Hired a Gigolo, Got a Billionaire

Chapter 359 Madeline's POV I hadn't been able to fall back asleep after he went out to take the call. I pretended to be asleep when I heard his careful footsteps leaving the bed, but the truth was I stayed wide awake, listening to fragments of the conversation drifting in from the deck. I couldn't hear everything, but certain words reached me with unsettling clarity: "board," "family," "Matt," and, most of all, an excited female voice shouting something about a baby. Zoey. That was the name I caught.

A woman named Zoey talking about first words, about "Daddy" and "Mommy." Lying there in the dark, it was impossible not to connect the dots in a way that made my stomach twist. A man taking calls in the middle of the night, talking about family, about a baby, with a woman who clearly had enough intimacy to call him at any hour. The conclusions felt almost too obvious. When he finally came back inside, trying to be quiet, I kept my eyes closed for a few seconds longer. But the tightness in my chest was unbearable. I couldn't pretend I hadn't heard anything.

I couldn't lie there acting like everything was fine when every instinct I had was screaming that I was about to make a mistake. I opened my eyes and found him standing in the middle of the room, still holding his phone. Even in the low light, I could see the look of someone caught off guard. "Are you married?" The question came out blunt, with no cushioning. There was no gentle way to ask it. He looked at me with an expression that mixed surprise with something that almost resembled amusement. For a second, I thought he might laugh, and that only made my nerves worse.

"If I were married, do you really think I'd be here with you?" he tried to ask, but I shook my head before he could finish. "Not this time," I said, sitting up in bed and pulling the sheet around me. "I don't want half-answers. I don't want games. I don't want riddles. I want a straight answer." The shift in my tone must have been obvious, because I saw his posture change instantly. The playful edge disappeared, replaced by seriousness. "I heard the call, Apollo," I said. "I heard you talking about family. About a baby.

a conversation-" "Enough pieces," I cut him off. "And look, I get that we have this agreement about not sharing personal information. But this is different. I don't want to be involved with a committed man." "Involved?" he repeated, and there was something provocative in the way he said it, like he was weighing the word carefully. Heat crept up my neck. Maybe I'd revealed more than I meant to about how I felt, but it was too late to

to someone else what was done to me. 1/3 +25 Bonus Mentioning my own wound seemed to hit him harder than I expected. His expression softened completely, and he approached the bed slowly. "I'm not married," he said, and there was a firmness in his voice that hadn't been there before. "I'm not taken. I don't have a girlfriend. There's no one waiting for me back

in Verdania, it was still a reasonable hour, and... well, eighty percent of the time my cousin calls, it's either work or family." I watched him closely, searching for signs of a lie-hesitation, tension, anything that might suggest he wasn't being completely honest. But his posture stayed relaxed, and his eyes held mine steadily.

the weight of my suspicion ease little by little, though part of me still resisted fully letting

information, didn't I? I broke our agreement." "It was necessary," I replied. "Still," he said, smiling, and there was something mischievous'in that smile that immediately put me on edge." Now you owe me one too." "What do you mean?" "One personal detail," he explained, settling more comfortably on the bed, closer to me. "Just to keep things balanced. That's fair, don't you think?" I considered it. In a