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him for being an asshole, he’d been thinking about keeping me safe from Nathan.
    My knees weakened, and I sank inelegantly to the floor.
    “Eva.”
    “Give me a minute.” I’d figured out a lot of it already during the time we’d been apart. I’d realized Gideon would never allow Nathan to simply stroll into his office with photos of me being abused and violated, then just stroll back out again. Brett Kline had only
kissed
me and Gideon had beaten him up. Nathan had
raped
me repeatedly for years and documented it with pictures and video. Gideon’s reaction to meeting Nathan the first time had to have been violent.
    Nathan must have visited the Crossfire Building the day I’d found Gideon freshly showered with a crimson stain on the cuff of his shirt. What I’d originally suspected was lipstick was Nathan’s blood. The sofa and sofa pillows in Gideon’s office had been skewed from a fight, not from a lunch quickie with Corinne.
    Scowling fiercely, he crouched in front of me. “Damn it. Do you think I
want
to micromanage you? There have been extenuating circumstances. Give me credit for trying to balance your independence with keeping you safe.”
    Wow. Hindsight didn’t just make things crystal clear; it smacked me upside the head and knocked some sense into me. “I get it.”
    “I don’t think you do. This”—he gestured impatiently at himself—“is just a fucking shell.
You’re
what drives me, Eva. Can you understand that? You’re my heart and soul. If something ever happened to you, it would kill me, too. Keeping you safe is goddamned self-preservation! Tolerate it for me, if you won’t do it for yourself.”
    I surged into him, knocking him off-balance and onto his back. I kissed him hard, my heart pounding and blood roaring in my ears.
    “I hate to freak you out,” I muttered between desperate kisses, “but you’ve got it real bad for me.”
    Groaning, he squeezed me tightly. “So we’re okay?”
    Iwrinkled my nose. “Maybe not about the burner phone. The cell stalking is nuts. Seriously. Not cool at all.”
    “It’s temporary.”
    “I know, but—”
    He put a hand over my mouth. “I put directions on how to track
my
phone in your purse.”
    That news left me speechless.
    Gideon smirked. “Not such a bad idea on the flip side.”
    “Shut up.” I slid off him and smacked his shoulder. “We are totally dysfunctional.”
    “I prefer ‘selectively deviant.’ But we’ll keep that to ourselves.”
    The warmth I’d felt bled away, replaced by a flare of panic at the reminder that we were hiding our relationship. How long would it be before I saw him again? Days? I couldn’t repeat the last few weeks of my life. Even thinking about going without him for any length of time made me feel sick.
    I had to swallow past a painful lump to ask, “When can we be together again?”
    “Tonight.
Eva.
” His beautiful eyes were haunted. “I can’t bear that look on your face.”
    “Just be with me,” I whispered, my eyes stinging all over again. “I need you.”
    Gideon’s fingertips glided softly down my cheek. “You were with me. The whole time. There wasn’t a second that passed when you weren’t on my mind. You own me, Eva. Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I belong to you.”
    I leaned into his touch, letting it soak into me and chase the chill away. “No more Corinne. I can’t stand it.”
    “No more,” he agreed, startling me. “I’ve told her already. I’d hoped we could be friends, but she wants what she and I used to have, and I want you.”
    “Thenight that Nathan died … she was your alibi.” I couldn’t say more. It hurt to think of how he might have filled the hours with her.
    “No, the kitchen fire was my alibi. It took most of the night dealing with the FDNY, the insurance company, and making emergency arrangements for food service. Corinne stuck around for some of that, and when she left, I had plenty of staff on hand to vouch for my whereabouts.”
    The