Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 723

Chapter 723

+25 Bonus

Chapter 723

Nick’s POV

The days passed. Then the weeks.

At first, I measured time by fear.

By the phone that could ring again. A legal notification. A headline. A car parked too long in front of the building. The feeling that life was only on loan.

Then, without me noticing exactly when it happened, I started measuring time by other things.

By the hour Bella woke up and went straight to the kitchen, barefoot, hair sticking up. By the routine Martina built like someone rebuilding a house with her own hands. By the way Gwen began organizing the small details of our daily life.

And by the sound of my daughter’s laughter returning without fear.

Custody had started out as temporary.

An emergency measure. A provisional residence. Words that sound neutral on paper and, in real life, mean hold your daughter tight, but don’t trust it yet.

But temporary, with Bella, was never temporary.

She had no trouble adapting to life with us again.

I did.

Because I kept waiting for the moment she would fall apart. Or regress. Or ask something I wouldn’t know how to answer.

The moment when the trauma would come to collect.

But Bella… Bella looked like a child who was finally breathing.

She went back to sleeping through the night. Went back to eating without glancing at the door like someone might walk in. Went back to talking about school. Her friends. What she dreamed about.

I wouldn’t say it was easy.

Gwen and my mother were my wall on the days I wanted to break something with my hands.

Gwen, with the right kind of coldness in the right places. Talking to the lawyer Organizing documents. Keeping the process moving without turning it into a circus. No euphoria. No celebrating too early.

Martina, with the kind of love that doesn’t argue or negotiate. She simply took Bella in, like she was telling the universe this child has a home. Has soup. Has a bed. Has arms to fall into.

And me… I learned to be a father with less fear.

What started as temporary custody became permanent custody.

It wasn’t a dramatic victory, with fireworks and tears in court. It was a sequence of steps the world calls bureaucracy and I call survival.

The judicial confirmation that Renee put Bella’s safety at risk and engaged in parental alienation was more than enough for me to regain full custody.

Her lawyer managed to secure supervised visitation for Renee.

But that required presence.

Chapter 123

+25 Bonus

It required effort.

It required facing what she’d done.

And none of that interested her.

So Renee simply disappeared again.

Sold the house in Montelira and vanished.

Only this time, Bella didn’t carry the weight of thinking her mother left because she was happier without her.

This time, the whole world had seen.

This time, abandonment had no room to become a romantic story.

And as much as I hated what she had done, I recognized one thing. It was better this way.

One night, weeks later, I was lying beside Gwen, and the silence in the apartment no longer felt like a threat!

It was just silence.

I stared up at the ceiling and thought about how my life could have shattered completely and still… here it was.

Gwen was lying on her side, facing me, her hair spread across the pillow. I ran my fingers along her waist, feeling the curve of her belly, already more present, and thought of Clara as something real. Not hope.

I let out a breath, and the words slipped out before I could think too much.

“If any of this did anything… it took that trauma off Bella’s shoulders,” I said. “She won’t grow up thinking it was her fault her mother left. That Renee was happier without her.”

Gwen stayed quiet for a second.

Then her mouth moved, small. Almost sad.

“She hasn’t asked about her mom again, has she?” Gwen said.

I let out a quiet laugh. It was inevitable.

“Of course she asks,” I replied. “Every day.”

Gwen laughed too.

Lately, Bella had dropped the Gwen and started calling Gwen Mom.

It was just child logic, applied with conviction.

If Gwen was the mother of her future little sister, then Gwen was her mother too.

And Gwen would never correct her.

I saw the way Gwen reacted when she heard it.

Like that word healed something old inside her.

Gwen turned toward me, pretending seriousness.

“The biological mother,” she corrected, in a bureaucratic tone that made me laugh harder. “She hasn’t asked about the biological mother again, has she?”

I nodded.

+25 Bonus

“No,” I said. “She’s happy the way things are.”

Gwen rested her hand on mine.

“With our family,” she added.

I took a deep breath.

The word our still startled me sometimes.

I looked at Gwen and felt a kind of gratitude that didn’t fit into speeches.

“And speaking of family…” I began.

Her gaze sharpened.

“I have a surprise for you tomorrow.”

Her eyebrows rose.

“For you. For Bella. For Martina…” I continued, choosing my words like I was handing over something fragile. “For Clara. For our family.”

Gwen smiled, suspicious.

“Really? What?”

I closed my eyes for a second, theatrically, just to annoy her.

“If I tell you, it stops being a surprise.”

Gwen smacked my shoulder lightly.

“You’re the worst.”

I laughed.

She leaned in and kissed me slowly, like life had finally given us permission to be soft again.

“I can’t wait,” she whispered.

I rested my forehead against hers..

“Me neither,” I replied.

ப

Comments

Support

Share

3/3

Chapter 124

+25 Bonus