“I hope you’re hungry. There’s a lot of food and I’l be surprised if Cary joins us to help eat it al .” Gideon dropped his stuff on the breakfast bar and approached me cautiously, his gaze searching my face as he neared. “I brought some things with me to stay the night, but I’l go if you want. At any time. Just tel me.”

I blew out my breath in a harsh rush, determined not to let fear dictate my actions. “I want you here.”

“I want to be here.” He paused beside me. “Can I hold you?”

I turned into him and squeezed him hard. “Please.” He pressed his cheek against mine and hugged me close. The embrace wasn’t as natural and easy as we’d grown used to. There was a new wariness between us that was different from anything we’d felt before.

“How are you doing?” he murmured.

“Better now that you’re here.”

“But stil nervous.” He pressed his lips to my forehead. “Me, too. I don’t know how we’re ever going to fal asleep next to each other again.” Pul ing back slightly, I looked at him. That was my fear as wel , and my earlier conversation with Cary didn’t help matters. He’s a ticking time bomb…

“We’l figure it out,” I said.

He was quiet for a long moment. “Has Nathan ever contacted you?”

“No.” Although I had a deep-rooted fear that I might see him again one day, whether accidental y or deliberately. He was out there somewhere, breathing the same air…“Why?”

“It was on my mind today.”

I pul ed back to search his face, a knot forming in my throat at how tormented he looked. “Why?”

“Because we’ve got a lot of baggage between us.”

“Are you thinking it’s too much?”

Gideon shook his head. “I can’t think that way.” I didn’t know what to do or say. What assurances could I give him, when I wasn’t sure my love and his need would be enough to make our relationship work?

“What’s going through your mind?” he asked.

“Thoughts of food. I’m starving. Why don’t you go see if Cary wants to eat? Then we can get started on dinner.”

Gideon found Cary sleeping, so he and I ate a candlelit dinner for two at the dining table, a somewhat formal meal while lounging in the worn T-shirts and pajama bottoms we’d put on after our respective showers. I was worried about Cary, but spending quiet downtime alone with Gideon felt like just what we needed.

“I had lunch with Magdalene in my office yesterday,” he said after we’d enjoyed a few initial bites.

“Oh?” While I’d been ring shopping, Magdalene had been enjoying private time with my man?

“Don’t take that tone,” he admonished. “She ate a meal in an office covered in your flowers, with you blowing kisses from my desk. You were as much there as she was.”

“Sorry. Knee-jerk reaction.”

He lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed a quick, hard kiss to the back. “I’m relieved you can stil get jealous over me.”

I sighed. My emotions had been al over the map al day; I couldn’t decide how I felt about anything. “Did you say anything to her about Christopher?”

“That was the point of the lunch. I showed her the video.”

“What?” I frowned, remembering my phone had died in his car. “How’d you do that?”

“I took your phone up to my office and pul ed the video off via USB. Didn’t you notice I brought it back last night, ful y charged?”

“No.” I set my silverware down. Dominant or not, Gideon and I were going to have to work on which lines crossed over into my freak-out zone. “You can’t just hack into my phone, Gideon.”

“I didn’t hack into it. You haven’t set a password yet.”

“That’s not the point! It’s a serious invasion of my fucking privacy. Jesus…” Why in hel did no one in my life understand that I had boundaries? “Would you like me rummaging through your stuff?”

“I’ve got nothing to hide.” He pul ed his smartphone out of an inner pocket of his sweats and held it out to me. “And you won’t either.”

I didn’t want to get into a fight now, things were too shaky as it was, but I’d let this go long enough. “It doesn’t matter whether or not I have something I don’t want you to see. I have a right to space and privacy, and you need to ask before you help yourself to my information and my belongings. You have to stop taking whatever you want without my permission.”

“What was private about it?’ he asked with a frown.

“You showed it to me yourself.”

“Don’t be like my mother, Gideon!” I shouted.

“There’s only so much crazy I can handle.” He jerked back at my vehemence, clearly surprised by how upset I was. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

I gulped down my wine, trying to rein in my temper and unease. “Sorry I’m mad? Or sorry you did it?” After the length of several heartbeats, Gideon said,

“I’m sorry you’re mad.”

He real y didn’t get it. “Why don’t you see how weird this is?”

“Eva.” He sighed and shoved a hand through his hair. “I spend a quarter of every day inside you. When you set limits outside of that I can’t help but see them as arbitrary.”