LN Cronan

 Good morning, Mrs. C!  Cary's Just Say No comment was the most important -- shows just how much progress he too made with Dr. Travis.  Picking my favorite line, however, was what her sexy new neighbor said when he answered the door, "Christ ... You look amazing. Next time warn me before I open the door."  Oh baby!

 Most definitely .... you make some excellent points. All along, Eva has straight-up told Brett there's no chance she'd ever get back together with him.  BUT ....  She's sending the poor guy mixed signals. She's almost as guilty as Gideon when it comes to how he interacted with Corrine. He kept telling her they (he and Corrine) would never be more than friends, and he made clear to Corrine how special Eva is to him. Yet by continuing to have contact with Corrine period, knowing Corrine was in love with him and obviously had an agenda of getting back together with him, he fed her false hope.  Gideon's more guilty of Eva in that he actually consciously -- calculatedly -- sent Corrine mixed messages once he started using Corrine in order to protect Eva. He admitted as much to Eva later. And he continued to try to "be a friend" after he dumped Corrine, waiting far too long to finally call in Jean-Francois. Eva warned him from day one (er, make that night one) that Corrine calling Gideon daily was stalking. So any contact whatsoever with Corrine served only to feed the crazy.  Minus the crazy stalking, the exact same dynamic is going on with Eva paying any attention at all to Brett. All it's serving to do is to feed his hopes he has a shot at Eva. Brett keeps telling her he wants her back. She needs to do exactly what she asked Gideon to do that first night she'd met Corrine -- nip his hopes in the bud and start weaning him off.  I'm convinced what's going on is Eva is still working through her insecurity and jealousy issues. What Gideon did to her triggered Eva on her deepest levels. In the past, her being triggered in general is why she subconsciously punished Gideon by kissing Brett and then cold-calculatedly punished Gideon for taking Corrine out to dinner. Eva's much stronger now and at last trusts Gideon does love her. But those bleeding wounds he inflicted are not healed yet -- and thus Brett. Brett's the way she's working through her issues, I think.  Not the best way to do it ... but she'll have the strength to walk away in the end, as soon as she gets the hurt out of her system. And she won't ever -- EVER -- cheat on Gideon, not physically and not emotionally.

 Big long hug in return!! That's so sweet!!!!

 Good morning, Andie!!!  Have you got a Soduku puzzle coming for us? SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!  Be sure to post it over in the main "SPOILERS" thread so we can discuss the entire big picture there. Or you could even create a special thread just for that, which would be cool in it's own way, given how cleverly you weave in the Penguin countdown pictures. In this one thread, this morning we're going only as far as Chapter 4.  Alas, I don't know how to incorporate a PDF. Kirsten is our resident computer wizard. She should apply for a job at Cross Industries, she should.

Key quote in this chapter, from Cary (page 48) "You should've said no ... No is no, baby girl. Not that difficult."  Cary's right. Eva has no business agreeing to see Brett when was still so broken-hearted and confused over her relationship with Gideon having imploded weeks before (and as far as Cary knew, was still some pile of ashes.)  Cary surprised me here. I came away from Reflected firmly convinced he was on Team Brett .... determined to help Eva get over Gideon by getting under Brett.  Of the various pet theories I'd had going into Entwined, I got some right, some half-right ... and some wrong, including the Team Brett one. I ordered the crow pie special last night when a bunch of us went out to dinner at Tableau One. And alas, I didn't get lucky with my date, Raul, either. But I did get to ride in the DB9 .... his boss let him borrow it for the evening. ;) !!!  Seriously, though -- just when I thought I had Cary figured out, he goes and does something unexpected but very sweet and very much having Baby Girl's back -- reminding her she can't handle casual sex, given her issues. Sex has to mean something to Eva ... " ... that's why you get so f***** up when you just give it away." (page 49).  It went right back to Eva's original negotiating position with Gideon. With Gideon, it had been overwhelming l u s t at first sight, even though something deeper connected the first time he and Eva looked into one another's eyes. Sylvia has indicated in past interviews  the point at which Gideon fell in love was when they made love in the limo. Prior to that, he was going into the situation looking for some sort of extended one-night stand. But the Eva I first met in Bared to You refused to settle in life for anything less than Friends with Benefits. She needed respect and trust before she'd go to bed with a guy, and it's why she fended off Gideon's first crude attempts to get her under him as soon as possible.

The day before Sylvia originally posted this Snapshot 4, she posted a snippet of a scene involving Brett, Eva, Cary, Ireland .... and of course, Gideon ... in Times Square. I remember how crazy we all went -- very, very clever -- we thought the snippet was part of a scene to come in Chapter 4. HAH!!! That full scene comes later. Â I thought it was a great diversion, and personally it set me up for fast page-turning the very first time I read Chapter 4. Chapter 3 ended with the cliffhanger of Eva getting called at work by Brett .... I was thinking, "OMG, is something with Brett going to happen tonight, after all the tender re-union stuff between Gideon and Eva last night and this morning?!!! Say it isn't so -- they just got back together!!!" Â The possibility cranked up the plot tension considerably for me. Well played, Sylvia -- well played indeed!

 ::: tapping mike ::::  "Hello, is this thing on? Testing ... one ... two ......"  OK, good morning in the States, and good afternoon in Europe. We're doing a group deep-dive into chapter 4 of Entwined with You today. Two things about this particular thread:  Try to avoid talking about anything that comes up in later chapters (beyond 4 today) here. There's a main spoiler thread to talk about any and everything (and which has been going wild -- more than 800 posts alone in only two days!!!) The idea for this one specialty thread though is to make it safe for readers who have finished early chapters but not the whole book yet to come here and start commenting without running across spoilers. The system worked great yesterday on chapter 3. If you like, post a favorite quote or paragraph from the chapter -- just like Sylvia had asked the fans to do on the chapter-a-day re-read project of Bared to You and Reflected in You.

 Gideon did find out that Anne & Hugh's entire family worked in mental health. The question is -- when did he learn that?  I hate to think that Gideon told another one of his half truths ... told Eva (correctly) getting even with Dr. Terry Lucas was a motive for him f****** Anne. But what if there was a double-motive involved -- f***** Anne because of what her brother did to him?

I can only imagine what went through Elizabeth's mind when Eva accompanied Gideon to the hospital. Â I'll bet Elizabeth is willing to blame Eva for Corrine too .... Elizabeth probably thinks that Eva deliberately broke up Gideon and Corrine.

 I think back to what Gideon told Eva in North Carolina .... after he'd been with Anne Lucas, no matter how long he showered, he couldn't feel clean. She must have been manipulating his mind even while he was using her.  I think it's obvious she bought the lie that wedding bells were in the future for Gideon and Corrine .... but I wondered whether she had been messing with Corrine's mind during those weeks when Corrine was convinced she and Gideon were dating again but at the same time Corrine incredibly frustrated by mixed messages -- why wouldn't Gideon sleep with her?  Once Gideon dumped Corrine, Corrine would have been putty in Anne's hands. Anne would not have known yet have known about Eva, but Anne likely could have thought to herself something like this -- further proof Gideon Cross is a cold-hearted jerk when it comes to women, he dumped Corrine like he dumped me, but now I have a chance to really get back at him if I can drive Corrine to kill herself over him. With his background, his father a suicide, something like this actually would get under his cold skin. Plus he'd be publicly shamed for having shattered Corrine.  Agree that Eva needs to watch her back now. Fortunately for Eva, she knows a great deal more about the truth than Anne could ever suspect.

 His initial guilt evaporated as soon as he found out about Stunt #2 from Eva. He decided then and there he had nothing further to say to Corrine. Whatever slack he might have been willing to cut Corrine for #1 (the nooner) #2 proved beyond all doubt was a manipulative little b**** Corrine really was.  What finally forced him to break "radio silence" was her constantly calling him, including calling his office. Then she showed up obviously unannounced at the Crossfire again. Maybe she even lurked in the lobby until he came through -- him either leaving for a lunch meeting or coming back from one? Because it was lunchtime when Eva spotted Corrine and him in the lobby.  I think the guilt kicked back in again when he figured out she really was in despair --- him blaming himself. He'd known her long enough to know her behavior was becoming increasingly irrational, and he wasn't so angry at her for hurting Eva that he wasn't also concerned when it became apparent Corrine was headed for nervous breakdown.

I wonder whether Anne Lucas knew the truth about her brother Hugh, and specifically what drove him to suicide. Â If she did, did she have an even larger agenda already set when she set out to seduce Gideon? One she initially failed to accomplish, because The Iceman was immune to her wiles and manipulations? Â What if she didn't know the truth about Hugh, because her husband kept that secret from her ... and she simply went after Gideon because she's a cheating s l u t? Â So if she didn't know about the Gideon-Hugh truth, is her motive for causing grave mental health harm to Corrine and her motive for attempting to mess with Eva's mind purely driven by her being a scorned woman? Â Oh the possibilities ....

 Excellent point .... Elizabeth has got a lot of explaining to do. She said two pediatricians examined him.  I wonder whether it might have gone down like this:  Suspicions come up while the abuse is still at the stage where Hugh is performing hand jobs on Gideon, something that would not leave marks. Pediatrician #1 examines Gideon and honestly does not find marks. But this doctors does violate ethics and the law by keeping the "investigation" a secret instead of performing mandatory reporting to child protective services. Hugh is continued to allowed access to Gideon. Now thinking the coast is clear, he escalates the abuse to forcible penetration. Something prompts Elizabeth to seek a second opinion -- perhaps some radical changes for the worse in Gideon's mental state? Terry Lucas is the second pediatrician. He does find evidence of abuse -- but he tells Elizabeth he didn't. Worse, he works hard to convince Elizabeth that Gideon is a liar, in order to stop Elizabeth from investigating any further.

 Is crow pie the dinner special tonight at Tableau One? In that case, I'll order it. I'm still eating crow about some of my pet Entwined theories.

Like Eva, I hate the character Corrine for what she did .... and I'm convinced Dr. Anne Lucas is an evil person who deliberately deepened suicidal tendencies already present in Corrine ..... Â Â ..... Gideon is very much in the wrong here, too. A theory I'd had months ago did, in fact, play itself out: Gideon very calculatedly sent Corrine mixed messages to make Corrine believe they were more than friends. Gideon still doesn't get the concept of what lying by omission actually is. He did lie to Corrine ... because actions speak louder than words, and his actions told Corrine they were a couple again. I just knew it -- I knew he had to have been doing it. Far too much was riding on things to leave it to chance. If the cops charged him, the danger existed they would charge Eva with being involved as well. Doesn't matter that Eva was 100% innocent. Some cop or prosecutor could try to argue otherwise. Everything depended upon the lie Gideon was living .... so he lied to Corrine. Â Lied to a woman he already knew was in crisis -- she was in crisis even before she stepped foot back in New York.

 If Anne Lucas was the psychiatrist hired to treat him as a 10-11 year old boy, but who ended up barely working with him at all because she instead focused all her attention on Elizabeth, it would make sense why he wouldn't recognize her 18-19 years later. Poor Gideon got left alone with Hugh the Pedophile a lot, so it's obvious whoever the female shrink had been all those years ago, that shrink barely worked with the poor child.  Fast forward to the present .... with all the women constantly throwing themselves at him, the poor guy would be hard pressed to keep track of all the faces. Anne was simply another one of the women in line and he wasn't going to give her the time of day .... until he somehow found out whose wife she was. Then things got interesting.  I think it is a stretch that Anne was the psychiatrist all those years ago the Vidals hired ... but I think the possibility exists. I'm almost certain she had been the one feeding Corrine meds though .... calculatedly setting out to make Corrine suicidal. Revenge against Gideon on so many levels -- fooled into the belief Gideon had always been in love with Corrine, destroying his shot at happily ever after .... getting even with him for her own brother's suicide .... knowing that he harbors deep survivor guilt stemming from the suicide of his own father under especially traumatic circumstances.

Hey, another fun thing we can do -- something nice for Sylvia -- just came to me .... Â Favorite Chapter Quotes or Paragraphs! Â Because during the one-chapter-a-day re-read project of Bared and Reflected, our "homework" was to pick a favorite quote or paragraph So I'm going to go for it, including doing catch-up on chapters 2 and 1. Â Ch. 3 favorite: "So my former boyfriend will be on Fifth Avenue, but I've got a hunky new neighbor to play with? This could be interesting." (page 25) Â Ch. 2. Â "For your convenience, I'm already unwrapped. Batteries not required." (page 19) Â Ch. 1 "I can survive anything if I have you." (page 10)

Given the latest controversy raging over Corrine -- did she or did she not know she was pregnant when she made that suicide attempt -- I'm hoping that Sylvia will tell us which was the case. Â If Corrine honestly didn't know .... well, there's plenty the fandom already holds against the character, no need to add any more on. Â On the other hand, if Corrine did know, then it makes the situation even more tragic -- that she would go to such an extreme -- and it also makes the case against Dr. Anne Lucas (if Lucas was the psychiatrist prescribing meds to Corrine) even more evil.

 I'm not saying Corrine would get away with trying to pass off Jean-Francois' baby as Gideon's -- only that she was desperate enough to try it. If she was desperate enough to essentially throw herself at him at a high-society event where he was there with a serious girlfriend .... if she was desperate enough to pull that nooner stunt the next day, running the risk she'd infuriate him .... well, she was desperate enough to try anything.  She deluded herself about a lot of things .... I think she was deluding herself into thinking she could trap Gideon through the oldest trick in the book "You slept with me, I'm pregnant, it's your baby"

 I think Gideon especially wants the media reporting they're engaged and then wedding pictures plastered all over the place to proclaim to the whole world Eva is his.  Good Lord, the man is regressing a bit -- again. It's almost like the staged-sidewalk-kiss all over again: Caveman proclaiming "She Little Cross Woman - Back Off!!!" (That means you, Kline.)  Perhaps part of him is still guilt driven by having hurt Eva so badly by him deliberately getting himself photographed with Corrine.  Speaking of, one thing did make me want to spank Gideon -- Chapter 23, them climbing out of the limo, him sliding his lips across her temple and saying something guaranteed to make her laugh. It instantly reminded me of the photo that broke Eva's heart -- Gideon with his arm around Corrine's waist, " .... his lips nearly touching her temple. She had a drink in her hand and was laughing."  He did that same little trick to make Corrine laugh for the camera -- I wonder what sweet nothing he whispered to Corrine that night.

Hey Julie, got your avatar I see. Excellent!

 Bobbing in the gutter with B.O.B.  .... you Brits are killing me !!!!! Can we order some hot Scots in kilts while we're at it?  Rawrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

 I think the business part was that Gideon was in one of his sexy-as-h e l l three-piece business suits when he brought Eva coffee in bed ....  But my vote is smokin' hot suit, smokin' hot coffee .... smokin' hot sex while Gideon was still dressed in that suit.  Oh it was soooooo clever. I remember thinking when I first saw snapshot 3, I speculated had something to do with the blueberry flavored coffee account Eva was working at the office. I never envision Full Mogul Mode Gideon serving a very n a k e d Eva coffee in bed.

 Hi Sheens,  I'm sticking to a chapter a day here and I too voted for that. I'm going to try to see if I can help make the experiment work; thus far today, it's held to that thus far.  Fighting ruins the fun for everyone.

 Some of those chapters involved them simply getting going .... like in the bathtub .... and then leaving the rest to our imaginations. Others involved very long, tender and HAWT encounters.