Pul ing out a chair for me, Mark smiled. “How else wil I give Steven regular updates on your love life?

He’s a soap opera addict, you know. He loves romantic dramas.”

I snorted. “You’re kidding.”

Steven ran a hand over his chin and smiled. “I’l never admit it one way or the other. A man’s got to have his secrets.”

My mouth curved, but I was painful y aware of my own hidden truths. And how quickly time was passing before I’d have to reveal them.

Five o’clock found me steeling myself to divulge my secrets. I was tense and somber when Gideon and I slid into the Bentley, and my disquiet only worsened when I felt him studying the side of my averted face.

When he took my hand and lifted it to his lips, I felt like crying. I was stil trying to adjust after our argument in the park, and that was the least of what we had to deal with.

We didn’t speak until we arrived at his apartment.

When we entered his home, he led me straight through his beautiful, expansive living room and down the hal to his bedroom. There, laid out on the bed, was a fabulous cocktail dress the color of Gideon’s eyes and a floor-length black silk robe.

“I had a little time to shop before dinner yesterday,” he explained.

My apprehension lifted slightly, softened by pleasure at his thoughtfulness. “Thank you.”

He set my bag on a chair by the dresser. “I’d like you to get comfortable. You can wear the robe or something of mine. I’l open a bottle of wine and we’l just settle in. When you’re ready, we’l talk.”

“I’d like to take a quick shower.” I wished we could separate what happened in the park from what I had to tel him so that each issue was dealt with on its own merits, but I didn’t have a choice. Every day was another opportunity for someone else to tel Gideon what he needed to hear from me.

“Whatever you want, angel. Make yourself at home.” As I kicked off my heels and moved into the bathroom, I felt the weight of his concern, but my revelations would have to hold until I could compose myself better. In an effort to gain that control, I took my time in the shower. Unfortunately, it made me remember the one we’d taken together just that morning. Had that been both our first and last as a couple?

When I was ready, I found Gideon standing by the couch in the living room. He’d changed into black silk pajama bottoms that hung low around his hips. Nothing else. A smal blaze flickered in the fireplace and a bottle of wine sat in an ice-fil ed bucket on the coffee table. A grouping of ivory candles had been clustered as a centerpiece, their golden glow the only il umination besides the fire.

“Excuse me,” I said from the threshold of the room.

“I’m looking for Gideon Cross, the man who doesn’t have romance in his repertoire.”

He grinned sheepishly, a boyish smile so at odds with the mature sexuality of his bared body. “I don’t think about it that way. I just try to guess what might please you, and then I give it a shot and hope for the best.”

“You please me.” I crossed to him, the black robe swaying around my legs. I loved that he’d put on something that matched what he had given me.

“I want to,” he said soberly. “I’m working on it.” Stopping in front of him, I drank in the beauty of his face and the sexy way the ends of his hair caressed the top of his shoulders. I ran my palms down his biceps, squeezing the hard muscle gently before stepping into him and pressing my face into his chest.

“Hey,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around me.

“Is this about me being an ass at lunch? Or whatever it is you need to say to me? Talk to me, Eva, so I can tel you it’l be okay.”

I nuzzled my nose between his pecs, feeling the tickle of crisp chest hair against my cheek and breathing in the reassuring, familiar scent of his skin.

“You should sit down. I have to tel you things about me.

Ugly things.”

Gideon reluctantly let me go when I pul ed away from him. I curled up on his couch with my legs tucked underneath me and he poured us both glasses of golden wine before taking a seat. Leaning toward me, he draped one arm over the back of the sofa and held his glass with the other hand, giving me every bit of his attention.

“Okay. Here goes.” I took a deep breath before starting, feeling dizzy from the elevated rate of my pulse. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so nervous or sick to my stomach.

“My mother and father never married. I real y don’t know too much about how they met, because neither of them talks about it. I know my mom came from money.

Not as much as she married into, but more than most people have. She was a debutante. Had the whole white dress and presentation thing. Getting pregnant with me was a mistake that got her disowned, but she kept me.”

I looked down into my glass. “I real y admire her for that. There was a lot of pressure for her to make the baby—make me—go away, but she went through with the pregnancy anyway. Obviously.”

His fingers sifted through my shower-damp hair.

“Lucky me.”

I caught his fingers and kissed his knuckles, then held his hand in my lap. “Even with a kid in tow, she was able to land herself a mil ionaire. He was a widower with a son just two years older than me, so I think they both thought they’d found the perfect arrangement. He traveled a lot and was rarely home, and my mom spent his money and took over raising his son.”

“I understand the need for money, Eva,” he murmured. “I have to have it, too. I need the power of it.

The security.”

Our eyes met. Something passed between us with that smal admission. It made it easier for me to say what came next.

“I was ten the first time my stepbrother raped me—” The stem of his glass snapped in his hand. He moved so swiftly he was a blur, catching the bowl of his goblet against his thigh before it spil ed its contents.

I scrambled to my feet when he rose to his. “Did you cut yourself? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he bit out. He went into the kitchen and threw the broken glass away, shattering it further. I set my own glass down careful y, my hands shaking. I heard cupboards opening and closing. A few minutes later Gideon returned with a tumbler of something darker in his hand.

“Sit down, Eva.”

I stared at him. His frame was rigid, his eyes icy cold. He scrubbed a hand over his face and said more gently, “Sit down…please.”

My weakened knees gave out and I sat on the edge of the sofa, pul ing the robe tighter around me.

Gideon remained standing, taking a large swal ow of whatever was in his hand. “You said the first time.

How many times were there?”

I took conscious breaths, trying to calm myself. “I don’t know. I lost count.”

“Did you tel anyone? Did you tel your mother?”

“No. My God, if she’d known, she would’ve gotten me out of there. But Nathan made sure I was too afraid to tel her.” I tried to swal ow past a tight, dry throat and winced at the painful sandpapery burn. When my voice came again, it was barely a whisper. “There was a time when it got so bad I almost told her anyway, but he knew. Nathan could tel I was close. So he broke my cat’s neck and left her on my bed.”

“Jesus Christ.” His chest was heaving. “He wasn’t just fucked up, he was insane. And he was touching you… Eva.”

“The servants had to know,” I went on numbly, staring at my twisted hands. I just wanted to get it over with, to get it al out so I could put it back into the box in my mind where I forgot about it in my day-to-day life.

“The fact that they didn’t say anything either told me they were scared, too. They were grownups and they didn’t say a word. I was a child. What could I do if they wouldn’t do anything?”

“How did you get out?” he asked hoarsely. “When did it end?”

“When I was fourteen. I thought I was having my period, but there was too much blood. My mother panicked and took me to the emergency room. I’d had a miscarriage. In the course of the exam they found evidence of…other trauma. Vaginal and anal scarring

—”

Gideon set his glass down on the end table with a harsh thud.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling like I might be sick.

“I’d spare you the details, but you need to know what someone might dig up. The hospital reported the abuse to child services. It’s al a matter of public record, which has been sealed, but there are people who know the story. When my mom married Stanton, he went back and tightened those seals, paid out in return for nondisclosure agreements…stuff like that.

But you have a right to know that this could come out and embarrass you.”

“Embarrass me?” he snapped, vibrating with rage.

“Embarrassment isn’t on the list of what I’d feel.”

“Gideon—”

“I would destroy the career of any reporter who wrote about this, and then I’d dismantle the publication that ran the piece.” He was so cold with fury, he was icy. “I’m going to find the monster who hurt you, Eva, wherever he is, and I’m going to make him wish he was dead.”