Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 729

Chapter 729

Nick’s POV

I’d spent my whole life training myself to stay in control-out in the fields, in the cellar, with the accounts, through every disaster. But nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared you for the moment when the entire world turned into one single arrow pointing to one place: The hospital. Now.

I didn’t remember getting off the stage.

I remembered hands pulling back. Someone making space. Christian saying something that didn’t register. Zoey already on the phone, terrifyingly efficient. I remember Martina’s face-pale with shock but steady with authority-pulling Bella close.

“I’ve got her,” Martina said. “Go.”

Bella grabbed her grandmother’s dress with both hands, her eyes wide, but she didn’t cry. She just looked at me and Gwen with that quiet kind of courage only kids have.

“Go with Mommy,” she said.

I wanted to answer. To kiss her forehead. To tell her everything would be okay.

But “okay” was in the car. In Gwen’s seatbelt. In getting there as fast as possible without turning the whole city into a risk.

The city blurred.

Not because I was driving like a maniac, but because I was driving with the kind of focus that makes everything outside the road feel unreal.

“Does it hurt?” I asked, eyes locked ahead.

“It’s tightening,” she said. “Comes and goes.”

“Contractions.”

I said the word like it was both a diagnosis and a prayer.

Gwen let out a short, irritated sound.

“Don’t narrate, Nick.”

I almost laughed.

“I’m not narrating. I’m just…” I stopped, because there wasn’t a right word for it. “I’m here.”

She squeezed my hand, and I felt the heat of her skin seep into mine.

I pulled up to the emergency entrance, got out before the engine was even fully off, rushed around to her side, and helped her

out. She leaned into me, and for a second I felt the weight of her-not just her body, but everything resting on me.

“Hi, we need obstetrics,” I told the first person in scrubs I saw. My voice came out steady. I held on to that.

A nurse appeared almost instantly.

“Name?”

“Gwen Kensington Valemont.”

She glanced at Gwen’s belly, then at her face.

“Did your water break?”

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Gwen nodded.

“I’m having contractions.”

“Wheelchair.”

It came fast. Gwen lowered herself into it, breathing shorter now, and I pushed like it was the only thing that mattered in the world.

Because it was.

I heard questions. Answers. Numbers. Dates. I heard Gwen saying “yes” and “no” in that controlled tone, like she was still in a meeting.

“Dilation?” a doctor asked.

“Not sure yet,” Gwen answered, her fingers gripping the armrests.

“We’ll check.”

We were moved into a room. Bright lights. Equipment. The doctor spoke fast. The nurse even faster. Gwen breathed, and I breathed with her, trying to match her rhythm like that might somehow help.

“You’re going to be okay,” I said quietly.

Gwen looked at me with that mix of affection and irritation.

“I know,” she said, almost like a challenge. “But I’m still allowed to complain.”

I pressed my forehead to hers for a second.

“Complain all you want.”

The assessment came in pieces.

“You’re in labor,” the doctor confirmed, like that was news to the woman who had just soaked the floor of an entire event.

Gwen let out a breath that sounded like “great” and “oh my God” at the same time.

“We’re going to get you ready,” the doctor continued. “Do you have a support person?”

I raised my hand like I needed to prove I existed.

“That’s me.”

“Then you need to change into proper attire. Now.”

I followed a nurse down a side hallway into a small room. She handed me a kit and gave instructions with the same efficiency as someone telling you where to sign a document.

“Take everything off. Put this on. The your hair back. Wash your hands. No watch. No accessories. You can keep your phone, but it stays in your pocket. If you use it, no flash and don’t interfere with the team.”

I looked down at my hands.

They were shaking and sweating.

I took off my watch like it had suddenly become useless. Because time in there wasn’t measured in numbers anymore. It was measured in contractions.

I pulled on the green scrubs, tied them as best as I could, scrubbed my hands until my skin protested. When 1 stepped out, the nurse glanced at me and adjusted the knot behind my neck with a kind of quiet patience that, in that moment, felt like mercy.

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“Breathe, dad,” she said simply.

I swallowed hard.

Dad.

I went back into the room.

Gwen was lying down, hair tied back, eyes closed, jaw set.

“You look beautiful,” I said. It sounded ridiculous, but it was true.

She opened her eyes.

“You’re shaking,” she pointed out.

I tried to hide my hand, and she let out a soft laugh-until a contraction cut it off and changed her entire face.

She pulled in a breath. I did the same.

When she grabbed my hand, I really felt it.

This wasn’t the strength of a small woman.

It was full-body strength.

“Nick,” she said through her teeth.

“I’m here.”

“If I break your fingers, you don’t get to complain.”

“I won’t complain.”

The team moved in and out, adjusting things, speaking in clinical terms, checking monitors. I heard Clara’s heartbeat through a machine, and it made me want to cry-and fight anything that tried to mess with that sound.

“She’s doing great,” the doctor said.

Gwen exhaled, and I felt something in my chest loosen.

The contractions came closer together.

Gwen cried out once-short, sharp, more anger than fear. Then she gripped my hand like she wanted to rip it off and replace it with her own, splitting the burden.

“Look at me,” I said again.

She did.

And I saw everything in that moment.

The woman who chose me when I was broken. The woman who held my daughter like she was her own. The slight tremble at the corner of her mouth-and the raw, unshakable strength everywhere else.

“You can do this,” I told her.

“I know,” she answered-and this time it sounded like an order to her own body,

“Now,” the doctor said. “Gwen, when the contraction comes, you push. I’ll count.”

I pressed my forehead to hers.

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“I’m here,” I repeated, because it was the only thing that mattered.

It came.

Gwen pushed.

She groaned, then cried out, and my stomach twisted, my heart landing somewhere it didn’t belong. I wanted to pull the pain out of her with my hands. I wanted to take it from her. I wanted anything but this.

But all I could do was stay.

So I stayed.

Another contraction.

Another count.

Time stopped existing the way it used to. I only existed between her breathing and mine.

“You’re doing great,” someone said.

“One more,” the doctor instructed.

Gwen opened her eyes, and for a second-I saw fear.

I cupped her face gently.

“I’m here,” I said for the third time, like saying it could build something solid around us.

She took a breath, held it, pushed.

The entire room seemed to hold its breath with her.

A brief silence.

A suspended second.

And then-

A full cry that was clear and alive. It was a sound that meant life and family.

It was a sound that said everything was okay now.

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