Bared to You: A Crossfire Novel

“Fiend,” I muttered, rinsing out my mug in the sink and putting it in the dishwasher. “Ready? For work?” He finished his coffee and I held out my hand for his mug, but he bypassed me and rinsed it out himself.

Another mortal task that made him seem accessible, less of a fantasy I’d never have a chance of holding on to.

He faced me. “I want to take you out to dinner tonight, and then take you home to my bed.”

“I don’t want you to burn out on me, Gideon.” He was a man used to being alone, a man who hadn’t had a meaningful physical relationship in a long time, if ever.

How long before his flight instincts kicked in? Besides, we real y needed to stay out of the public eye as a couple…

“Don’t make excuses.” His features hardened. “You don’t get to decide I can’t do this.”

I kicked myself for offending him. He was trying and I needed to make sure he got credit for that, not discouragement. “That’s not what I meant. I just don’t want to crowd you. Plus we stil need to—”

“Eva.” He sighed, the hard tension leaving him with that frustrated exhalation. “You have to trust me. I’m trusting you. I’ve had to or we wouldn’t be here now.” Okay. I nodded, swal owing hard. “Dinner and your place it is, then. I honestly can’t wait.” Gideon’s words about trust lingered in my mind al morning, which was a good thing when the Google alert digest hit my inbox.

There was more than one photo this time around.

Each article and blog post had several shots of me and Cary hugging good-bye outside the restaurant where we’d had lunch the day before. The captions speculated on the nature of our relationship and some noted that we lived together. Others suggested I was reeling in “bil ionaire playboy Cross” while keeping my up-and-coming model boyfriend on the side.

The reason for the publicity became apparent when I saw the picture of Gideon mingled with the ones of me and Cary. It had been taken last night, while I was watching movies with Cary and Trey—and while Gideon was supposedly at a business dinner. In the photo, Gideon and Magdalene Perez smiled intimately at each other, her hand on his forearm as they stood outside a restaurant. The captions ranged between kudos for Gideon’s “bevy of beautiful socialites” to speculation that he was hiding a broken heart over my infidelity by dating other women.

You have to trust me.

I closed my inbox, my breathing too quick and my heartbeat too fast. Jealous confusion twisted my gut. I knew he couldn’t possibly have been physical y intimate with another woman and I knew he cared for me. But I hated Magdalene with a passion—certainly she’d given me good reason to during our bathroom chat—and I couldn’t stand seeing her with Gideon.

Couldn’t stand seeing him smiling so fondly at her, especial y after the way she’d treated me.

But I put it away. I shoved it into a box in my mind and I focused on my job. Mark was meeting with Gideon tomorrow to go over the RFP for the Kingsman campaign and I was organizing the information flowing between Mark and the contributing departments.

“Hey, Eva.” Mark poked his head out of his office.

“Steve and I are meeting at Bryant Park Gril for lunch.

He asked if you’d come. He’d like to see you again.”

“I’d love to.” My whole afternoon brightened at the thought of enjoying lunch at one of my favorite restaurants with two real y charming guys. They’d distract me from thinking about the conversation I was hours away from having with Gideon about my past.

My privacy was clearly gone. I would have to grow a set of bal s and talk to Gideon before we went out to dinner. Before he was seen in public with me any further. He needed to know the risk he was taking by being associated with me.

When I received an interoffice envelope a short while later, I assumed it was a smal mock-up of one of the Kingsman ads, but found a note card from Gideon instead.

Noon. My office.

“Real y?” I muttered, irritated by the lack of salutation and closing. Not to mention the lack of a request. And who could forget the fact that Gideon hadn’t even mentioned running into Magdalene at dinner?

Had he invited her as his date in my stead? That’s what she was there for, after al . To be one of the women he socialized with outside of his hotel room.

I flipped Gideon’s card over and wrote the same number of words with no signature:

Sorry. Have plans.

A bratty reply, but he deserved it. When a quarter to noon rol ed around, Mark and I headed down to the ground floor. When I was stopped by security and the guard cal ed up to Gideon to tel him I was in the lobby, my irritation kicked into a temper.