“Yeah, I get it. But I had valid reasons. Reasons she understands. That’s what I don’t get. She understands and she’s still cutting me off.”

“I’m not sure I understand why you didn’t discuss this with Eva beforehand. Can you explain that to me?”

I rubbed at the back of my neck, where the tension felt like steel cables. “She would’ve stewed over it,” I muttered. “It would’ve taken her time to come around. In the meantime, I’m trying to manage a ton of other shit. We’re getting hit from all sides.”

“I saw the news about Corinne Giroux’s book about you.”

“Oh, yeah.” My mouth curved grimly. “She probably got the idea from Six-Ninth’s ‘Golden’ video. Landon got to Eva through a hole in my guard. I couldn’t risk giving him another opening while I was distracted with everything else Eva and I are dealing with right now.”

Dr. Petersen nodded. “You’re facing a lot of pressure. Don’t you trust Eva to help you reach the decisions you’re making? You have to know that her conflicts with her mother often stem from not being consulted before actions are taken.”

“I know that.” I tried to articulate my chaotic thoughts. “But I need to take care of her. After what she’s lived through . . .”

My eyes squeezed shut. Knowing what she’d suffered was almost too much for me to think about sometimes. “I have to be strong for her. Make the tough calls.”

“Gideon, you’re one of the strongest men I know,” he said quietly.

I opened my eyes and looked at him. “You haven’t seen me the way she has.”

Crying like a child. Brutalized by memories. Masturbating while unconscious. Violent in my sleep. Weak, so weak. Helpless.

“Do you think she doubts you because you’ve let her see you vulnerable? That doesn’t sound like Eva to me.”

My eyes stung. “You don’t know everything. You just . . . You don’t know.”

“But Eva does. And she married you anyway. She loves you—very much—anyway.” He offered a kind smile that somehow slashed like a blade, cutting me open. “You asked me once if relationships were about compromise. Do you remember that?”

I jerked a nod.

“That compromise means you don’t always have to be the strong one, Gideon. You can do the heavy lifting on occasion, and you can let Eva do it sometimes. Marriage isn’t about whether you’re strong enough as an individual. It’s about how strong you are together and the luxury of taking turns carrying the load.”

“I . . .” My head bowed again. Eva had said the same thing. “I’m trying. I swear to God, I’m trying.”

“I know you are.”

“She has to take me back. She has to come back. I need her. She’s killing me right now. She’s ripping me apart.” I stared at my hands, at the rings she’d given me that made me hers. “What do I do? Tell me what to do.”

“Eva is going to want to know that you’re willing to change. She’ll want to see you taking steps to demonstrate that. You won’t face these big decisions too often, so she may adopt a wait-and-see attitude. That will be hard for you, I think. Very hard.”

I nodded slowly, but I couldn’t wait anymore. If Eva needed proof that I’d do anything to keep her, I would give it to her.

My hands clenched into fists. My gaze stayed on the carpet between my feet. “I was—” I cleared my throat. “The therapist. The one I had when I was a child.”

“Yes?”

“He . . . he molested me. For nearly a year. He . . . raped me.”

20

I miss you so much. Can’t we talk, please? I need to see you.

“Still staring at that text?” Cary asked, rolling onto his back on the bed beside me and pressing his temple to mine.

“I can’t sleep.” It was torture to stay away from Gideon. I spent every minute—waking and sleeping—feeling like someone had hacked out my heart and left a gaping hole in my chest.

I looked up at the canopy above my mom’s guest bed. Like her sitting room, the bedroom she’d put me in was newly redecorated. With its palette of cream and moss green, the room was soothing and tastefully elegant. The guest bedroom Cary occupied was done in a more masculine style with grays and navy, with walnut furnishings on the opposite end of the spectrum from the white gilded pieces in my room.

“When are you going to talk to him, baby girl?”

“Soon. I just . . .” I lowered the phone to my chest and pressed it against my heart. “I think we both need a little time.”

It was so hard to think when Gideon and I were fighting. I hated it.

And it was worse because he was the one who’d f**ked up, and like everything he did, he had done so spectacularly. I couldn’t imagine how I could forgive him and live with myself. On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine how I could go forward without him and live, period. I felt dead inside. The only thing keeping me going was the belief that somehow we’d work things out and be together. How could we not? How could I give so much of myself to someone and then let that person go?

I thought about the advice I’d given to Trey and how we were both facing the same decision—did we choose love or did we choose ourselves? I was so pissed off at Gideon for being the one who forced my hand. I’d recognized that certain situations were pushing me into that spot, but I had never thought my husband would.