LN Cronan

He ought to have sealed the deal when he had her under him on that couch .... I'll bet he could get her to say "yes" if he tried ... um ... hard enough. Â Seriously, though, he was probably so reassured she wanted to get laid instead of fight about what just happened downstairs (him with Corrine in the lobby) that he wouldn't push his luck.

 I get the distinct impression she's finished writing #4 and is now negotiating terms with a publisher. Please, please, please let that be true!!!!  And if it is Penguin that gets Crossfire #4, they d a m n well better stick to a promised schedule for release.  I say "if it is Penguin" because Sylvia did explain on Facebook that Penguin bought the rights to only the first three Crossfire novels. The initial contract never went beyond those three.  Thus Sylvia has options to take her business elsewhere to another publishing house, if she so desires.

 He definitely wants Eva working under him (pun intended).  I'll bet that corner office already set up in the construction zone was already set up for Gideon to sell Eva on the idea it would be her office. He even already had a couch installed in there, in case she needed .... um ... persuading.  Because why else would a partially-finished office (no carpeting) on a building floor that's a full-blown construction zone have furniture in it? Office furniture and equipment are the last things brought in to newly-constructed office space -- brought in after the workmen are totally done.  Yep, Gideon was a busy boy those weeks he was apart from Eva, easing his pain by making plans for their future together, a future that included her at Cross Industries.

 I hope she's not taking sips though while reading -- she could end up spewing coffee all over her screen and keyboard. Some of the stuff here gets downright hilarious!

 Sylvia has hinted that Gideon making peace with his family will be part of his journey toward recovery.  Right now, Gideon has Eva (and thus we readers) convinced Christopher Jr. is unstable and dangerous. Perhaps Gideon, his judgment clouded by sibling rivalry, is over-reacting.  Certainly, Christopher is a creep. Magdalene herself hinted she'd just gotten rid of someone "toxic" in her life (not having any clue Eva knew exactly who Magdalene meant).  Plus, Christopher has taken two opportunities now to attempt to drive home the message to Eva that she's second fiddle to Corrine (the snarking in Times Square making sure Eva knew Gideon had been at Corrine's place the night before) plus virtually the first words out of his mouth that day Eva invited him out to lunch -- he asked Eva point blank whether her calling him had anything to do with Gideon and Corrine getting back together.)  But maybe Christopher Jr. isn't evil -- just a jerk consumed by jealousy.

 Excellent point!!! It's an even more plausible scenario that Elizabeth Vidal giving Corrine Dr. Anne Lucas' name.  Dr. Terry Lucas, obviously there without his wife that night, had invited Eva to go have a drink with him at the bar, where I'm sure he was ready to poison her mind against Gideon. Eva walked away from both men after they argued over her. A minute later, Gideon abandoned Corrine with hardly a good-bye, tearing out of the fundraiser.  So I can see Terry inviting Corrine for a drink instead, lending a sympathetic ear -- all the while pumping Corrine for information. He knew enough to know Corrine was "Mrs. Giroux" but I wonder whether he knew yet that many years ago, Corrine had been Gideon's fiancee. He wasn't yet a celebrity when they had been together.  Perhaps Terry started out suspecting Gideon was seducing another man's wife, but then found out the truth about Corrine and could see how unhappy she was at that moment. I'll bet you're right -- he gave Corrine's his wife's card.  Then he probably ran home and told Anne all about what went on at that dinner table, proving yet again how much of a mysogynistic jerk Gideon Cross is, the way he treated both Eva and Corrine. Anne may have been secretly thrilled with the new knowledge.  Thus more irony -- the same night that Gideon inadvertently handed to Corrine psychological weapons to use against Eva, Terry handed to Anne psychological weapons to use against Corrine.

At this moment, this thread has more than 950 posts and more than 15,000 views -- and it's been full-tilt active a little over 50 hours. Â Ya think people are excited .... not only the posting members but also the fans who simply read? Â Yes!

The scenario of Jean-Francois telling Corrine that Gideon and Eva are engaged, Corrine immediately locking herself in her bathroom and then swallowing the pills without any premeditation at all, because she snapped, is more palatable than the alternative of Corrine trying the ultimate form of manipulation, a suicide attempt, to break up Eva and Gideon, binding Gideon to her forever. Â Eva suspects Corrine attempted suicide to deliberately hurt Gideon. It may be true, or that may be Eva's insecurities talking to her. When it comes to Corrine, Eva's never going to be able to be 100% objective. Â Maybe Corrine, who arrived in New York already half kah-ray-zee ended up being manipulated herself, manipulated by another one of Gideon's exes, Dr. Anne Lucas. How ironic is that -- Corrine set out to hurt Eva by mentally/emotionally manipulating Eva's weaknesses, and yet Corrine ended up being mentally/emotionally manipulated herself by someone else after Gideon. Talk about karma being a b i t c h.

 I think with Dr. Petersen, Gideon and Eva can tell him some half truths about why Gideon distanced himself from Eva. Specifically that the police started questioning both him and Stanton about Nathan's murder. Nathan tried to extort money from both men, and Nathan possessed video/photos of Eva that could devastate her if they ever got out -- devastate her even if she simply found out about them.  Thus it stood to reason that Gideon and/or Stanton both conceivably had motive to hire a hitman. Gideon feared that if the police seriously considered him to be a suspect, they might also suspect Eva was involved, going as far as to suspect she asked Gideon to have Nathan disposed of. So Gideon immediately distanced himself from Eva for her own protection for however long it took for the police to cross him off their suspect list. Now it seems they finally have real leads in the investigation -- Nathan may have been killed by a gangster he'd crossed. At last Gideon was able to explain to Eva why he temporarily distanced himself from her, quit contacting her in any way the police could trace (phone, email, in-person). Eva understandably is hurt and it has damaged what they had -- but not beyond repair. They've come out of this more devoted to one another than ever. All of the above is true. All they need to do is leave out the part that it wasn't the gangster, nor a hired hitman -- Gideon himself did it.

 I think it eventually will be possible for them to share a bed. But I can see for now why they're both so cautious:  Gideon is still in early treatment for his parasomnia, only about six weeks or so. There have been break-through incidents of violence even with the medication. And now Gideon has had at least one nightmare Eva has seen about killing Nathan - his "old" nightmares involve him figuratively lashing out at his rapist; what about nightmares in which he's re-living committing murder. Dr. Petersen isn't going to be able to help with the killing nightmares, because they'll never be able to tell him the truth about that.  My hope is that with time, he'll have worked out enough of his issues that they'll lose the power to make him erupt in his sleep. And with time, he and Eva will feel safer as the frequency and severity of the nightmares lessen. Maybe they'll try experimenting falling asleep alongside one another for naps, then start trying nights.

 Good one!

 He was quietly moaning "Mrs. Crossfire"  (Couldn't resist LOL)

 Page 140, Gideon on his cell phone talking to a crying Corrine, trying to yet again explain they're friends but he can't give her what she wants ... Eva walks in on the conversation, in tears because she'd just finished talking on the phone to her father about Nathan ... just before Gideon noticed Eva standing there and immediately ending the Corrine call ...  "Stop," he said icily. "This isn't the tack you want to take with me, Corrine."  The word "icy" I immediately associated with Elizabeth Vidal, how icy Gideon was with his mother (and when talking about her too). I wondered to myself then whether Corrine had started playing the family card, and that's when Gideon chilled.  That was my first red flag that Corrine had reconnected with the Vidals -- and that both she and Elizabeth got into some weird codependent dynamic of trying to join forces so that both of them could get Gideon back in their own way -- Elizabeth get back the son she lost and Corrine get back the lost love of her life.

 Gideon will trust Cary to c o c k block, I think.

 And W T H is it with women convinced long hair turns Gideon on?  Oh yeah, that's because Corrine has this amazing long mane of glossy hair that hangs straight to her waist. How much you wanna bet Anne started growing her hair long after her affair with Gideon ended?  Newsflash, ladies .... as much as Gideon liked even the thought of Eva's long (at the time he first saw her) hair spread out over black satin sheets, he even more liked that sexy shoulder length haircut she got on New Eva Saturday Makeover.

 I'm envisioning Corrine locking herself in the bathroom and swallowing the bottle of pills ... then Jean-Francois finally becoming alarmed she wasn't coming out of the bathroom. Maybe broke down the door and then called an ambulance?

 I'm not sure what, if any, pictures Cary studied of the couple. He probably concentrated more on the facts.  It was Eva, not Cary, who sought out online pictures of the Lucases. Her insecurity made her guess (correctly) the problem between the two men must have involved a woman. Eva was specifically checking out a sneaking suspicion Anne might be one of those Corrine Clone Brunettes. She was relieved (at the time) to discover Anne was a redhead.  Even Eva herself, though, had trouble recognizing Anne. It's why she asked Gideon. "She looked so different without her former pixie haircut ...." (page 353, as Eva mentally compared the woman she saw with Cary with the photograph of Anne she'd seen online.)

 You're right, AMC .... he knew Corrine's parents, obviously was on good terms with them, and they were right there in New York.  Guilt on his part? Because if he got Corrine's parents involved, it would involve him having to explain Corrine was their responsibility, not his. It was forever over between him and Corrine. The hoped for marriage wasn't ever going to happen. In fact, their "dating" was forever over too.  He'd dumped her -- and now he was dumping responsibility of her, too.  Gideon, Gideon, Gideon .... for such a genius in many ways (from how to make billions to knowing a thousand ways to make a woman come) the man can be an idiot.

 Seriously. The very end of Chapter 4 made it impossible for me to take any sort of break. Gideon floored by Eva looking hot and her teasing him ... oh I could see where that was headed ....  I wanted to jump into Chapter 5 like Gideon and Eva obviously wanted to jump one another's bones right then and there.

I don't think Gideon ever saw Corrine's medication bottle nor was he told the name of her psychiatrist -- because had he known it was Anne Lucas, all sorts of alarm bells would have gone off immediately. My theory: it was Corrine herself that may have spun the following story: Gideon, I'm in such pain that I've actually started seeing a psychiatrist. (guilt trip - Gideon's to blame for her pain) Yes, you're right, I have been crazy. In fact, it turned out the anti-depressant my doctor prescribed wasn't working - instead I had a bad reaction to it. (more guilt trip) But my doctor has already switched me to a new medication. And I'm already starting to feel better. (manipulation - Corrine is doing everything she can to make things better, the implication being Gideon is the one at fault for things being bad) What's making me feel even better is you being here with me now, Gideon. (more manipulation - he did the right thing by coming to her apartment to see her. BTW I wonder whether that's the first time he stepped foot in there.) Oh Gideon, I love you so much and I can make you so happy .... (desperation) Lots of weeping here (more desperation) Â What Gideon ought to have done that night, I think, is hauled Corrine to an emergency room himself -- or at the very least demanded that Corrine immediately call her doctor. He knew Corrine well enough to know she was going off the deep end, something he'd be able to discern better than some doctor who had been treating Corrine for only a few weeks. Â After all, there are no lab tests for mood disorders like depression and bipolar. Clinicians rely heavily not only on what the patients tell them but also what other people close to the patient report. When things go to h e l l sometimes it is a third party -- like a spouse, parent, or close friend -- who raises the alarm. Â Gideon decided to shirk the crisis management off on an estranged husband who was overseas, instead of taking matters into his own hands that night. I think by that point, Corrine needed hospitalization, and Gideon was wrong to wait for Jean-Francois to take over.

 I'm not 100% convinced either .... the plot has very cleverly been set up to create Did-Anne-Try-To-Kill-Corrine as the final cliffhanger ... more to be revealed in Book Four.  But possible explanations of how Corrine got hooked up with Anne Lucas are: The Lucases and the Vidals move in the same social circles. The Vidals already have employed one professional from Anne's family - Hugh - so the connection between the two families goes deeper than social. Corrine obviously had her own close relationship with Elizabeth Vidal stemming from when Corrine had been Gideon's fiancee and now re-kindled in the hopes that Corrine would become Elizabeth's daughter-in-law after all. Corrine, having lived abroad for many years, wouldn't have any recent history with any doctors in New York. She probably had yet to even find a primary care doctor. Corrine obviously was including Gideon's family in her own desperate attempts to tie Gideon to herself (having no idea just why there was a chilly relationship between Gideon and the Vidals).  I can see Corrine, stalking and willing to try just about anything, spending quality time with Elizabeth. And Elizabeth, seeing how hard of a time Corrine was having (which was true), suggesting Corrine seek help. Once Corrine became convinced to do so, Corrine probably asked Elizabeth whether she knew of any good doctors. Voila -- Elizabeth gives Corrine's Dr. Anne Lucas' name.  I might be proven wrong in Book 4 ... certainly, a lot of my theories about Book 3 didn't pan out, because Sylvia is far too clever an author. But some important theories I had did pan out, the final cliffhanger matters in Book 1 and Book 2 did pan out:  Bared to You: the final chapter set up the fact that Corrine was going to prove to be a serious threat after all to Eva and Gideon, despite all the assurances to the contrary Gideon gave Eva. Eva could see Corrine was practically stalking Gideon and no good could come of him continuing to have contact with Corrine. Reflected in You: the final chapter revelation Gideon killed Nathan. I just knew it, and I never deviated from that right on up to the day Sylvia confirmed in a live radio station interview this spring that Gideon did, in fact, kill Nathan. Entwined with You: the final chapter revealed Anne is a psychiatrist, and my gut is now telling me Corrine having been on medication that made her depression much worse instead of better was no accident.

Not that I'm saying pediatrician #1 was right, if he/she decided more harm than good could come of reporting Gideon's case to child protective services. Had the doctor done so, I think he/she would have prevented the abuse continuing -- and escalating from hand jobs to forcible anal penetration. Â But in the real world, people do make their own judgment calls, using what they think is common sense over rules. If the doctor honestly believed that all an investigation might accomplish is to spark a scandal that would uneccessarily further damage a child already badly hurt by scandal ... well .... it make sense how Gideon fell through the cracks. The doctor made a judgment call that turned out to be the wrong call. Â At some point or points in our lives, every single one of us, when faced with a tough choice, makes what we believe is the right choice but turns out to be the wrong choice.

 I initially feared Christopher Vidal Sr. bribed both pediatricians to keep their mouths shut -- that Christopher was some sort of Evil Stepfather.  But I was relieved to learn in Entwined that Christopher Sr. -- Chris as he likes to be called -- actually seems to be an OK guy who respects Gideon's genius for business so much to seek Gideon's help and advice, and yet a caring parent enough to be sensitive to situations where he, through no fault of his own, gets caught in the middle of the sibling rivalry between his son, Christopher Jr., and his stepson, Gideon.  I can now see Chris convincing the first doctor to bend the law about the mandatory reporting to child protective services mere suspicions child sexual abuse is going on. If the doctor honestly found no physical signs of trauma, was convinced that a possible alternate explanation was that the child already had pre-existing serious problems (which Gideon did stemming from his father's death) and that the real possibility existed that public scandal might happen (thereby even further damaging the child) .... well ... a doctor might decide that in this case, more harm than good could come of going to the authorities. Having satisfied his/her own conscience (lack of physical trauma signs) he/she could have decided to let the matter be.

 When Gideon found out about Corrine's Stunt # 2 (her trying to trick Eva into thinking Gideon had just spent 20-plus minutes screwing her (Corrine's) brains out in Corrine's own bed) a great deal of his guilt evaporated. He decided then and there he wanted no further contact with Corrine. Alas, it wasn't that easy.  I'm hoping Gideon is going to find out Dr. Anne Lucas, M.D., psychiatrist, deliberately fed anti-depressants to the clinically depressed Corrine in a way to turn Corrine full-blown suicidal. That knowledge could do a great deal to alleviate the guilt Gideon has over the suicide attempt -- and as a two-fer, stop him from feeling guilty that he'd made Anne collateral damage in his vendetta against Terry Lucas. Because if it's true that Anne did it (tried to literally help kill Corrine) then Anne is every bit as evil as Hugh was. Gideon might rethink Anne's seduction of him.

 Your post made something fall into place for me ... about how the first time Gideon had Angus remove Eva from his (Gideon's) presence, Gideon was in a situation involving physical violence. Same deal at the hospital ... Gideon in an actual fist fight.  Granted, Gideon Fights Round Two involved him being attacked (by Jean-Francois) and engaging in self defense, where Gideon Fights Round One involved him being the attacker and Brett the one fighting back in self defense.  But connecting the dots between the two, I now see that Gideon does not want Eva anywhere near him when he is physically violent. Not just when he's lashing out deeply asleep and in the middle of an atypical sexual parasomnia incident -- also when he's full awake and exchanging blows with someone.