“Eva.”

I cringed when I heard Gideon’s voice, and tucked into an even tighter bal .

“Goddamn it,” he snapped. “You piss me off worse than anyone else I know.”

I looked at him through the veil of my wet hair. He was pacing the length of my bathroom, his jacket shed somewhere and his shirt untucked. “Go home, Gideon.”

He halted and shot me an incredulous look. “I’m not fucking leaving you here. Cary’s lost his damned mind!

That amped-up asshole was seconds away from putting his hands on you when I got here.”

“Cary wouldn’t have let that happen. But either way, I can’t deal with him and you at the same time.” I didn’t want to deal with either of them, actual y. I just wanted to be alone.

“Then you’l just deal with me.”

I scooped my hair back from my face with an impatient swipe of my hand. “Oh? I’m supposed to make you the priority?”

He recoiled as if I’d hit him. “I was under the impression we were both each other’s priorities.”

“Yeah, I thought that, too. Until tonight.”

“Jesus. Wil you drop it with Corinne already?” He spread his arms wide. “I’m here with you, aren’t I? I barely said good-bye to her because I was chasing after you. Again. ”

“Fuck you. Don’t do me any favors.”

Gideon lunged into the shower ful y dressed. He yanked me to my feet and kissed me. Hard. His mouth devoured mine, his hands gripping my upper arms to hold me in place.

But I didn’t soften this time. I didn’t give in. Even when he tried coaxing me with lush, suggestive licks.

“Why?” he muttered, his lips sliding down to my throat. “Why are you driving me insane?”

“I don’t know what your problem is with Dr. Lucas, and I honestly don’t give a shit. But he was right.

Corinne got way too much of your attention tonight. You pretty much ignored me during dinner.”

“It’s impossible for me to ignore you, Eva.” His face was hard and tight. “If you’re in the same room with me, I don’t see anyone else.”

“Funny. Every time I looked at you, you were looking at her.”

“This is stupid.” He released me and shoved the wet hair out of his face. “You know how I feel about you.”

“Do I? You want me. You need me. But do you love Corinne?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. No. ” He shut the water off, caging me to the glass with both arms. “You want me to tel you I love you, Eva? Is that what this is about?” My stomach cramped as if he’d struck me with the ful force of his fist. I’d never felt that kind of pain before, hadn’t known it existed. My eyes burned and I ducked under his arm before I embarrassed myself by crying. “Go home, Gideon. Please.”

“I am home.” He caught me from behind and buried his face in my soaked hair. “I’m with you.” I struggled to get free, but I was too wiped out.

Physical y. Emotional y. The tears came in a torrent and I couldn’t stop them. And I hated crying in front of anyone. “Go away. Please. ”

“I love you, Eva. Of course I do.”

“Oh my God.” I kicked at him, flailing. Anything to get away from the person who’d become a massive source of pain and misery. “I don’t want your fucking pity. I just want you to go away.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t. Eva, stop fighting. Listen to me.”

“Everything you’re saying hurts, Gideon.”

“It’s not the right word, Eva,” he pressed on stubbornly, his lips at my ear. “That’s why I haven’t said it. It’s not the right word for you and what I feel for you.”

“Shut up. If you care about me at al , you’l just shut up and go away.”

“I’ve been loved before—by Corinne, by other women…But what the hel do they know about me?

What the hel are they in love with when they don’t know how fucked up I am? If that’s love, it’s nothing compared to what I feel for you.”

I stil ed, trembling, my gaze on the mirror’s reflection of my mascara-smeared face and bedraggled wet hair next to Gideon’s ravaged beauty. His features were overcome by volatile emotion as he wrapped himself tightly around me. We looked al wrong for each other.

And yet I understood the alienation of being around others who couldn’t real y see you or chose not to. I’d felt the self-loathing that came with being a fraud, portraying an image of what you wished you could be but weren’t. I’d lived with the fear that the people you loved might turn away from you if they ever got to know the true person hidden inside.

“Gideon—”

His lips touched my temple. “I think I loved you the moment I saw you. Then we made love that first time in the limo and it became something else. Something more.”

“Whatever. You cut me off that night and left me behind to take care of Corinne. How could you, Gideon?”

He released me only long enough to scoop me up and carry me over to where my bathrobe hung from a hook on the back of the door. He bundled me up; then had me sit on the edge of the tub while he went to the sink and pul ed my makeup removal wipes out of the drawer. Crouching in front of me, he stroked the cloth over my cheek.

“When Corinne cal ed during the advocacy dinner, it was the perfect time to make me do something stupid.” His gaze was soft and warm on my tear-streaked face. “You and I had just made love, and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I told her I was busy and that I was with someone, and when I heard the pain in her voice, I knew I had to deal with her so I could move forward with you.”

“I don’t understand. You left me behind for her. How does that move us forward?”

“I screwed up with Corinne, Eva.” He tilted my chin back to rub at my raccoon eyes. “I met her my first year at Columbia. I noticed her, of course. She’s beautiful and sweet, and never had an unkind word to say about anyone. When she pursued me, I let myself be caught and she became my first consensual sexual experience.”

“I hate her.”

That made his mouth curve slightly.

“I’m not kidding, Gideon. I’m sick with jealousy right now.”

“It was just sex with her, angel. As raw as you and I fuck, it’s stil making love. Every time, from the very first time. You’re the only one who’s ever gotten to me that way.”

I heaved out a breath. “Okay. I’m marginal y better.” He kissed me. “I guess you could say we dated. We were exclusive sexual y and we often ended up going to the same places as a couple. Stil , when she told me she loved me, I was surprised. And flattered. I cared about her. I enjoyed spending time with her.”

“Stil do, apparently,” I muttered.

“Keep listening.” He chastised me with a tap of his finger to the end of my nose. “I thought maybe I might love her, too, in my own way…the only way I knew how.

I didn’t want her to be with anyone else. So I said yes when she proposed.”

I jerked back to look at him. “She proposed?”

“Don’t look so shocked,” he said wryly. “You’re bruising my ego.”

Relief flooded me in a rush that made me dizzy. I threw myself at him, hugging him as tight as I could.

“Hey.” His returning embrace was just as fierce.

“You okay?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m getting there.” I pul ed back and cupped his jaw in my hand. “Keep going.”

“I said yes for al the wrong reasons. After two years of hanging out, we’d never spent a ful night together.

Never talked about any of the things I talk to you about.

She didn’t know me, not real y, and yet I convinced myself that being loved at al was something to hang on to. Who else was going to do it right, if not her?” He moved his attention to my other eye, cleaning away the black streaks. “I think she was hoping that being engaged would take us to a different level.

Maybe I’d open up more. Maybe we’d stay the night at the hotel—which she thought was romantic, by the way

—instead of cal ing it an early night because of classes in the morning. I don’t know.”

I thought it sounded terribly lonely. My poor Gideon.

He’d been alone for so long. Maybe his whole life.

“And maybe when she broke it off after a year,” he went on, “she was hoping that would kick-start things, too. That I’d make a bigger effort to keep her. Instead, I was relieved because I’d started to realize it was going to be impossible to share a home with her. What excuse was I going to come up with to sleep in separate rooms and have my own space?”

“You never considered tel ing her?”

“No.” He shrugged. “Until you, I didn’t consider my past an issue. Yes, it affected certain ways I did things, but everything had its place and I wasn’t unhappy. In fact, I thought I had a comfortable and uncomplicated life.”

“Oh, boy.” My nose wrinkled. “Hel o, Mr.

Comfortable. I’m Miss Complicated.”

His grin flashed. “Never a dul moment.”

Then he grabbed a towel to throw over the puddle he’d left on the floor and toed off his shoes. To my utter delight, he began stripping out of his wet clothes.