Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 704

Chapter 704

Gwen’s POV

The drive back to Florentia felt fast.

Bella was in the backseat, clutching a pillow like something soft could convince the world to be less hard. Nick drove with both hands tight on the wheel, his entire body still locked in alert mode.

I sat in the passenger seat with my phone in my hand and my mind split in two places: here, under the seatbelt… and back there, in the sentence I had murmured to the police officer.

Strange men.

I kept repeating it in my head, trying to figure out which drawer it belonged in. What kind of strange? What kind of men? What kind of visits?

I glanced in the rearview mirror.

Bella was asleep, mouth slightly open, exhausted from being brave all day. Her hair stuck to her forehead, and there was a faint smudge of dried gelato on the corner of her shirt.

Nick caught my look.

“She asleep?” he asked, without taking his eyes off the road.

“She’s asleep,” I said.

He exhaled slowly, like it was the first real breath he’d taken in hours.

When we pulled into the garage of the building, the elevator doors opened before we even parked.

Martina.

She was walking toward us faster than a woman who always seemed to be the steadiest person in the room. Her face was pale, and her eyes… her eyes were wet in a way I had almost never seen.

“Bella…” she said. That was all.

Nick shut off the engine, opened his door, and within seconds Martina was at the car, trying to reach her granddaughter without waking her with her own urgency.

Bella stirred in the middle of it and when she recognized her grandmother, her face softened instantly.

“Grandma…” she whispered.

Martína pulled her into a careful embrace.

“My love… my love…” she kept saying.

I stood there for a second, unsure where to put my hands. I had always believed I knew how to handle a crisis. But there is no manual for “child returns from hell in one piece.”

Martina looked at Nick.

“I made her favorite dinner,” she said, as if that could restore order to the universo. “It’s ready.”

Nick swallowed, his throat moving in that way that betrays a man trying not to cry.

“Thank you, Mom,” he said.

We went upstairs, and Martina guided Bella to the table with gentle authority.

Chapter 704

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“You eat a little first. Then you can play,” she declared.

Bella ate the way tired children eat. Slowly. Like every bite had to convince her stomach it was safe again.

Nick sat beside her the entire time, his arm resting against the back of her chair as if he needed physical proof that she was still there.

I moved around the kitchen like a useful shadow. Glasses. Water. Napkins. Nothing that required a knife, because Nick still had that reflex of steering me away from anything that might turn into an accident.

After dinner, Martina hesitated in the hallway.

“I’ll stay up if you need me,” she said.

“We’ve got it,” Nick answered firmly.

She hesitated for another second. Then she kissed her granddaughter’s forehead, kissed her son’s cheek, and looked at me.

That look wasn’t just gratitude. It was something deeper. As if she were saying: you held the line.

I didn’t answer with words.

When her bedroom door closed, the apartment was ours again.

“Wanna play?” Bella asked, already sliding off her chair.

“Of course,” Nick answered immediately, like the word itself was a vow.

We went into the living room.

Bella picked a simple card game, one of those memory ones, and spread the cards across the rug with almost comical seriousness.

“Rules,” she announced, raising one finger. “No cheating.”

I looked at Nick.

“That feels personal,” I said.

Bella shot me a look I recognized immediately as, ‘Gwen, don’t test me.’

“I never cheat,” Nick declared with ridiculous dignity.

“Yes, you do,” Bella shot back. “You make a sad face so I’ll let you win.”

Nick was speechless.

And I laughed.

We played. Bella won, lost, and won again.

And little by little, her body loosened, like playing was her way of remembering that no one was running anymore.

Later, I sat on the couch with her curled into me and Nick on the other side, and I made up a story on the spot because Bella asked for “a story without monsters.”

“No monsters,” I repeated.

“No monsters,” she confirmed.

So I told her about a little girl who ran away to buy gelato and ended up finding a magical bicycle that would only move when someone was afraid. But once the fear faded, the bicycle would lift off and fly across the sky.

Chapter 704

+25 Bonus

Bella listened with heavy eyes.

Nick leaned his head back against the couch, and I watched the exhaustion fall off him like a soaked coat.

When we went to the bedroom, Bella didn’t want to be alone.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” she asked, clutching the sheet.

“Tonight, yes,” Nick answered without hesitation.

He lay down on one side of her.

I lay down on the other.

Bella fit between us like it had always been that way.

In the dark, I felt Nick’s hand find mine.

And somewhere between Bella’s breathing turning deep and steady and Nick’s body finally letting go of its tension, I fell asleep.

The next day came too early.

I woke before the alarm with that stupid feeling that I’d forgotten something.

In bed, Nick was still asleep, his arm stretched toward Bella like even in sleep he was guarding her.

Bella was on her side, her face peaceful.

I slipped out quietly.

In the kitchen, I did the bare minimum. Poured coffee from the thermos into a mug and sat at the counter facing the window.

I wanted two minutes of functional silence.

When I picked up my phone, I knew instantly something was wrong.

It wasn’t one notification.

It was dozens.

Tags with my name.

Messages.

Alerts.

My body recognized that pattern before my brain caught up. When my name starts trending like that, something has leaked.

My first thought was the last few weeks. A new Bellucci partnership. A rumor about expansion. Some old video resurfacing. Even a luxury bag I’d bought, if someone felt creative.

I opened my profile.

And nearly dropped my coffee.

The first headline that filled the screen was in massive letters, paired with a photo of me cropped from a corporate event.

[COO of Kensington Valentia Involved in Child Kidnapping]

Underneath, in smaller font like it was clarification: Gwen Kensington accused of kidnapping stepdaughter out of jealousy toward husband’s ex-wife-and using family influence to cover it up.