LN Cronan

 Mrs. C, I know, I know -- we're jumping ahead on the hair color thing by talking about Elizabeth Vidal, Corrine, and Anne Lucas. But the B-word (brunette) first surfaces in Chapter One, on page 5 the instant before Eva meets Gideon. :)  So when our heroine first lays eyes on the mysterious hero, she's up against some " ... svelte beautifully groomed brunette ...." all gaga and trying her hardest to (unsuccessfully) capture the attention of a man that brunette obviously knew was the famous Gideon Cross, known as a gentleman who preferred brunettes.  So in a way, we're talking about Chapter One, because what would later become a very serious insecurity issue for Eva (brunettes) surfaced as a tiny red flag in Chapter One. Eva later became convinced Corrine forever has held some sort of strong sexual hold over Gideon, even all these years later. The "proof" in Eva's eyes was the whole Gideon-brunette hang up history.  When Eva finally brought up the brunette subject to Gideon (after Eva met Corrine), he admitted he wasn't sure himself whether all those years before, he'd been unconsciously seeking out brunettes only. An honest answer on Gideon's part, but all the more unsettling for Eva -- because what if it was right that Corrine was the reason Gideon went for brunettes only?

He made love to the blonde Eva because he fell head over heels in love with her, body and soul. He coldly sexually used the redheaded Anne Lucas for revenge. He slept with the brunette Corrine because she seduced him, the first woman to successfully do that, in a relationship he admitted a decade later had been only about sex. Â Would Corrine have gotten Gideon into bed if Corrine had been a blonde or a redhead? Or would Gideon have felt no desire for her at all if Corrine had been anything else but a woman who resembled his mother in certain ways, including physically to an extent (similar coloring)? Would Gideon have continued to "beat off with a stick" (so to speak) every woman wanting to jump his hot young bones because he did not yet have the courage (given his past) to go to bed with a woman? Would he have kept that sexual wall up until at last some other beautiful blue-eyed brunette from his own social class actively pursued him -- and when that woman did, he'd finally risk going to bed with a woman for the first time?

 The biggest spoiler question I've always had for Sylvia has been "does this brunette dating fetish extend to the bedroom?" (Or in Gideon's case, to the f*** pad hotel room.)  When it comes to Eva, Gideon has broken every rule we know about, starting with the rule he doesn't f*** women he dates nor date women he f***.  Was that the very first rule of his he broke -- to both date and sleep with Eva? Or, was that the second rule he broke -- the real first rule of his he broke was to find himself sexually attracted to a non-brunette?  He was never sexually attracted to the redheaded Anne Lucas. Gideon's only attraction there was stone-cold malice to get revenge against Anne's husband, one of Gideon's bitter enemies.Â

 We can't seem to restrain ourselves any more than Gideon can restrain himself around Eva. We are all over the place and jumping ahead of ourselves.  But yes, the proper thing to be doing today would be to: Make comments about (and especially posting favorite parts of) Chapter One. That was our homework assignment yesterday. Be reading Chapter Two today.  Back on page three of this particular thread, last evening (well, evening Eastern U.S. time zone) I posted a "Reader's Guide" to Chapter One as an immediate tool for anyone who wasn't able to finish (or even start) the chapter yesterday. My goal is to try to do the same each day, because practically all of us will have days we're too busy in our lives to do that particular day's assignment and homework.  Plus I'm going to save copies of all of those Reader's Guide so that I can maintain -- for my own pleasure and to spark discussions here -- a master timeline of Eva's life since Gideon entered it.

There's going to be a lot of very tired women in the world on the morning of June 5. We were up all night with Gideon Cross.

I'm working on today's "Reader's Guide" to the chapter like I did yesterday. But I've already figured out my favorite passage in Chapter Two of Bared -- what's going through Eva's mind as she's with Gideon in an elevator, the pair of them headed down to the lobby just after 5 p.m. Note: this elevator trip started out with just the pair of them (Gideon and his elevator moves -- swoon!!!) But now there's three other people with them. Gideon took the opportunity, when the other people got on the elevator, to move over so that he's now standing right next to Eva. Â He adjusted his perfectly knotted tie, his arm brushing against mine as he did so. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to ignore my acute awareness of him by concentrating on the conversation taking place in front of us. It was impossible. He was just so there. Right there. All perfect and gorgeous and smelling divine. My thoughts ran away from me, fantasizing about how hard his body might be beneath the suit, how it might feel against me, how well endowed -- or not -- he might be. ~ Eva, page 19, Bared to You. Â P.S. the "or not" is funny on the audiobook, the way the narrator says it. It made me laugh out loud the first time I heard it.

 She gave us the option to pick out a favorite paragraph instead. Because many "one-liners" would tend to be direct quotes of things characters say to one another, while whole paragraphs would tend to be descriptive passages of what's going through Eva's mind about a particular person or situation -- stuff Eva is telling us the readers as opposed to what characters are saying out loud to one another.  I'm loving this part of the group activity, picking out favorite lines or passages, because it's going to prompt me to figure out what are my absolute favorites in the entire series thus far.

Good morning, ladies in North America and good afternoon to ladies in Europe. Â It's Read Along Day Two -- Chapter Two of Bared To You. Â Â Â This chapter opens on day two of the story, just after 5 p.m. Tuesday in the Crossfire. It continues until Thursday evening, day four of the story, in Eva's apartment. Â Key plot developments: For the first time, Gideon tells Eva he wants to f*** her, a proposition she finds as equally offensive as arousing (page 28). Eva learns Gideon's full identity (page 30, Cary looked Gideon up online after Eva got home, because she'd learned Gideon's last name earlier Thursday in a business meeting she attended in his offices.) Â Remember to pick out a favorite one-liner or paragraph from this chapter, because that's the homework Sylvia assigned. She must be having a blast today reviewing fan favorites from Chapter One.

These one-liners are even hotter (and sometimes hilarious) in the audiobooks. You should "hear" Eva when she's being sassy, and hear Gideon when he's turned on.

 We don't know, but my gut says yes. Because if it is true that Anne Lucas expressed keen interest in Eva the first time Gideon took Eva out in public as a date, it makes sense why at the next big social affair that Gideon and Eva attended, the fundraiser at the Waldorf a couple of weeks later, Dr. Lucas swooped in on Eva.  Lucas took full advantage of the fact it was plain to everyone in the vicinity Gideon wasn't even paying attention to a miserable Eva -- Eva was being ignored while Corrine got all of Gideon's attention. While Gideon was distracted, Lucas kept Eva company at the dinner table and even persuaded her to go have a drink with him. Eva attempting to leave the table to do just that is what finally drew Gideon's attention back to Eva.  This was Lucas' first attempt at poisoning Eva's heart and mind against Gideon. Lucas did succeed in planting some seeds by playing into Eva's insecurities about Gideon being almost completely 100% focused on Corrine at that moment. Lucas pointed out truthfully that Gideon had been too wrapped up in talking with Corrine to even notice what Eva was doing. Then Eva told Gideon that Lucas was right. Thus began the argument that led to Eva walking out of the dinner, pulling one of her runners. So Lucas did win that night in that he sparked the one thing that absolutely terrifies Gideon inside -- Eva pulling away from him. In fact, for the first and only time, Eva safe-worded Gideon in order to make Gideon let go of her (at the time, Gideon had a firm hold on her hand and was refusing to let her leave the table.)

 Elizabeth was pregnant with Ireland at the time and having a rough pregnancy, so I don't think so. However, an affair soon after was possible, I suppose, especially if Lucas is a pretty evil guy.  Around the time Gideon was abused, Lucas was in his late 20s and was already married to Anne. He would have been fresh out of medical school. We don't know how old Elizabeth was at the time, but I'm going to estimate mid-to-late 30s. Her first child (Gideon) already was around age 11. Her second (Christopher Jr.) was around 5, and Ireland was a newborn. We have no idea how much older than Elizabeth her second husband, Christopher Vidal Sr., is.  Of the various ways Gideon, as a grown man, could have effed with Dr. Lucas, the route Gideon choose was to undermine the guy's marriage by sleeping with Anne Lucas. He didn't end up destroying the marriage entirely (a Google search revealed his current marital status as long-time married.) But he ended up breaking Anne's heart. For all we know, Anne is still pining for Gideon and Lucas is staying with his wife to spite Gideon. Talk about cutting off his own nose though.

 Oh I'll jump a little ahead too (with apologies to Shazz -- we can't seem to restrain ourselves any easier than, say, Gideon can restrain himself around Eva.)  This isn't my favorite line, but it is a follow-up to the seminal emission line, one Gideon throws back in Eva's face a little later, when they finally get down to negotiations about her agreeing to go to bed with him soon.  "I'm warning you, if you say anything about orifices, preapprovals or seminal emissions, I won't be held accountable for my actions." ~ Gideon to Eva, Bared page 63.

My theory is just before 5 p.m. Gideon grabbed an elevator all to himself on the top floor of the Crossfire, stuck his elevator key into the panel, and rode the elevator down to 20.  And just kept waiting there, letting the door open each time someone hit the "down button." If it was anyone other than Eva, he'd do some polite brush-off to stop them from entering the elevator (naturally, all the regulars in the building would recognize him and backed off, taking the next elevator.) He repeated this maneuver however many times it took for the elevator doors to open to finally reveal Eva preparing to go down to the lobby.  He lucked out catching her alone, but I doubt the presence of other people from her floor would have stopped him from trying to talk to her. When necessary, he's shared crowded elevators with her. But he keeps his hands to himself unless they're alone.

Sylvia has given us reading homework, via Facebook post: "So, today is Day 1 of the BARED and REFLECTED chapter-a-day reread countdown. I'm going to ask you later to post your favorite line or paragraph from BARED Chapter One. Homework time!"  Already got mine picked out. Eva's just walked out of the Crossfire lobby after having run into Gideon for the very first time. She catches sight of her own face reflected in the tinted windows of a vehicle parked at the curb (Gideon's Bentley, co-incidentally, not that she knows it's his car. In fact, she doesn't even know who he is, other than he's very hot and obviously rich.)  I was flushed and my gray eyes were overly bright. I'd seen that look on my face before -- in the bathroom mirror just before I went to bed with a man. It was my I'm-ready-to-f*** look and it had absolutely no business being on my face now. ~ Eva, Bared to You, top of page 8.

 If it weren't for his history with Corrine, I would say, "yes" -- that Gideon symbolically punishes the mother he has shut out of his life emotionally by shutting out the women he dates, all of whom at least superficially share some surface characteristics with his mother: beautiful socialites, every one of them brunette.  Elizabeth wants back Gideon's love, which she lost because of a devastating sexual matter: she failed to protect him from being raped by a man when he (Gideon) was on the threshold between child and young teenager. Her reaction was to allow other people to persuade her Gideon was a disturbed little liar.  Gideon no longer loves his mother. And Gideon refuses to give love to the women he dates -- refuses to be physically and emotionally intimate with them. At best, he will be friends with some of them (Magdalene being the example.) Meanwhile, he also refuses to give emotional intimacy or even friendship to the women he f****  He engages in short-term physical relationships and then ditches them.  Only twice has Gideon engaged in full-fledged serious romantic relationships: Corrine and Eva, both of whom got inside his emotional shell via sex. Gideon cared deeply about Corrine, though he was never "in love" with her in the true sense of the word. Their relationship had been all about sex on his side. But then Eva rocked Gideon's world in many ways, especially sexually -- their's is an intensely physical as well as emotional bond.

 I get where you're trying to go, Julie -- the brunette hang-up is a strong surface sign of much deeper things tied to Gideon's issues about women.  We just don't know how deep it is yet. Mostly because we know so little about Gideon's deeper issues, period. Because Gideon's biggest issue of all is his shutting down, shutting the world out, and living much of his life in a rigid shell of protection.  We do know that Entwined is going to break open that shell, which already has been cracking.  Because the brunette thing has come up over and over and over again, I'm certain we're going to find the real root -- is it actually Corrine (like Eva suspects) or does it go even deeper, into issues related to Gideon being betrayed by his mother.

Chapter One of Bared -- The Reader's Guide  The crucial part of this chapter, obviously, is the first meeting between Eva and Gideon, in the lobby of the Crossfire. Pages 5-8. If you don't get to read anything else today on this, our Chapter One of Bared day, re-read that scene.  Characters we meet (besides Eva and Gideon, that is): The third major character we meet for the first time is Cary Taylor, who is Eva's best friend and her roommate. Indirectly, we learn about two more very important men in Eva's life - her biological father (Victor Reyes) and her stepfather (Richard Stanton, but nearly always referred by last name only: "Stanton.") Indirectly, we also learn some things about Eva's mother, who never married Eva's birth father and for whom financial security is very important. Mark Garrity, Eva's boss, comes up for the first time. So does Megumi (no last name given to us), the main receptionist at work and the first gal-pal Eva makes in New York Parker Smith (Eva's future Krav Maga instructor) also appears for the first time, when she meets him at her gym.  Story setting stuff and some character background The story opens in early June. Chapter One covers two days. On day one, a Monday, she meets Gideon. On day two, Tuesday, she starts her new job Eva and Cary have just moved to New York from San Diego and are still unpacking. They live on the Upper West Side in a very expensive modern apartment (paid for by Monica and Stanton). Eva has never before lived in New York and she is awed Eva is working an entry level position as an administrative assistant at a leading advertising agency, Waters Field & Leaman. Her boss, Mark, is a junior level account executive Cary is a fashion model looking for work and his prospects are promising Cary is bisexual, and he has a rough past romantically with lovers of both genders: cheaters, stalkers and emotionally/mentally unbalanced partners Victor is a street-level police officer (i.e. rides cruiser) in City of Oceanside, California (that's part of the San Diego County tri-city region) Stanton is a financier very rich in his own right We learn that Stanton and Monica love to shower Eva (and by extension Cary) with designer things We learn that Victor refused to allow Stanton to pay for Eva's college education -- and refused to allow Eva to pay the student loans off We also learn that Eva refused to allow Stanton to get her a cushy job through his friends - she insisted on landing an entry level job herself Cary likes to cook and loves to party. He's not a very good cook but he's fun to be with and a very sympathetic listener Cary's first reaction to Gideon is Eva ought to flirt with guy. Eva is leery. The chapter ends with Eva leaving her office after her first full day at work, on her way to meet Cary for after-work celebratory drinks. As she prepares to board an elevator, the lone occupant is Gideon.

 Good catch, Julie!  Veddy, veddy clever on Sylvia's part, not mentioning Mummy has long hair when we first meet Mummy as a character at the garden party about two thirds of the way in to Bared. Because it's not until Entwined that we're going to learn the details of Gideon's dark past and in all likelihood learn about his Mommy issues (as Gideon himself starts, with Eva's love and maybe Dr. Petersen's help) start to sort things out in his head.  Until then, we'd been set up to think the brunette thing is a Corrine issue. Because Bared had been leading up to the sudden surprise of Corrine's existence. Eva seizes on the fact Corrine is a brunette and Gideon has dated only brunettes as proof positive Corrine still has a physical hold over Gideon. However, that's Eva's insecurities talking.  In truth, Gideon is clueless about the whole brunette issue. In fact, he was even clueless about the long hair issue too (Eva was the one who -- duh -- explained the reason behind Magdalene's hairstyle makeover.)

Like many novelists, Sylvia provides a character's physical description when that character first enters the story. It's part of the protagonist (here, Eva) formulating her first impression of people she is meeting for the first time. It's also frequently used for the reader's benefit to help us visualize a character the protagonist already knows well (for example, Cary, Monica, Victor.) Â For a physical description of every person Eva meets for the first time, from Gideon to the homicide detectives, go to the part of the story where each character first enters. Â The physical descriptions of people Eva already knows well (Cary, her parents, Brett) go to the chapters where those characters first crop up. For example, our description of Cary is in Chapter One of Bared, because that's the first chapter in which he appears.

Brunette commonly is used to describe women with dark hair: black and brown, not just brown. Sylvia uses the word frequently in the Crossfire series, starting in the very first chapter of Bared. In fact, the word is more than casually tossed out there: it's a serious matter in Gideon's history involving women. Â We have a physical description of Elizabeth Vidal on page 219 of Bared (Eva is meeting her at the Vidal's garden party.) According to the description, Elizabeth's hair is black (though Sylvia uses an unusual and quite lovely synonym for the word black, obsidian.) That same paragraph notes that both Gideon and Ireland have their mother's coloring (i.e. blue eyes as well as dark hair.) Interesting to note that the paragraph does not specify the style of Elizabeth's hair. Â The physical description we have of Corrine is on page 310 of Bared (Eva is about to meet Corrine, who is looking at Gideon in a way that makes it obvious Corrine is deeply in love with him.) Her hair is black - thick and straight and worn waist length. Her eyes are pale blue and her skin tone is golden.

The first few minutes I've listened to on audiobook makes me aware of how blown away by New York traffic she is. Â I say it because of her thing about having sex in cars. Â I also say it because the very fuzzy shot we have today showing just a little bit of the very first few sentences of Entwined open with Eva sitting in traffic. Â Oh and today's snapshot is of a sports car (an Aston according to our British fans here)

 He certainly needs a reminder about what it feels like to be sick with jealousy -- because he needs to learn how to get OH-VER that. Eva certainly did, and no thanks to him either. She did it by digging deep inside herself after she dumped him.

 Throwing out some possibilities: Gideon is maintaining another car (an Aston) somewhere, one not registered directly to him and thus one the cops wouldn't know about. It's part of his sneaking around with Eva. Brett's being flashy with his new found success, driving around an Aston, and this is pushing Gideon's buttons (not that Brett would have any clue about that.) Gideon knows Eva's got a thing about sex in cars.

 I'm guessing all his meaningless sex partners, from one-night stands to short-term "strangers with benefits" (to use Eva's term) all were brunettes too.  If Gideon had no clue he had any sort of preference at all, then his unconscious attraction to dating brunettes might have extended to f****** only brunettes.  Or -- the opposite might be the case. Post-Corrine, maybe one of his control-fetish issues was that he did not f*** any more brunettes. The hotel-sex fetish clearly started with Corrine. Maybe some of Gideon's additional issues are rooted in that first consensual adult sexual relationship.  If the story with Gideon used to be all-brunettes, in and out of bed, then there is an extra layer to why Eva is extraordinary in so many ways. She certainly broke him of the hotel-sex thing. She broke him of the never-stay-the-night thing too. Did she break him of the brunette thing as well?

 I picked up on that too. Eva, obviously, had no idea in Bared Chapter One who Gideon was. However, it's plain the other woman knew Gideon is a celebrity, is perhaps the most eligible bachelor in the New York -- and is known for having a fetish for brunettes. Where that first red flag will ultimately lead (thus far until the end of Reflected):  Both Gideon's mother (who betrayed him as a child) and Corrine (the first woman who seduced him and the only other woman he ever had a serious relationship with) share the same coloring (blue eyes and long black hair). This leaves us wondering about the real root of Gideon's brunette fetish: is the root his first consensual sexual relationship or is it a "Mommy issue" (or maybe both). Eva told Gideon she believes the root is Corrine. Gideon admitted he isn't sure whether that's true. He tells Eva he was unaware he was seeing out brunettes -- he'd been unconscious of any sort of preference in women prior to Eva. Magdalene Perez, though not the only woman Gideon has publicly gone out with, is his most frequent social date, judging by photos Cary found when researching Gideon online . Every woman photographed with him is brunette. It turns out Magdalene deliberately wore her own brunette hair the same long style as Corrine's in order to try to make herself more desirable to Gideon. When Magdalene finally threw in the towel, she cut her hair. Even Eva's mother and Gideon's mother both are well aware of his preference for brunettes. Monica is the one who first tells Eva he's known for it. Elizabeth is very surprised by Eva's hair color when she meets Eva. We do know that except for Corrine and Eva, Gideon maintained platonic relationships with all the women he dated socially, and he's never socialized with any of his sex partners. He took every woman he'd ever slept with, Corrine included, to the f*** pad hotel. We do know he has a fetish for control, and it's plain that fetish used to (prior to Eva) included where he had sex. Prior to Eva, the only place he ever f*** women was at that one hotel.  What we don't know is whether Gideon's brunette fetish is part of his past (i.e. pre-Eva) sexual fetishes. Of the three women we know for certain he has had sexual relationships with, each of them has a different hair color. Eva is a natural blonde Corrine is a brunette Anne Lucas is a redhead. But we do know this sexual relationship was based on pure malice, not on any sort of attraction Gideon had for Anne. Anne came on to him, and when he found out who her husband was, he slept with her repeatedly. She reached a point where she was ready to leave her husband -- and Gideon dumped her to send her back to him. He's deeply ashamed of this affair, which is one of the few dark matters in his past he thus far has confessed to Eva.