Hired a Gigolo, Got a Billionaire

Chapter 189 The abandoned warehouse reeked of mold and machine oil. It was a nauseating mix that made my stomach twist even worse than it already was. Matt had finally stopped crying, worn out from the stress, but I could feel the tension radiating from his tiny body as he lay in his stroller beside me. Even as small as he was, he seemed to sense that something was terribly wrong. Lawrence paced near the entrance, glancing now and then at his watch before peering through the grimy window that overlooked the dirt road outside.

He looked nothing like the polished, well-groomed man I'd seen at family events. His hair was disheveled, his beard was uneven, and his clothes were wrinkled and stained. It was clear that weeks on the run had taken their toll. "You must be hungry," he said suddenly, turning toward me and motioning to a paper bag resting on a makeshift table of wooden crates. "I brought sandwiches." I stared at him in disbelief. "I'm not eating anything you give me," I said coldly. "I'm not taking the chance of being poisoned." Lawrence stopped pacing, looking genuinely insulted.

"Poisoned?" he repeated, as if the thought were absurd. "Zoey, I'm not a murderer. I never have been. Everything that's happened-" he gestured vaguely around the warehouse. "I'm only in this situation because of your little friend." "My friend?" I asked, though I already knew who he meant. "Elise," he spat out the name like it tasted bitter. "That woman is impulsive. She acts without thinking about the consequences. If she'd just followed the original plan, none of this would've happened." Despite the fear tightening my chest, curiosity flickered.

Maybe if I kept him talking, I could learn something useful that Christian or the police could use to find us. What original plan?" I asked, forcing my voice to stay calm, almost conversational. He studied me for a moment, as if deciding whether to answer, then shrugged like it no longer mattered. "The plan was simple," he said, resuming his slow pacing. "The goal was to drive a wedge between you and Christian. Make him believe you'd betrayed him, that you leaked his project to a competitor.

Get him to leave you on his own." "And then?" "Then he'd marry Francesca, as he was supposed to," Lawrence said, as if it were the most logical thing in the world. "The Kensington and Montgomery families would merge. Francesca would take an important role in the company, and the Montgomery winery would become a branch of Kensington Enterprises." I began to see the twisted reasoning behind it all. "And you'd control that branch through Francesca," I said quietly. "Exactly." Lawrence gave a thin, bitter smile. "Francesca agreed to give me full access to the Montgomery operations.

preferred to call it investment diversification," Lawrence replied dryly. "It worked perfectly for years. Small sums

the Euradian board, cut off my income streams, and install audits that made it impossible for me to keep the operations running." "So you decided to get rid of me," I said, my voice cold, "so he'd marry Francesca instead." "It was the perfect solution," Lawrence admitted without shame. "Francesca still had feelings for Christian. She was willing

disposable pawns in some financial chess game. "But something went wrong," I said. "Elise," Lawrence practically hissed her name. "That impulsive woman ruined everything. The plan was meant

pushing harder every day. And when you caught her with me..." He froze mid-sentence, realizing too late what he'd revealed. "You were sleeping with her," I finished for him. "It was circumstantial," he snapped defensively. "Francesca introduced her as an

fairytale." 1 ""Obsession' would be a better word," I said bitterly. "And when she saw that even after everything, I was still happy, she completely lost control." I remembered that moment at the Verdania Wine Expo, walking into the small tasting room and

question seemed to hit something raw inside him. He stopped pacing and stood still for a long moment, shoulders tense, eyes distant. "You want to know my excuse?" he said finally, his voice low and thick with resentment that had

was like I stopped existing. Everything was Christian this, Christian that. The future of the company. The