair. Her voice dropped, taking on a more clinical tone, like she was doing me the courtesy of legal advice.

“You should be careful what you say,” she replied with artificial sweetness. “You’ll have to prove every accusation.”

She shifted slightly, like we were in a courtroom instead of a restroom.

“Because if you can’t, I’ll be adding another lawsuit to the pile. Defamation.”

“I’d love to see you try.”

Renee’s brows lifted, satisfied that I had stepped into the game. That was exactly what she wanted. To push me out of my safe space of polished answers and perfect posture. To make me react. To turn me into the hysterical Kensington so the world could see her as the desperate mother. I knew it. And still, I was doing exactly what she had planned, because the anger was creeping in, taking hold of me piece by piece.

“No, Gwen,” she corrected calmly. “I’d like to see you try.”

She let the words settle and studied my face, waiting for the first crack. Waiting for me to remember that I was pregnant, that I

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Chapter 677

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had a brand, a reputation, a company, a board, a last name that couldn’t afford to lose control in a bathroom.

Except she wasn’t talking about my composure.

She was talking about my life.

“In fact,” Renee went on, crossing her arms as if we were discussing something trivial, “I’m enjoying watching you do everything you can to make Bella stay with you and Nick.”

She said Bella’s name the way someone might refer to an object. Like a trophy she could take off a shelf whenever she felt like it.

“You’re used to getting everything you want, aren’t you?” she continued. “Buying whatever you want.”

Her gaze moved over me slowly, deliberately, as if my body itself were part of her argument.

“And now you want to buy a family. You want to buy a child.”

Heat surged through me, sharp and violent, and my hands curled into fists before I could stop them.

“It’s not going to work like that,” she went on. “You can have money. You can have your last name. You can have that entire stage applauding you…”

She tilted her face, calm and composed, and I could see she was enjoying the effort it was taking me not to break.

“But I’m going to rip Bella away from you.”

She didn’t even pause to see if that landed. She wanted depth. She wanted damage.

“I’m going to take your money,” she continued, as if she were outlining quarterly goals. “And honestly… you should start worrying about rainy nights.”

I blinked, my mind trying to catch up before my heart did.

“Rainy nights when Nick goes to ‘visit his daughter,”” she said, the quotation marks audible in her voice. “Because I’m going to take him from you too.”

Something old and brutal tightened in my chest, like I had gone back to being a woman who didn’t remember anything and still felt everything.

“Not because I love him,” Renee added without shame. “I don’t love anyone but myself.”

She stepped closer, barely a step at all, just enough to make sure I heard every syllable.

“I’m going to do it for the pleasure of destroying you.”

I took a breath.

Then another.

I tried.

I swear I tried to be the woman who smiles on stage. The woman who doesn’t become a headline. The woman who doesn’t take

the bait.

But there’s a line.

And she had crossed it at a full sprint, dragging my daughter with her. Because yes, in that moment Bella was mine too, in the way love decides these things. She had dragged my baby into it. Nick. My home.

Renee watched me, waiting for the tremble.

Waiting for the tears.

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I gave her neither.

My hand moved before my mind caught up.

The crack of it was sharp and unmistakable.

Her head snapped to the side, and for a second the restroom went completely silent.

Renee slowly brought her hand to her cheek.

And then she laughed.

A real laugh.

“Oh…” she murmured, eyes glittering. “The kitten has claws?”

My heart was pounding so loudly I almost couldn’t hear myself.

But I did.

“And I know how to use them,” I said.

And I lunged at her.

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