Hired a Gigolo, Got a Billionaire

Chapter 427 Marcus' POV Her saying that name felt like a knife straight to my chest. My entire body locked up, every muscle tightening at once. It was as if the ground had vanished beneath my feet, leaving me suspended in a familiar, hollow void. Aria. How did she know that name? How was it even possible that it had reached her? "Where did you hear that name?" I asked, my voice coming out rougher than I meant it to. Madeline looked at me with an expression that was half sadness, half resolve. "Sometimes you call her name in your sleep." The revelation hit me like a second blow. In my sleep.

Of course it was in my sleep. I had thought I had that under control, that years of intensive therapy had finally helped me process the memories that still surfaced when my guard was down. I had spent so long working meticulously to find ways to manage everything that lived in my head. Breathing techniques. Medication when necessary. I believed I'd finally learned how to coexist with those feelings, how to organize them so they no longer interfered with my daily life. But maybe being back in Valentia for so long had unintentionally stirred things up. The familiar streets of Florentia.

The smells of my childhood. Hearing Valentian spoken constantly around me. All those sensory triggers quietly working together to dig up things I'd fought so hard to store away in safe mental compartments. I felt my posture shift automatically, my shoulders stiffening, my jaw clenching. A defensive reaction I knew well. Emotional armor I'd learned to put on whenever I felt threatened or too exposed. at's none of your business," I said, my tone sharper than I intended, harsher than the moment deserved. aw Madeline flinch slightly.

looking at a mirror of my own defense mechanism. "Then don't tell me we don't have secrets," she shot back, her voice cutting. "Because you clearly do." "That's in the past," I said, trying to keep control of the situation, trying to

should have. There was an uncomfortable truth there, a sharp

reason any of this even happened in the first place." "At least I don't hide it," she shot back, her eyes blazing with an indignation I could understand. "You know 1/3 everything about Dominic. About what he did to me. About why we're here." "Because you didn't have a choice," I snapped,

details?" I realized immediately that I'd stepped into dangerous territory, that my own defenses had pushed me to say something cruel and completely unnecessary. "That's not what I meant," I started, trying to backtrack. "It's exactly what you meant," she cut in, her voice heavy with a pain that made it painfully clear how deeply my words had hurt her. "And you know what? At least my past doesn't control me to the point where I call out other names when I sleep with you." The

people... when I was with Madeline. But clearly, there were parts of my mind I didn't fully control. Manifestations of memories and emotions that hadn't been completely processed, despite all the years of therapy. "You don't understand," I said, but even to my own ears it sounded weak, like a flimsy excuse for something I didn't fully understand myself. "Then explain it to me," Madeline challenged, taking a step toward