Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 682

Chapter 682

Nick’s POV

Florentia traffic was its usual brand of cruel. Slow. Narrow streets. Pedestrians crossing like the world wasn’t collapsing inside the driver’s seat of my car.

Gwen’s voice kept replaying in my head. Police station.

I couldn’t make it fit. Gwen Kensington didn’t “end up at a police station.” Gwen handled things with contracts. With meetings. With one perfectly calibrated sentence.

I needed someone cold for both of us.

I hit the hands-free button and called the number I already had saved.

“Mr. Cross.”

His voice came through crisp, far too alert for the hour.

“It’s me. Nick.”

A brief pause. I could almost hear him shifting into professional mode.

“Mr. Valemont.”

“It’s my wife.” The word still felt new in my mouth, but I didn’t have time to feel it. “Gwen. She’s at a police station in Florentia.

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“I’m on my way,” he replied without asking for dramatic details. “Which station?”

I gave him the location Gwen had managed to tell me.

“I’ll get there first.”

“Do not go in alone. Wait for me at the entrance. And please, do not argue with anyone inside. Let me handle the talking.”

When I pulled up, the air outside the station felt heavier, like Florentia had decided to turn into stone.

Cross arrived minutes later, immaculate as always, briefcase in hand. The kind of man who walked into any room and reminded it that rules existed.

“Mr. Valemont,” he said, the formality a quiet warning not to lose control. “Let’s go.”

The reception area smelled like old paper and burnt coffee. An officer looked us over, then straightened when he recognized Cross’s tone, if not his face.

Cross presented his credentials and said Gwen’s name with a calm that felt almost insulting compared to the panic inside me. A few low exchanges followed. A glance at a monitor. A short nod.

“She’s waiting,” the officer said. “Holding room.”

Holding room.

Not a cell. Just a more civilized way of saying you’re not leaving yet.

The hallway was narrow. Footsteps echoed. Doors opened and shut. Voices murmured behind walls. I tried not to picture Gwen sitting in there alone, her mind racing.

The door opened.

She was seated behind a low metal divider, a thin barrier like bureaucracy had drawn a literal line between us.

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C 882

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When she saw me, she stood immediately.

I didn’t wait for the officer to finish unlocking the partition before stepping forward. As soon as they allowed her through, she came straight into my arms and held on tightly. Her body was trembling in a way she never let anyone see.

“I don’t understand,” she murmured against my shoulder, her voice smaller than it had any right to be. “They just… said I had to stay.”

I wrapped my arms around her carefully. I saw the split at the corner of her mouth. The scratches along her skin that looked more like the aftermath of nails and impulse than anything else.

Five seconds.

That’s all it must have taken.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said as steadily as I could. “Mr. Cross is here. He’ll handle this.”

She pulled back just enough to look at me.

“I didn’t want to drag you into this,” she said quickly, like it was somehow her fault I had to be there. “I didn’t have a choice. Zoey and Christian are in the middle of the ocean heading back to Verdania and… I thought about calling Dante, but…”

“You didn’t drag me into anything.” I touched her face gently, cutting her off. “You did exactly what you were supposed to do. I’m your husband.”

Cross stepped closer, greeted Gwen with a respectful nod, and began speaking with the officer. There were a few more minutes of formal phrases, signatures, IDs checked. The usual bureaucratic theater.

Gwen answered their questions with that composure I knew well. Executive Gwen trying to contain Woman Gwen.

And finally, they let us leave.

The night air hit me like I’d just broken the surface after being underwater too long.

“Let’s sit for a minute,” Cross said, nodding toward a small café nearby. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order dressed up politely.

We went in. I pulled out Gwen’s chair without thinking. She sat and immediately took my hands across the table, gripping them like if she let go, everything would slip through her fingers.

“Gwen, I need you to be completely precise with me,” Cross began, direct because there was no room for softness. “An assault report has been filed. Aggravated bodily harm.”

“Aggravated?” Gwen repeated, and I saw panic flash behind her eyes. “It was a fight. A shove. I… I slapped her. I didn’t-”

“I understand what you believe happened,” Cross interrupted calmly. “Now I’m going to tell you what’s in the report.”

He unlocked his phone and turned the screen toward us.

Gwen looked once and went completely still.

My stomach dropped with the color draining from her face.

There were photos attached to the complaint. Renee with visible marks on her face, a cut on her forehead, bruising that didn’t match a simple slap. In another image, the bathroom: blood on the floor, the mirror shattered into fragments, smears along the sink.

Gwen’s hand flew to her mouth.

“I…” She swallowed hard. “I didn’t do that.”

I watched her carefully. The shock on her face wasn’t someone caught. It was someone horrified.

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“Gwen,” I said quietly.

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She turned to me like I was the only solid thing in the room.

“I didn’t do that,” she repeated, stronger this time, as if saying it louder made it more real. “She provoked me. She said things that…” Her voice cracked, and she forced herself to breathe. “But I didn’t do that. I swear.”

I tightened my grip on her hand.

“I know.”

Cross studied us with the measured look of someone calculating risk.

“From a legal standpoint,” he said carefully, “these images tell a story. And it’s not a good one.”

“But it’s a lie,” Gwen whispered, and I saw anger begin to edge out the shock. “That’s staged.”

Cross tilted his head slightly.

“You’re suggesting she injured herself to frame you?”

Gwen closed her eyes for a second, like the idea was too insane to even say aloud, and yet-

“I’m not suggesting anything,” she replied, her voice turning firm in a way I recognized. “I’m stating a fact. I did not do that.”

Cross exhaled slowly.

“Then we will need concrete proof.” He pointed to the image of the shattered mirror. “Because right now, what we have is hallway cameras showing you both entering and you leaving first. A medical report documenting her injuries. A scene that indicates violence. And your name at the center of it.”

Gwen went pale again, and I felt the next blow coming before he said it.

“This is not only about bodily injury,” he continued. “This significantly weakens your position in the custody dispute over

Isabella.”

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