Hired a Gigolo, Got a Billionaire

Chapter 688 Nick's POV Three days isn't enough time for anyone to pull themselves together. But it's more than enough time for the world to decide what it wants to do with you. Cross called in the middle of a morning | was pretending was normal. The kind of normal where | sign off on construction paperwork, answer supplier messages, and act like my brain isn't split in two. One half working. The other counting how many times Bella blinked differently since the interview. "Valemont?" His voice was direct. No good morning.

"The temporary custody hearing's been scheduled." | froze where | stood. The noise from the site turned into a dull hum. "When?" "Today." A short pause. "Two o'clock." | felt the ground shift under me. Not enough to fall. Just enough to remind me how heavy my body suddenly was. That physical reminder that | wasn't in control. ---- "Today..." "Yes. And | need you here." His voice lowered. "Calm. No improvising. Understood?" | looked up at the gray sky and thought, no improvising. Lately, my entire life had been improvising. "Understood." | hung up and stood there for a few seconds.

Breathing the way I'd taught Bella when she got anxious. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. The difference was, | wasn't seven. And breathing didn't perform miracles. | got in the car and drove to Florentia like | was going to retrieve a piece of myself I'd left behind somewhere. Gwen opened the door before | even knocked. Like she knew. Like ever since she stepped into my life, she'd developed some kind of radar for when | was about to break. She was ina sweatshirt, her hair tied back carelessly, but she still looked like... Gwen. The woman the world saw as unstoppable.

The woman who, right then, looked more human than I'd ever seen her. "Cross?" she asked. Just one word. But it carried everything. ---- | nodded. "Temporary hearing. Today." The silence between us wasn't empty. It was full of what ifs. Full of how. Full of what is she going to try now? Gwen rested her fingertips lightly on my arm. A small touch, like she was steadying something on the verge of falling. "Do you want me to come?" It sounded like a simple question. It wasn't. It meant, Do you want me beside you if they try to take your daughter? Do you want me in the line of fire? | did.

was also afraid. Afraid her presence would become an argument. "| do," | said, honesty beating calculation. "But you don't have to. Not if you don't want to." She gave me a short, humorless smile. "Nick, I'm not letting you walk in

"Im not shaking." "Okay," she accepted the lie without arguing. "But your hand's turning white." | loosened my grip on the wheel, like that would fix it. It didn't. The courthouse was a building I'd seen from the

case files under his pillow. ---- "Valemont," he said, shaking my hand. Then he looked at Gwen and gave her a respectful nod.

or change something." | swallowed. "Technical report..." | repeated, the term already making my skin crawl. "From the interview and home visit, yes." He didn't say social worker.

when she saw us. "Nick," she said. | hated the way she used my name like it belonged to her. "Gwen." | didn't respond. Neither did Gwen. Renee smiled. Small. Controlled. And | saw the performance behind it. 'Look how calm | am. Look how I'm the mother. Look how they're the chaos.' Her lawyer leaned in and whispered something. She nodded and sat back down, but her eyes never left us. Cross made a subtle motion with his hand. "Don't look

against her knee. A tiny tell "Lhate places like this," she whispered. | would've laughed, if I'd still had that in me. ---- "Me too." Time passed in a cruel way. Not real time.