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.”

“We can give them a minute,” Annie insisted, clearly trying to stall.

Too late. The bathroom door opened, revealing Marcus, with Annie right behind him, an expression of I told you so written across her face.

Marcus froze at the sight: Christian shirtless, bruises visible, a cut on his brow, me looking far from put together, and the first aid kit open on the counter.

“Oh.” Marcus blinked a few times. “You were… taking care of the injuries.”

Annie’s knowing smile said she wasn’t fooled in the slightest. Her gaze swept over my state of disarray, and she raised a questioning eyebrow I chose to ignore.

“What does Joseph want?” Christian asked, his voice snapping back to professional with impressive speed, considering where we’d been only seconds earlier.

Marcus looked from Christian to me, then back, before exhaling in frustration. “We’ve got a problem. Actually, several. And we need to talk.”

The expression on his face made it clear the events in the garden had unleashed consequences far beyond bruises and a ruined shirt.

“Give us five minutes,” Christian said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Once we were alone again, the spell had broken, replaced by the weight of reality pressing down on us. Christian pulled a clean shirt from the wardrobe and slipped it on with deliberate calm.

“Christian…” I began, not entirely sure what I wanted to say.

He turned to me, his face composed once more, but his eyes still carried a different spark.

“We’ll finish this later,” he promised, his voice low. “When we’re not seconds away from being interrupted.”

I nodded, though I couldn’t help the chill that settled over me where his body had been pressed against mine only moments before. As I followed him out of the bathroom, one thought lingered in my mind: what would he have said, or what would he have confessed if Marcus and Annie had arrived just a few seconds later?