Reflected in You: A Crossfire Novel

of him spending that amount of time away from me. He had a world of choices and possibilities out there, women who weren’t so screwed up and difficult to be with.
    Still, I managed to say, “We both know that’s not exactly healthy, Gideon.”
    “Says who? No one else knows what it’s like to be us.”
    Okay, I’d give him that.
    “We need to get to work,” I said, knowing this impasse was going to drive both of us crazy all day. We’d sort it out later, but for now we were stuck with it.
    Resting his hip against the counter, he crossed his ankles and stubbornly settled in. “What we need is for you to come with me.”
    “Gideon.” My foot began to tap against the travertine tile. “I can’t just give up my life for you. If I turn into arm candy, you’ll get bored real quick. Hell, I’d get sick of myself. It shouldn’t kill us to spend a couple days straightening out other parts of our lives, even if we hate doing it.”
    His gaze captured mine. “You’re too much trouble to be arm candy.”
    “Takes a troublemaker to know one.”
    Gideon straightened, shrugging off his brooding sensuality and instantly capturing me with his severe intensity. So mercurial—like me. “You’ve gotten a lot of press lately, Eva. It’s no secret that you’re in New York. I can’t leave you here while I’m gone. Bring Cary with us if you have to. You can butt heads with him while you’re waiting for me to finish work and fuck you.”
    “Ha.” Even as I acknowledged his attempt to lighten the strain with humor, I realized what his real objection to being apart from me was— Nathan. My former stepbrother. The living nightmare from my past that Gideon seemed to fear might reappear in my present. It frightened me to concede that he wasn’t totally wrong. The shield of anonymity that had protected me for years had been shattered by our highly public relationship.
    God . . . we totally didn’t have the time to get into that mess, but I knew it wasn’t a point Gideon would concede on. He was a man who claimed his possessions utterly, fought off his competitors with ruthless precision, and would never allow any harm to come to me. I was his safe place, which made me rare and invaluable to him.
    Gideon glanced at his watch. “Time to go, angel.”
    He fetched his jacket, then gestured for me to precede him through his luxurious living room, where I grabbed my purse and the bag holding my walking shoes and other necessities. A few moments later, we’d finished the descent to the ground floor in his private elevator and slid into the back of his black Bentley SUV.
    “Hi, Angus,” I greeted his driver, who touched the brim of his old-fashioned chauffeur’s hat.
    “Good morning, Miss Tramell,” he replied, smiling. He was an older gentleman, with a liberal sprinkling of white in his red hair. I liked him for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that he’d been driving Gideon around since grade school and genuinely cared for him.
    A quick glance at the Rolex my mother and stepfather had given me told me I’d make it to work on time . . . if we didn’t get boxed in by traffic. Even as I thought this, Angus slid deftly into the sea of taxis and cars on the street. After the tense quiet of Gideon’s apartment, the noise of Manhattan woke me as effectively as a jolt of caffeine. The blaring of horns and the thud of tires over a manhole cover invigorated me. Rapid-moving streams of pedestrians flanked both sides of the clogged street, while buildings stretched ambitiously toward the sky, keeping us in shadow even as the sun climbed.
    God, I seriously loved New York. I took the time every day to absorb it, to try to draw it into me.
    I settled into the leather seat back and reached for Gideon’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Would you feel better if Cary and I left town for the weekend? Maybe a quick trip to Vegas?”
    Gideon’s gaze narrowed. “Am I a threat to Cary? Is that why you won’t consider Arizona?”
    “What? No. I don’t think so.” Shifting in the seat, I faced him. “Sometimes it takes an all-nighter before I can get him to open up.”
    “You don’t think so?” he repeated my answer, ignoring everything but the first words out of my mouth.
    “He might feel like he can’t reach out to me when he needs to talk because I’m always with you,” I clarified, steadying my mug with two hands as we drove over a pothole. “Listen, you’re going to have to get over any