Hired a Gigolo Got a Billionaire (Zoey and Christian) novel Chapter 99

Chapter 99

The bedroom door clicked softly shut behind us. Christian walked straight into the bathroom, unbuttoning his bloodstained shirt with sharp, impatient movements. I followed him in, still trying to process what had happened in the garden.

“Take off your shirt,” I said as I stepped into the spacious bathroom, where he had already opened the first aid cabinet. “I need to see how much damage he did.”

Christian shot me a look that was equal parts exhaustion and stubborn, almost childlike defiance.

“I’m fine. Most of this is his blood.”

“Shirt. Off.” My voice was firm. “Now.”

Something in my tone must have told him I wasn’t going to argue about it. With a resigned sigh, he finally stripped the ruined shirt away, revealing a torso that-despite the circumstances-was still hard not to notice. But my attention went immediately to the dark purple bruise spreading across his right ribs.

“Just a bruise,” he muttered, catching my stare.

“And your face.” I pointed at the cut above his eyebrow and the bruise beginning to bloom on his cheekbone.” Sit down.”

To my surprise, he didn’t argue. He sat on the edge of the bathtub while I grabbed a clean cloth, dampened it with warm water, and carefully started wiping the blood from his face. We stayed quiet for several minutes, the intimacy of the moment heightened by the closeness of the small room and the vulnerability he rarely let anyone see.

“Anthony said something,” I finally began as I dabbed a mild antiseptic onto the cut. “He said I looked like Francesca. When she was younger.’

The muscles under my fingers tensed instantly.

“You don’t look like her.”

“But he said—”

“He said it to get under your skin.” Christian cut me off, his tone gentler than his words.

I kept working, trying not to get distracted by the heat of his skin so close to mine.

“Still… it made me wonder. Maybe there is something. Some similarity that drew you to me.”

Christian caught my wrist, stopping my movements. His eyes, as intense as ever, locked on mine.

“There is something,” he admitted, surprising me. “A certain… fire in your eyes. An intensity.”

My heart skipped, unsure if I wanted to hear the rest.

“But that’s where the resemblance ends.” His grip on my wrist loosened into a soft caress. “Francesca used that fire to destroy, to conquer, to possess. Yours is different.”

“Different how?” The words left me in a whisper.

“Yours builds. It transforms.” A rare smile touched his lips, softening his features. “A ruined dress becomes a work of art. An impossible situation turns into an opportunity. People around you become better versions of themselves.”

The unexpected compliment caught me off guard, heat creeping up my neck.

“I didn’t know you noticed things like that.”

“I’ve been noticing a lot,” he confessed, his voice dropping lower, sending a shiver down my spine. “Probably more than I should.”

The air between us shifted, growing heavier, charged with a tension that had nothing to do with the fight earlier. I finished cleaning the cut above his eyebrow, acutely aware of how shallow my breathing had become.

“You really shouldn’t get into fights,” I murmured, trying to lighten the mood. “It doesn’t exactly fit your polished CEO image.”

“I’d get into a thousand fights for you.”

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