“Watching you drive makes me want you,” I told him, noting how his easy grip on the wheel tightened.
“Christ.” He glanced at me. “You have a transportation fetish.”
“I have a Gideon fetish.” My voice lowered. “It’s been weeks.”
“And I hate every second of it. This is torment for me, Eva. I can’t focus. I can’t sleep. I lose my temper at the slightest irritants. I’m in hell without you.”
I never wanted him to suffer, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make my own misery better knowing he was missing me as much as I was missing him.
I twisted in my seat to face him. “Why are you doing this to us?”
“I had an opportunity and I took it.” His jaw firmed. “This separation is the price. It won’t last forever. I need you to be patient.”
I shook my head. “No, Gideon. I can’t. Not anymore.”
“You’re not leaving me. I won’t let you.”
“I’ve already left. Don’t you see that? I’m living my life and you’re not in it.”
“I’m in it every way I can be right now.”
“By having Angus following me around? Come on. That’s not a relationship.” I leaned my cheek against the seat. “Not one I want anyway.”
“Eva.” He exhaled harshly. “My silence is the lesser of two evils. I feel like whether I explain or not, I’ll drive you away, but explaining carries the greatest risk. You think you want to know, but if I tell you, you’ll regret it. Trust me when I say there are some aspects of me you don’t want to see.”
“You have to give me something to work with.” I set my hand on his thigh and felt the muscle bunch, then twitch in response to my touch. “I’ve got nothing right now. I’m empty.”
He set his hand over mine. “You trust me. Despite what you see to the contrary, you’ve come to trust in what you know. That’s huge, Eva. For both of us. For us, period.”
“There is no us.”
“Stop saying that.”
“You wanted my blind trust and you have it, but that’s all I can give you. You’ve shared so little of yourself and I’ve lived with it because I had you. And now I don’t—”
“You have me,” he protested.
“Not the way I need you.” I lifted one shoulder in an awkward shrug. “You’ve given me your body and I’ve been greedy with it, because that’s the only way you’re really open to me. And now I don’t have that, and when I look at what I do have, it’s just promises. It’s not enough for me. In the absence of you, all I have are a pile of things you won’t tell me.”
He stared straight ahead, his profile rigid. I pulled my hand out from under his and twisted the other way, giving him my back while I looked out the window at the teeming city.
“If I lose you, Eva,” he said hoarsely, “I have nothing. Everything I’ve done is so I don’t lose you.”
“I need more.” I rested my forehead against the glass. “If I can’t have you on the outside, I need to have you on the inside, but you’ve never let me in.”
We drove in silence, crawling along through the morning traffic. A fat drop of rain hit the windshield, followed by another.
“After my dad died,” he said softly, “I had a hard time dealing with the changes. I remember that people liked him, liked being around him. He was making everyone rich, right? And then suddenly the world flipped on its head and everyone hated him. My mother, who’d been so happy all the time, was crying nonstop. And she and my dad were fighting every day. That’s what I remember most—the constant yelling and screaming.”
I looked at him, studying his stony profile, but I didn’t say anything, afraid to lose the moment.
“She remarried right away. We moved out of the city. She got pregnant. I never knew when I’d run across someone my dad had fucked over, and I took a lot of shit for it from other kids. From their parents. Teachers. It was big news. To this day, people still talk about my dad and what he did. I was so angry. At everyone. I had tantrums all the time. I broke things.”
He stopped at a light, breathing heavily. “After Christopher came along, I got worse, and when he was five, he imitated me, pitching a fit at dinner and shoving his plate across the table and onto the floor. My mom was pregnant with Ireland then, and she and Vidal decided it was time to put me into therapy.”
Tears slid down my face at the picture he painted of the child he’d once been—scared and hurting and feeling like an outsider in his mom’s new life.
“They came out to the house—the shrink and a doctoral candidate she was supervising. It started out all right. They both were nice, attractive, patient. But soon the shrink was spending most of the time counseling my mother, who was having a difficult pregnancy in addition to two young boys who were out of control. I was left alone with him more and more frequently.”
Gideon pulled over and put the car into park. His hands gripped the wheel with white-knuckled force, his throat working. The steady patter of rain softened, leaving us alone with our painful truths.
“You don’t have to tell me any more,” I whispered, unbuckling my seat belt and reaching out to him. I touched his face with fingertips damp with my tears.
His nostrils flared on a sharply indrawn breath. “He made me come. Every goddamned time, he wouldn’t stop until I came, so he could say I liked it.”
I kicked off my shoes and pulled his hand away from the wheel so I could straddle his lap and hold him. His grip on me was excruciatingly tight, but I didn’t complain. We were on an insanely busy street, with endless cars rumbling past on one side and a crush of pedestrians on the other, but neither of us cared. He was shaking violently, as if he were sobbing uncontrollably, but he made no sound and shed no tears.
The sky cried for him, the rain coming down hard and angry, steaming off the ground.
Holding his head in my hands, I pressed my wet face to his. “Hush, baby. I understand. I know how that feels, the way they gloat afterward. And the shame and confusion and guilt you felt. It’s not your fault. You didn’t want it. You didn’t enjoy it.”
“I let him touch me at first,” he whispered. “He said it was my age . . . hormones . . . I needed to masturbate and I’d be calmer. Less angry all the time. He touched me, said he’d show me how to do it right. That I was doing it wrong—”
“Gideon, no.” I pulled back to look at him, imagining in my mind how it would develop from that point on, all the things that would have been said to make it seem like Gideon was the instigator in his own rape. “You were a child in the hands of an adult who knew all the right buttons to push. They want to make it our fault so they have no culpability in their crime, but it’s not true.”
His eyes were huge and dark in his pale face. I pressed my lips gently to his, tasting my tears. “I love you. And I believe you. And none of this was your fault.”
Gideon’s hands were in my hair, holding me in place as he ravaged my mouth with desperate kisses. “Don’t leave me.”
“Leave you? I’m going to marry you.”
He inhaled sharply. Then he pulled me closer, his hands careless and rough as they slid over me.
Impatient rapping against the window made me jerk in surprise. A cop in rain gear and safety vest looked at us through the untinted front window, scowling at us from beneath the brim of her hat. “You’ve got thirty seconds to move on or I’ll cite you both for public indecency.”
Embarrassed, my face flaming, I climbed back into my seat, sprawling in an ungraceful tumble. Gideon waited until I had my seat belt on, then put the car in drive, tapped his brow in a salute to the officer, and pulled back out into traffic.
He reached for my hand, lifted it to his lips, and kissed my fingertips. “I love you.”
I froze, my heart pounding.
Linking our fingers together, he set them on his thigh. The windshield wipers slid from side to side, their rhythmic tempo mocking the racing of my pulse.
Swallowing hard, I whispered, “Say that again.”
br /> He slowed at a light. Turning his head, he looked at me. He looked weary, as if all his usual pulsing energy had been expended and he was running on fumes. But his eyes were warm and bright, the curve of his mouth loving and hopeful. “I love you. Still not the right word, but I know you want to hear it.”
“I need to hear it,” I agreed softly.
“As long as you understand the difference.” The light changed and he drove on. “People get over love. They can live without it, they can move on. Love can be lost and found again. But that won’t happen for me. I won’t survive you, Eva.”
My breath caught at the look on his face when he glanced at me.
“I’m obsessed with you, angel. Addicted to you. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted or needed, everything I’ve ever dreamed of. You’re everything. I live and breathe you. For you.”
I placed my other hand over our joined ones. “There’s so much out there for you. You just don’t know it yet.”
“I don’t need anything else. I get out of bed every morning and face the world because you’re in it.” He turned the corner and pulled up in front of the Crossfire behind the Bentley. He killed the engine, released his seat belt, and took a deep breath. “Because of you, the world makes sense to me in a way it didn’t before. I have a place now, with you.”
Suddenly I understood why he’d worked so hard, why he was so insanely successful at such a young age. He’d been driven to find his place in the world, to be more than an outsider.
His fingertips brushed across my cheek. I’d missed that touch so much, my heart bled at feeling it again.
“When are you coming back to me?” I asked softly.
“As soon as I can.” Leaning forward, he pressed his lips to mine. “Wait.”
Chapter 19
When I got to my desk, I found a voice mail from Christopher. I debated for a moment whether I should continue to pursue the truth. Christopher wasn’t a man I wanted to invite any deeper into my life.
But I was haunted by the look that had been on Gideon’s face when he told me about his past, and the sound of his voice, so hoarse with remembered shame and agony.
I felt his pain like my own.
In the end, there was no other choice. I returned Christopher’s call and asked him out to lunch.
“Lunch with a beautiful woman?” There was a smile in his voice. “Absolutely.”
“Any time you have free this week would be great.”
“How about today?” he suggested. “I occasionally get a craving for that deli you took me to.”
“Works for me. Noon?”
We set the time and I hung up just as Will stopped by my cubicle. He gave me puppy-dog eyes and said, “Help.”
I managed a smile. “Sure.”
The two hours flew by. When noon rolled around, I went downstairs and found Christopher waiting in the lobby. His auburn hair was a wild mess of short, loose waves and his grayish-green eyes sparkled. Wearing black slacks and a white dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves, he looked confident and attractive. He greeted me with his boyish grin, and it struck me then—I couldn’t ask him about what he’d said to his mother long ago. He’d been a child himself, living in a dysfunctional home.
“I’m stoked you called me,” he said. “But I have to admit, I’m curious about why. I’m wondering if it has anything to do with Gideon getting back together with Corinne.”
That hurt. Terribly. I had to suck in a deep breath, then release my tension with it. I knew better. I had no doubts. But I was honest enough to admit that I wanted ownership of Gideon. I wanted to claim him, possess him, have everyone know that he was mine.
“Why do you hate him so much?” I asked, preceding him through the revolving doors. Thunder rumbled in the distance, but the hot, driving rain had ceased, leaving the streets awash in dirty water.
He joined me on the sidewalk and set his hand at the small of my back. It sent a shiver of revulsion through me. “Why? You want to exchange notes?”
“Sure. Why not?”
By the time lunch was over, I’d gotten a pretty good idea of what fueled Christopher’s hatred. All he cared about was the man he saw in the mirror. Gideon was more handsome, richer, more powerful, more confident . . . just more. And Christopher was obviously being eaten alive by jealousy. His memories of Gideon were colored by the belief that Gideon had received all the attention as a child. Which might have been true, considering how troubled he was. Worse, the sibling rivalry had crossed over into their professional lives when Cross Industries acquired majority shares in Vidal Records. I made a mental note to ask Gideon why he’d done that.
We stopped outside the Crossfire to part ways. A taxi racing through a huge puddle sent a plume of foaming water right at me. Swearing under my breath, I dodged the spray and almost stumbled into Christopher.
“I’d like to take you out sometime, Eva. Dinner, perhaps?”
“I’ll get in touch,” I hedged. “My roommate’s really sick right now and I need to be around for him as much as possible.”
“You’ve got my number.” He smiled and kissed the back of my hand, a gesture I’m sure he thought was charming. “And I’ll keep in touch.”
I made my way through the Crossfire’s revolving doors and headed for the turnstiles.
One of the black-suited security guards at the desk stopped me. “Miss Tramell.” He smiled. “Could you come with me, please?”
Curious, I followed him to the security office where I’d originally gotten my employee badge when I was hired. He opened the door for me, and Gideon was waiting inside.
Leaning back against the desk with his arms crossed, he looked beautiful and fuckable and wryly amused. The door shut behind me and he sighed, shaking his head.
“Are there other people in my life you plan on harassing on my behalf?” he asked.
“Are you spying on me again?”
“Keeping a protective eye on you.”
I arched a brow at him. “And how do you know if I harassed him or not?”
His faint smile widened. “Because I know you.”
“Well, I didn’t harass him. Really. I didn’t,” I argued when he shot me a look of disbelief. “I was going to, but then I didn’t. And why are we in this room?”
“Are you on some kind of crusade, angel?”
We were talking around each other, and I wasn’t sure why. And I didn’t care, because something else struck me as more significant.
“Do you realize that your reaction to my lunch with Christopher is very calm? And so is my reaction to your spending time with Corinne? We’re both reacting totally different from the way we would have just a month ago.”
He was different. He smiled, and there was something unique about that warm curving of his lips. “We trust each other, Eva. It feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Trusting you doesn’t mean I’m any less baffled by what’s going on between us. Why are we hiding in this office?”
“Plausible deniability.” Gideon straightened and came to me. Cupping my face in his hands, he tilted my head back and kissed me sweetly. “I love you.”
“You’re getting good at saying that.”
He ran his fingers through my new bangs. “Remember that night, when you had your nightmare and I was out late? You wondered where I was.”
“I still wonder.”
“I was at the hotel, clearing out that room. My fuck pad, as you called it. Explaining that while you were puking your guts out didn’t seem to be the appropriate time.”
My breath left me in a rush. It was a relief to know where he’d been. An even bigger relief to know that the fuck pad was no more.
His gaze was soft as he looked at me. “I’d completely forgotten about it until it came up with Dr. Petersen. We both know I’ll never use it again. My girl prefers modes of transportation to beds.”
He smiled and walked out. I stared after him.
The security guard filled the open doorway and I shoved aside my roiling
thoughts to examine later, when I had the time to really grasp where they were leading me.
* * *
On the walk home, I picked up a bottle of sparkling apple juice in lieu of champagne. I saw the Bentley every now and then, following along, ever ready to pull over and pick me up. It used to irritate me, because the lingering connection it represented deepened my confusion over my breakup with Gideon. Now, the sight of it made me smile.
Dr. Petersen had been right. Abstinence and some space had cleared my head. Somehow, the distance between me and Gideon had made us stronger, made us appreciate each other more and take less for granted. I loved him more now than I ever had, and I felt that way while I was planning on a night just hanging out with my roommate, having no idea where Gideon was or who he might be with. It didn’t matter. I knew I was in his thoughts, in his heart.
My phone rang and I pulled it out of my purse. Seeing my mother’s name on the screen, I answered with, “Hi, Mom.”
“I don’t understand what they’re looking for!” she complained, sounding angry and tearful. “They won’t leave Richard alone. They went to his offices today and took copies of the security tapes.”
“The detectives?”
“Yes. They’re relentless. What do they want?”
I turned the corner to reach my street. “To catch a killer. They probably just want to see Nathan coming and going. Check the timing or something.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Yeah, it’s also just a guess. Don’t worry. There’s nothing to find because Stanton’s innocent. Everything will be okay.”
“He’s been so good about this, Eva,” she said softly. “He’s so good to me.”
I sighed, hearing the pleading note in her voice. “I know, Mom. I get it. Dad gets it. You’re where you should be. No one’s judging you. We’re all good.”