Crossfire 01 Bared to You (53 page)

“Low blow, Cary. I’m not going to be your punching bag over this. You messed up, and then you made it worse. It’s all on you.”

“Don’t get on your damn high horse. You’re sleeping with a man who’s going to rape you any day now.”

“It’s not like that!”

He snorted and leaned his hip against the counter, his green eyes filled with pain and anger. “If you’re going to make excuses for him because he’s sleeping when he attacks you, you’ll have to make those same excuses for drunks and druggies. They don’t know what they’re doing either.”

The truth of his words struck me hard, as did the fact that he was deliberately trying to wound me. “You can put down a bottle. You can’t quit sleeping.”

Straightening, Cary opened the bottle he’d selected and poured two glasses, sliding one across the counter toward me. “If anyone knows what it’s like to be involved with people who hurt you, it’s me. You love him. You want to save him. But who’s going to save you, Eva? I’m not always going to be around when you’re with him and he’s a ticking time bomb.”

“You wanna talk about being in relationships that hurt, Cary?” I shot back, deflecting him away from my painful truths. “Did you screw Trey over to protect yourself? Did you figure you’d push him away before he had the chance to disappoint you?”

Cary’s mouth curved bitterly. He tapped his glass to mine, which still sat on the counter. “Cheers to us, the seriously fucked up. At least we have each other.”

He stalked out of the room and I deflated. I’d known this was coming—the unraveling of circumstances too good to be true. Contentment and happiness didn’t exist in my life for more than a few moments at a time, and they were really only illusionary.

There was always something hidden. Lying in wait to spring up and ruin everything.

G
ideon arrived just as dinner was coming out of the oven. He had a garment bag in one hand and a laptop case in the other. I’d worried that he would try to go home alone after his session with Dr. Petersen and was relieved when he’d called to say he was on his way. Still, when I first opened the door and saw him on the threshold, a shiver of unease slid through me.

“Hey,” he said quietly, following me back into the kitchen. “Smells delicious in here.”

“I hope you’re hungry. There’s a lot of food and I’ll be surprised if Cary joins us to help eat it all.”

Gideon dropped his stuff on the breakfast bar and approached me cautiously, his gaze searching my face as he neared. “I brought some things with me to stay the night, but I’ll go if you want. At any time. Just tell me.”

I blew out my breath in a harsh rush, determined not to let fear dictate my actions. “I want you here.”

“I want to be here.” He paused beside me. “Can I hold you?”

I turned into him and squeezed him hard. “Please.”

He pressed his cheek against mine and hugged me close. The embrace wasn’t as natural and easy as we’d grown used to. There was a new wariness between us that was different from anything we’d felt before.

“How are you doing?” he murmured.

“Better now that you’re here.”

“But still nervous.” He pressed his lips to my forehead. “Me, too. I don’t know how we’re ever going to fall asleep next to each other again.”

Pulling back slightly, I looked at him. That was my fear as well, and my earlier conversation with Cary didn’t help matters.
He’s a ticking time bomb…

“We’ll figure it out,” I said.

He was quiet for a long moment. “Has Nathan ever contacted you?”

“No.” Although I had a deep-rooted fear that I might see him again one day, whether accidentally or deliberately. He was out there somewhere, breathing the same air…“Why?”

“It was on my mind today.”

I pulled back to search his face, a knot forming in my throat at how tormented he looked. “Why?”

“Because we’ve got a lot of baggage between us.”

“Are you thinking it’s too much?”

Gideon shook his head. “I can’t think that way.”

I didn’t know what to do or say. What assurances could I give him, when I wasn’t sure my love and his need would be enough to make our relationship work?

“What’s going through your mind?” he asked.

“Thoughts of food. I’m starving. Why don’t you go see if Cary wants to eat? Then we can get started on dinner.”

Gideon found Cary sleeping, so he and I ate a candlelit dinner for two at the dining table, a somewhat formal meal while lounging in the worn T-shirts and pajama bottoms we’d put on after our respective showers. I was worried about Cary, but spending quiet downtime alone with Gideon felt like just what we needed.

“I had lunch with Magdalene in my office yesterday,” he said after we’d enjoyed a few initial bites.

“Oh?” While I’d been ring shopping, Magdalene had been enjoying private time with my man?

“Don’t take that tone,” he admonished. “She ate a meal in an office covered in your flowers, with you blowing kisses from my desk. You were as much there as she was.”

“Sorry. Knee-jerk reaction.”

He lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed a quick, hard kiss to the back. “I’m relieved you can still get jealous over me.”

I sighed. My emotions had been all over the map all day; I couldn’t decide how I felt about anything. “Did you say anything to her about Christopher?”

“That was the point of the lunch. I showed her the video.”

“What?” I frowned, remembering my phone had died in his car. “How’d you do that?”

“I took your phone up to my office and pulled the video off via USB. Didn’t you notice I brought it back last night, fully charged?”

“No.” I set my silverware down. Dominant or not, Gideon and I were going to have to work on which lines crossed over into my freak-out zone. “You can’t just hack into my phone, Gideon.”

“I didn’t hack into it. You haven’t set a password yet.”

“That’s not the point! It’s a serious invasion of my fucking privacy. Jesus…” Why in hell did no one in my life understand that I had boundaries? “Would you like me rummaging through your stuff?”

“I’ve got nothing to hide.” He pulled his smartphone out of an inner pocket of his sweats and held it out to me. “And you won’t either.”

I didn’t want to get into a fight now, things were too shaky as it was, but I’d let this go long enough. “It doesn’t matter whether or not I have something I don’t want you to see. I have a right to space and privacy, and you need to ask before you help yourself to my information and my belongings. You have to stop taking whatever you want without my permission.”

“What was private about it?’ he asked with a frown. “You showed it to me yourself.”

“Don’t be like my mother, Gideon!” I shouted. “There’s only so much crazy I can handle.”

He jerked back at my vehemence, clearly surprised by how upset I was. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

I gulped down my wine, trying to rein in my temper and unease. “Sorry I’m mad? Or sorry you did it?”

After the length of several heartbeats, Gideon said, “I’m sorry you’re mad.”

He really didn’t get it. “Why don’t you see how weird this is?”

“Eva.” He sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. “I spend a quarter of every day
inside
you. When you set limits outside of that I can’t help but see them as arbitrary.”

“Well, they’re not. They’re important to me. If there’s something you want to know, you need to ask me.”

“All right.”

“Don’t do it anymore,” I warned. “I’m not kidding, Gideon.”

His jaw tightened. “Okay. I get it.”

Then, because I really didn’t want to fight, I moved on. “What did she say when she saw it?”

He visibly relaxed. “It was difficult, of course. Even more difficult to know I’d seen it.”

“She saw us in the library.”

“We didn’t talk about that directly, but then, what was there to say? I won’t apologize for making love to my girlfriend in a closed room.” He leaned back in his chair and exhaled harshly. “Seeing Christopher’s face on the video—seeing what he really thought of her—
that
hurt her. It’s hard to see yourself being used that way. Especially by someone you think you know, someone who’s supposed to care about you.”

To hide my reaction, I busied myself with refilling both my glass and his. He spoke as if from experience. What exactly had been done to him?

After a quick gulp of wine, I asked, “How are
you
doing with it?”

“What can I do? Over the years, I’ve made every attempt to talk to Christopher. I’ve tried throwing money at him. I’ve tried threatening him. He’s never shown any inclination to change. I realized long ago that I can only do damage control. And keep you as far away from him as possible.”