LN Cronan

Hi Tazztunes! You bring up a great point: even if Detective Graves is sincere she and her partner are backing off, somebody else might not let the matter drop. Either because of a grudge against what Gideon's father did, or because Nathan had an accomplice.

 

Geoffrey Cross, Gideon's late father, hurt a lot of people with his Ponzi scheme. It would have been a lot of rich, powerful people he hurt too, hurt them financially (and thus their power, because money is power.) It's not everyday investors who get burned by major financiers running Ponzi schemes. It's rich people interested in getting richer faster. They hand over the money, but as long as the statements (doctored) claim good profits, the investors don't look to closely nor question what's going on. So when the house of cards collapses, they get hurt. Some get ruined, those who become greedy about the too-good-to-be-true criminal financier, so they invest their whole nest eggs with him instead of diversifying like smart, responsible investors.

 

It was more than 20 years ago that Geoffrey Cross was found to be a fraud, a fraud who escaped justice by taking the suicide route out. (Gideon was 5 years old then, now he's 28). Now Gideon is worth $12.5 billion dollars. He's one of the richest men in the world, and he didn't get there as a financier either. From the ground up, he created an empire of entertainment companies and major real estate holdings. Let him escape justice too? For murder, a crime far worse than fraud? Someone who want to see him go down. Murder one equals life no parole.

 

At the very least, Gideon and Eva would need to be cautious for a time just to make sure the detectives have backed off instead of trying to trap them. But if there's more than just those detectives involved, Gideon and Eva will need to keep under the radar for some time.

Hi GiGi!!! Maybe Gideon's still lying by omission and it was Stanton/Monica all the time. You're captain of Team Gideon Didn't Do It. Love this!! We'll all see June 4 when we all read Entwined in one setting.

 

Nowhere do the book say anything about Gideon spending a weekend with Corrine. He wouldn't even spend an entire night with her, even while they were engaged. Because of his nightmares. He had no intention of telling her about it. When she finally broke the engagement, he was relieved, because of the whole sleeping in the same bed issue. Separate bedrooms as husband and wife wouldn't cut it.

 

Eva's the only woman Gideon dared sleep alongside. And his fears about his nightmares were justified. Not only did Eva witness stuff he felt deep shame about, but he found out the hard way how violent his nightmares can be. After he nearly raped Eva, he insisted they not sleep alongside one another. Even with the medication and being treated by Dr. Petersen, he was leery. Even in North Carolina. They made love in the beautiful bed, but they slept separately.

I wonder if Corrine hoped during the party that afterward, she and Gideon would go upstairs. Old time's sake? I think not. What I think happened is after the party was over, he left with Corrine and had either Angus or Raul drive them both home together. She lives around the corner from Gideon.

 

Possible theory: Gideon planned to keep stretching my alibi past the party into the rest of the night. Gives a much larger safety margin. So maybe he, being the "friend in time of need" apologized to Corrine for not having any time to talk with her at the work party. Starts listening sympathetically in the car. She invites him up. He goes up, but they spend hours just talking. Her doorman and the downstairs desk person could verify, if they were ever asked, he left sometime in the middle of the night. He walked around the corner home.

When did Corrine come into his life?

I can't see her being his first.

 Megan, from Bared to You, the night Eva met Corrine at a fundraiser as was blindsided Gideon used to be engaged to her. In the conversation later at Eva's, where Gideon explained a lot of background:

 

"I met her my first year at Columbia. I noticed her, of course. She's beautiful and sweet and never had an unkind word to say about anyone. When she pursed me, I let myself be caught, and she became my first consensual sexual experience."

^^^ THIS ^^^ What Kirsten said.

 

It's karmic justice, too, for her playing dirty tricks on Eva, trying to fool Eva into thinking Gideon is sleeping with her. Now Gideon is fooling the world into thinking he's seeing Corrine again. I don't feel bad for Corrine. 

*(from a conversation about past relationships) Sylvia later clarified so people wouldn't think present day Gideon and Eva were settling for others.

 

I'm hoping this is a tiny piece of an honest conversation Gideon and Eva have about both Corrine and Brett, especially what went on starting with that terrible week and what's been going on since.

 

On Gideon's side, he never defended himself for taking Corrine out that week. Never tried to convince Eva it meant nothing (he desperately needed her to assume the opposite). Never denied even the worse Eva accused him of, sleeping with Corrine. He couldn't. His hands were tied. Er, make that lips were sealed.

 

 Gideon doesn't need to defend himself anymore about why he started taking Corrine out again that week. Eva now knows why - it was for his cover. She'll trust him now. But she also deserves to get a full explanation of what exactly had been going on with Corrine the weeks she and Gideon were apart. And deserves to know his plan is moving forward, especially if he needs to continue to keep up the back-with-Corrine ruse if he has to because the coast isn't clear for him and Eva. Remember, this is part of the "plan." Now Eva is playing an active role in said plan. So she now has a need-to-know basis of what Gideon's going to do to manipulate what other people think.

 

On Eva's side, she should ease Gideon's mind about what the real deal is with Brett. That issue should have been laid to rest with the fight Gideon and Eva had right after the concert Friday night. But the following Tuesday, Eva went out to lunch with Brett. Not refused to see him when he showed up unannounced at the Crossfire. Went out with him. To spite Gideon. And Gideon never did get an explanation of what Eva/Brett talked about nor where they left things standing. He was in no position to demand answers of Eva, not when he couldn't offer an explanation about Corrine.

 

We the readers do know about a piece of Brett/Eva gossip out there though. Because Eva found out about it. Cary told her about it. This was two weeks to the day after Gideon pulled away. Cary found an online transcript of an interview Brett gave a Florida radio station one day earlier. "He was asked if there's really an Eva out there and he said yes there is, and he recently reconnected with her and hopes to make it work out a second time." I can only imagine what went through Gideon's mind. We know what he did the day after that interview hit the Internet. Broke his wall of absolute no-contact, put the promise ring back on Eva's hand, and told her to "wait."

 

By the end of Reflected, she did agree to wait. But the two of them have not yet even begun to talk about things that happened while they were apart.

 

I've got this fantasy about what went through Gideon's mind, knowing a part of Eva is still physically attracted to Brett and that she and Brett spent a lunch hour together talking about God only knows what.

 

 .... reconnected ... "What's THAT supposed to mean. Just how did they 'reconnect' when she went to lunch with him. Does she plan to continue to see him to spite me for seeing Corrine. Did she tell him to come visit her as soon as the concert tour is over?"

 

.... hopes to make it work out a second time ... "No way am I letting him kiss my girlfriend again, touch her, go anywhere near her. Oh wait, she dumped me and thinks I'm sleeping with Corrine. What's he planning to do when the concert tour ends. Come see her again. Try convincing her to take him back. Kiss her again so she can kiss him back .... Oh God, will she sleep with him to get even with me? (Gideon has a panic attack here.) .... I've got to do something. I can't go back to her, because it's not safe. Maybe if I give her back her ring and ask her to wait, she'll do it. I gotta try. I just can't stand by and let Brett Kline get her back."

This group of facts leaves me to conclude Gideon is lying by omission to Corrine that they're going somewhere. The same way he had been lying by omission to Eva they were over forever. Everything rests on fooling the cops he left Eva and won back his former fiancée, the one who left him, married someone else, but is divorcing that guy and has resumed contact with Gideon.

 

He needs to keep Corrine by his side, and a logical way to do this is to let her assume her coming back to New York to chase after him is working.

 

If Gideon is capable of hurting Eva so terribly because her life depended upon his entire plan to kill Nathan, he's more than capable of ruthlessly using Corrine in order to make the police cross him off the suspect list. Corrine means two things: lack of motive (he loved Corrine, not Eva) and alibi for the night Nathan died.

 

All along, he's been planning to go back to Eva some day. He needs the cops to back off for good though. I hope that in Entwined, he tells Eva exactly how he was planning to go back to her.

 

Also, I fear some more gory details will come out in Entwined the full extent of Gideon's using Corrine. Including my guess that he went somewhere private after the party with Corrine, spending hours with her in order to stretch his alibi to cover the entire night, not just the party.

 

A three hour window is too risky, because authorities can only estimate within a couple of hours time of death. The only sure bet is starting in the afternoon Thursday and continuing into the wee hours Friday. Gideon had arranged for Eva to have an entire unbroken alibi, from getting her roommate moved home from the hospital (so she could say truthfully she wasn't home alone) to making sure his driver took her from work right to an appointment and then right from the appointment home. And another driver was there when she emerged from her apartment before dawn Friday.

 

If he spent most/all of the night with Corrine, that gives an unbroken alibi. If it ever came down to it and the cops asked Corrine, she could say she was with him all night. Not lie to the cops and say they had sex. She'd tell the truth they spent time talking. They'd just started going out again.

 

If the cops came asking, Corrine would talk. Lawyer with her, but she'd talk. There's no reason for her to not answer the questions - she's done nothing wrong. And there's EVERY reason for her to confirm Gideon was with her. That keeps Gideon's alibi in place. It is the single thing that "proves" he couldn't kill Nathan. He was elsewhere that night and can prove it.

 

Yes, yes, I know Detective Graves thinks (rightfully) the murder went down during the party while it was disrupted by the hotel fire. The disruption is the ONLY possible hole Graves can find. She's tried really hard to break it. The fact she's attacking that hole in time very strongly suggests to me that is the ONLY possible hole that exists. Every other single minute of Gideon's life Thursday into Friday is uninterrupted. My timeline: he works all afternoon, then has back-up driver Raul pick him up at work, pick Corrine up at home, go to the party together, leave the party together with Raul driving, and go somewhere else, spending hours talking. My guess: Corrine's apartment, around the corner from Gideon's.

 

In at least part of Entwined, Eva likely needs to stand back and actually trust him as he continues to use Corrine and let the world think he loves Corrine. Maybe even up the appearance of passion, because the cops have upped the ante trying to trap him. After that hotel picture, Eva quit looking at anything Gideon-related online. But there has to be stuff, lots of stuff. The tabloids must be going insane. And behind the scenes, Gideon must be continuing to manipulate the public lie. So he'll have to keep taking Corrine out. And now Eva, we see from snippets 7 and 8, is out in public manipulating people into thinking she never loved Gideon. She's not home crying heartbroken. She's out partying with girlfriends and leading men on.

Hey AMC, good morning!! You found that third piece of background info! So to wrap up everything in both books related to the hotel room:

• Corrine was his first consensual relationship.
• He always had sex with her at a hotel, but never spent an entire night with him.
• One of the reasons Corrine asked him to marry her was to take the sexual relationship to a level beyond hotel room sex. Never happened.
• Corrine, not Gideon, ended the engagement. He was relieved, because he could never share a home with her. It'd be weird having separate bedrooms. Corrine went overseas to France, married someone else. Now she's getting a divorce. And the night Eva met her, Corrine admitted she's still in love with Gideon. He later admitted to Eva he feels guilty about it.
• Gideon told Eva that prior to her, the only place he's had consensual sex is that hotel.
• Eva found out when he took her to that hotel, he maintained a regular room stocked for sex (condoms, toys, changes of clothes)
• He didn't immediately clear it out afterward. And soon after in therapy, it slipped out the room still existed.
• Eva feared it was a sign he planned on possibly using it again in the future.
• Within hours of that therapy appointment, Gideon did clear out the room, while Eva was asleep.
• When he arrived back right after the trip to empty the room, she was in crisis from a Nathan nightmare. Thus Gideon didn't tell her where he'd been. It was more important to comfort her than to open discussion about everything they'd argued about that day.
• The party was at the hotel. Gideon took Corrine, not Eva.
• Gideon must have specifically taken Corrine to the party (i.e. not told her to stop by.) She absolutely had to be there for pictures.
• Saturday morning, Eva saw a photo of Corrine and Gideon at the party. His hand was around Corrine's waist. She was leaning into him and laughing. The accompanying story said where the party happened.
• Eva concluded he'd started sleeping with Corrine again. She told him as much on the phone a minute later when she called him to end it.
• Eva concluded the reason he ended his physical relationship with her that week was he'd seen the Nathan pictures (something else Eva found out Saturday morning.)
• He never denied anything else Eva said in that call. He couldn't. He was at the police station at the time.
• After that call followed more than a week of zero contact from Gideon.
• During this time period, Eva spotted him leaving the Crossfire with Corrine at the end of the business day. Eva was out on the sidewalk near the building at the time.
• Something immediately fell into place for Eva on the sidewalk about her mother's weird reaction to something on the sidewalk near the Crossfire one day.
• She called her mother immediately and confirmed it was that day her mother saw Nathan outside the building.
• That day was well before the week Gideon left her. And their sex life continued to be fine after the Nathan incident near Crossfire. So whatever caused Gideon to leave her that week, it wasn't the Nathan pictures.
• The morning after she saw Gideon and Corrine outside Crossfire, she confronted Corrine once and for all. In the fight, Corrine gave herself away that she wasn't sleeping with Gideon, even though Gideon was spending free time with her (Corrine.)
• Later that very same day, Eva and Gideon spoke in the security room of Crossfire. He told her he'd cleared out the hotel room.

Good morning, GiGi! Yay, for jumping in on the discussion. I invite other ladies to leap in. The water's fine!

 

The short accompanying story to the photo of Gideon and Corrine at the party, gives the location (and the time) of the party. Eva instantly recognized the place. She which hotel it was -- the hotel Gideon used for sex.

 

Re my conclusion this is the very hotel he always had sex with Corrine, that's something I've pieced together from various information Sylvia cleverly scattered throughout both books. Key is a part of Bared To You, page 328, when Gideon explains to Eva the story behind his accepting Corrine's marriage proposal. Because of his nightmares, he refused to literally sleep with Corrine, as in dare to sleep alongside her. In fact ultimately, it became the reason he knew he could never share a home with her. Because he wasn't ever going to let her what was behind the nightmares. So instead, he had sex with her in a hotel.

 

"I think she was hoping that being engaged would take us to a different level. Maybe I'd open up more. Maybe we'd stay the night at the hotel -- which she thought was romantic, by the way -- instead of calling it an early night because of classes in the morning."

 

In Reflected, during the first couple's therapy session, where they're arguing about Eva's accusations Gideon may have had a nooner with Corrine at the Crossfire earlier that same day, Gideon shot back, "Wouldn't I have taken her to the hotel." (Ooops, it slipped out he still had the room. Eva reacted with a sharp breath, Gideon's face displayed panic, and Dr. Petersen jumped in with "Let's slow down.")

 

Somewhere else it was mentioned that the only place Gideon has ever had sex is at his hotel room.

 

Putting all the pieces together: Corrine was his first consensual sexual relationship. She pursued him while they were both students at Columbia. In order to avoid having to sleep with her in the literal sense, he always took her to a hotel, they had sex, then he called it a night. Makes sense as the perfect way to avoid having sex at either one of their residences, where what would naturally follow falling asleep together.

 

Eva is the only woman he's dared to ever slept alongside, and that's because she was the first and only he's ever taken to his apartment (doing so to make up for her finding out the true nature of that hotel room they used after word the day she agreed to be his girlfriend.) She ran out of the room, he ran after her, and to stop her from breaking up with him, he took her home, assuring her that aside from his mother and the staff, no woman has ever been there.

 

Now I am making a leap that the hotel Gideon used to sleep with Corrine in college is the same hotel where he always took women for sex. Which I am further assuming it means Corrine would find sentimental value being at a party there. That's the thing you questioned in my assertion that Corrine would read a lot more into the fact Gideon took her, not his girlfriend Eva, to the vodka party that night. The hotel was special to Corrine and Gideon. Why wouldn't Corrine read something into that.

 

But it makes sense in light of his sexual hang-ups, that the first place he felt safe having sex with a woman is the only place he'd continue to do so. Part of him maintaining the control of sex. As soon as he became rich enough to do so, he'd buy the place -- owning it gives him an extra degree of control over exactly where he would sleep with women. All of his sexual relationships after Corrine but before Eva were purely for sex -- he didn't sleep with the women he saw socially nor socialize with the women he slept with.

 

However, when Eva saw that picture from the vodka party at the hotel, she made the absolute (and wrong) assumption the location was proof Gideon was definitely sleeping with Corrine. It was really dumb on one level for Gideon to hold the party there instead of somewhere else. From a tactical location, it was perfect (within 15 minutes of Nathan, a place he knew like the back of his hand, and a place he's have free reign to walk around, including the kitchen to set off a small fire.) But he had to have known Eva would react really badly.

 

Yet again though, he under-estimated just how badly she would react, when she combined the hotel picture with her sudden knowledge Gideon had seen Nathan's pictures. Gideon didn't count on that part happening; he was keeping the Nathan pictures secret from her. All along his assurances to her was he didn't want Corrine sexually because she (Eva) was the only one he desired. Now there's reason for him to not be able to look at her body anymore. He'd been sexually abused. Those pictures were of Eva being sexually abused. Too much to handle.

 

Eva assumed (wrongly) the reason he pulled away from her that week was because he'd seen the pictures then. Sure, he slipped into her apartment that Wednesday, making love to her all night because of the awful email she sent hours earlier. But that sex was in the pitch dark, and at one point he said "it has to be this way.". Next morning, Cary told her he suspected Gideon had get-it-out-of-his-system sex with her.

 

A mercy &%$! in other words. Which in a way, it was. Even though he was not going to leave her forever, Gideon had in fact started living the lie he did leave her for Corrine. He was having sex with her for the last time in the foreseeable future. Next night, he's partying with Corrine. At the hotel they used to sleep in when they were a couple many years ago. Upstairs in that hotel is a room Gideon has fully stocked with everything he needs, from condoms to clean clothes.

 

She never knew until nearly the end of Reflected he cleared that room out -- did it while she was fast asleep the night of that first therapy appointment. He'd come back to her place right after, arriving however in the middle of her having a Nathan nightmare. And when she woke up, she puked. Then she noticed he was fully dressed. He admitted he's gone somewhere while she was asleep, but he didn't say where.

 

"I was at the hotel, cleaning out that room. My &%$! pad as you called it. Explaining that while you were puking your guts out didn't seem to be the appropriate time." 

 

It was a huge relief for Eva to hear that. Especially because that very morning, she'd confronted Corrine and figured out Gideon was not sleeping with her. Now Eva had more proof. The party was at the hotel, but the room he maintained upstairs was gone.

 

"We both know I'll never use it again. My girl prefers modes of transportation to beds." (Sigh!)

Go onto the snippets thread. That's where I'll especially get into stuff that is practically fan fiction. I'm spinning all sorts of speculation about things the characters could do next in Entwined. And jump in with your own theories! We can amuse ourselves between now and June 4!

Throwing out for discussion the act both Eva and Gideon are now doing to fool the cops. The basis for this is both snippet 7 www.sylviaday.com/2013/02/07/entwined-snippet-7/ as well as www.sylviaday.com/2013/01/23/entwined-snippet-6/ These are the scenes involving Eva having a wild night out on the town.

Something I read into this is that Eva has seriously upped the ante of her public persona of "new Eva." When she first emerged from her shell, it started with a quiet evening at a lounge with her mother, stepfather, and her roommate/best friend. Now she's out with the girls clubbing, getting drunk and leading men on. Is she acting this way in public, because the cops have turned up the heat, are trying to trap them, and so she's gotta work harder at the act she's sooooooo over Gideon? She couldn't have been in love anyway if only a couple of weeks later, she's acting like she's out to get laid.

If this is true, is the reverse is it also true Gideon, because the cops are trying to trap him in his lie, up the ante on his Corrine cover? Fool people into thinking things with Corrine have gotten really serious these past few weeks? A couple of examples I'm throwing out about things he could do: arrange for a photographer to get a candid shot of him kissing Corrine (like he once had with with Eva, the day she agreed to be his girlfriend). Maybe messing up her lipstick and hair in the back of his car, so Corrine emerges looking freshly you-know-what.

I mean, this is Corrine we're talking about. She'd love that, even if all that really happened was one kiss for tabloid posterity. She'd let everyone assume she just got laid. But she wouldn't pressure Gideon for more physically. He's the dominant. He controls any sexual activity. Privately, she'd patiently wait for him to slowly move things further along over time. Thus for now Gideon can get away with just a kiss and not face angry recrimination from her he's toying with her.

OK, I can hear the arguments now from some of the regulars:

• Gideon would never lead Corrine to believe by the way he's acting he's decided he wants her back.
• Never lie by omission to allow her think that because he's no longer sleeping with Eva and is letting himself get photographed out in public with her (Corrine), they're going somewhere.
• Never let her assume he's glad she's getting divorced, and though he says he just wants to be a friend she can rely on while she's going through a rough time, he's not exactly behaving like just some other friend. He's frequently talking with her on the phone. Took her out for a quiet dinner, just the two of them. Brought her, not his "girlfriend" to an important work-related party that just happened to be at a hotel with important sentimental value to their old relationship. Had him meet her at his office so they could go somewhere together right after work. (And this is just the stuff we know about from Eva's point of view. There's probably more, but Eva stopped snooping online after that &%$! pad hotel picture.)
• Oh not Gideon, he'd never do something like that to Corrine, because it would break her heart.
• He did once love her in his own way and still cares as a friend.
• Thinks it would be cruel to cut off contact with her when she's going through a rough time.
• Feels guilty about the fact she still loves him.
• The only reason he's doing this to Corrine is because everything rests on fooling the police he loves her, not Eva, and so had no motive to kill Nathan.

OK, I'm going to make the same arguments, but substitute "Eva" for "Corrine."

• Gideon would never lead Eva to believe he's decided he doesn't want her anymore. (He most certainly did.)
• Never lie by omission to allow her to think what they had is gone for good. (By not denying Eva's accusations he can't handle the Nathan pictures, he let her believe it was true the awful thing she claimed to believe: he can't bear to look at her body anymore.)
• Never allow her to continue to think he can't break the hold Corrine has over him. Now that Corrine's getting divorced and he's done sleeping with her (Eva), Corrine and him have gone from being friends to being lovers again. (Eva's worst insecurity about Corrine is that she's always had some hold on Gideon. And Eva can clearly see Corrine left her husband in France and returned to New York in order to get Gideon back. Because of the hotel picture, Eva firmly believed he'd started sleeping with Corrine again but didn't have the courage to end it with her beforehand)
• Oh not Gideon, he'd never do something like that to Eva, because it would break her heart.
• He's madly in love with her.
• Wants to spend every minute being with her.
• And feels guilty every time he makes her cry.
• But he never told her the only reason he's doing what he is to her is because everything now rests on fooling the police he doesn't love her.

 

 

He spent five straight days of treating her badly in order to push her away. It ended with her finally having enough - she called him on the phone, said terrible things, broke down in tears, told him she was finished, then hung up on him. He proceeded to spend the next eight days having absolutely no contact with her whatsoever. By not having any contact at all, he allowed her to believe every last awful insecure thing she said on the phone was true. Because he denied nothing.

I think the only thing Gideon would never do at this point is sleep with Corrine, because that really would break Eva's heart for good. However, he'll use Corrine as ruthlessly as he needs to in order for he and Eva to be able to be together again. If he could foruce himself to hurt Eva as much as he did, in order to save her life, he's certainly got the capacity to hurt Corrine badly if that's what it will take for him to be with Eva forever. But no longer will he lie by omission to Eva. He might live a lie with Corrine, but now with Eva he'll always let her know the real truth.

And the discussion starts nooooooooooow.

They've both got serious trust issues. They both have a lot of issues. I think Gideon's got the deeper ones, and he's got a lot more work to do on himself. Eva is still a hot mess half the time herself. But she's worked hard for years to make progress. Gideon simply lived his life in a carefully constructed shell. Then Eva came along. She's the reason he's trying to change.

Remember when Gideon admitted to Eva he'd had his PR people put out the word she was the "significant woman" in his life right after he staged that photo of him kissing her on the street? He did it to publicly lay claim to her and make it clear she was off the market.

 

It is glaringly apparent to me, from the wording of what Eva read regarding the vodka party that was Gideon's alibi, that he had his PR people hand spoon exactly what info he wanted reported. Trust me, journalists can be lazy, especially near night-time deadlines.

 

"Gideon Cross, CEO of Cross Industries, and Corrine Giroux at the Kingsman Vodka publicity mixer," read the caption. And the info the article contained included the hours of the event and the location of the party. That's a press release. It was a publicity event. He'd have PR people right there. He was trying to manipulate what was reported. It worked too, beautifully. In fact, he might have had one of his own PR staff hand out that picture along with the press release. So it got reported exactly where he was at that time Thursday night, and who he was with and that there was proof in the form of a picture, one that would lead anyone to assume he and Corrine were intimate.

 

It's a huge contrast from him sitting close together with her Monday night at a front table of Tableau One, leaving himself open for candid shots. Probably had someone anonymously tip a photographer, and may also have tipped off exactly who Corrine was. It hit the gossip sites, and there were headlines like "former fiancée" online the next day.

All too often in real life, people do not call the police to stop an escalating situation. Far too many of the real-life criminal cases I saw, especially involving stalking, had the cops involved only after things went way too far. Same deal with child sexual abuse cases. The ones that did make the criminal courts were sickening in their degree of horror. Reason I quit journalism all together was years of seeing the worst people could do to one another burned me out.

i think that the snippet about dancing in the club - her saying she is "dancing like a single woman" is a sign that they are still keeping the appearence of a breakup in entwined.  he's not getting jealous because he trusts her, now,

I actually got a spoiler question answer from Sylvia on this when the snippet first came out, a very brief answer, as it was on Twitter, that Gideon was learning to trust Eva. Which is different from he trusts her now. I was very careful to phrase it as "learning."

 

My exact Tweet to her had been "To me, snippet 6 shows Gideon learning to trust Eva as she needs to act she's dumped him for good. Am I warm?" Her reply: "You're hot :)"

 

The biggest problem on his side of their relationship has always been his inability to trust her. He'd never let her in, she told him in the car ride scene near the end of Reflected. And that's why she now had started to move on with her life, a life that no longer included him. It was then that out of sheer desperation that he did something dramatic to start to open up: he rolled the dice by for the very first time starting to talk his sexual abuse. He still didn't trust her then with his deepest secret of all, Nathan's murder. He hoped she never ever would find out he did it.

 

In the snippet, Gideon's face was furious with jealousy when he told the guy dirty-dancing with Eva "Get lost." But rather than hit the guy, he pinned Eva against the wall. We all know what was coming next. He was going to &%$! her in an out of the way corner of a public place (a place he happened to own.) It's the reason he went there, we learned in another snippet that revealed her calling him up 20 minutes earlier. That snippet also strongly infers he told her to party at one of his clubs. (Keep an eye on her?)

 

One other thing the snippet of Eva dancing signals to me: she's testing Gideon. The question is: consciously or subconsciously. Subconsciously, she tested their relationship when she kissed Brett. Gideon forced the answer out of her during the sex-fueled fight in the limo. Consciously, she tested him days later by taking Brett to lunch. She knew she was doing it for spite, immediate and direct retaliation for finding online pictures proving Gideon took Corrine to dinner the night before at his good friend's restaurant.

 

Eva hanging out at the club with "the girls" drinking and having a good time would accomplish fooling folks into believing she's single. Dancing on the regular dance floor with guys would do it too. Granted, Gideon told her to go meet him up on the skywalk where dancers took things further by dirty dancing. But he told her there was a hidden corner where she should wait. What does she do instead? Knowing he's within 20 minutes of arriving, she starts suggestively dancing with a stranger, keeping it up right on up to Gideon walking up to the pair of them. When she sees him approaching and knows he sees her, she grinds her hips into the guy. If that's not testing Gideon, I don't know what is.

Another Angus theory .... maybe Angus was the one who behind the scenes got the abuser to finally stop. Caught the guy red-handed abusing Gideon. Beat him up (Angus is a trained bodyguard) and threatened the man with exposure. Nobody was believing an 11-12 year old kid, but someone would believe a third-party adult eyewitness. Especially if things had progressed to anal penetration by then. Catch the guy in the act, well then an immediate exam that included rape-kit evidence collection would send the guy to prison for decades.

 

Yes, I know fellow posters who feel passionate about this, in theory Angus should have immediately called the police, not taken the law into his own hands. Gideon ought to have called the police as soon as he saw Nathan possessed sexually explicit pictures/video of Eva and was using them for blackmail. He very much should have called the cops right away Monday when he learned Nathan had committed very serious felony-level assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

 

Gideon took the law into his own hands. He decided to take care of the danger once and for all, and do it himself. Sure, part of the reason is he's a serious control-freak streak. But also, Gideon did not trust the "system" to protect Eva. So someone else (him) had to do it. Keep in mind too, what was at the center of the Nathan situation was he'd repeatedly raped Eva as a child. Something her rich mother managed to keep a deep dark secret, even though in Eva's case, she believed her child.

 

The system failed to protect Gideon as a child, starting with his mother who didn't believe him, and starting with a couple of doctors who were obligated to outside-report to authorities the mere accusation of abuse, but instead performed private exams that stopped the case cold. Maybe Angus didn't trust the "system" either to protect Gideon. So someone else (him) had to do it.

 

And if Angus succeeded in making the abuser quit once and for all, well that makes sense why Angus is the only adult from his childhood that Gideon trusts. Including literally trusting Angus with his body, as his chief bodyguard. And put Angus as the head person guarding Eva's body between the time Monday morning that Gideon found out Nathan had turned incredibly physically dangerous and the Thursday evening when Angus delivered Eva safely home after her appointment with Dr. Petersen. Within hours of that appointment, the Nathan threat was taken care of permanently.

Hi AMC!!! Gideon's jealousy issues are as bad as Eva's. Now that she's worked through them (well probably mostly worked through them) and is least willing to trust him, now he's got to do the same. Trust goes both ways. We've seen a snippet in which she's very suggestively danced with a stranger in a nightclub. Gideon didn't like it. But he didn't punch the guy's lights out either.

 

Christopher Jr. has been hitting on Eva from Day One, and now that she took him out to lunch (near the end of Reflected) he made clear his intentions of wanting to take her out. Brett's even clearer: he wants her back.

 

Now Eva knows Christopher is scum; she's not gonna go there. But now that Gideon and Corrine are serious again (so everyone thinks) I can see Christopher openly and aggressively trying to get Eva. Gideon ordering him "stay away from her" and Christopher laughing in his face. Even Christopher engineering somehow getting right next to Eva in a public place in Gideon's vicinity. To intervene then and there would be to risk raising a little doubt about the Gideon/Corrine cover.

 

Just spinning various ideas. But Eva has told Gideon "trust goes both ways." Now he's got to trust her out in the world as "new Eva" with the men after her.

Want to know who else is probably reading some of these gossip sites? Someone who'd searched out Eva online to find out where her office is so he could show up to see her there? Brett. Currently out on concert tour. If he is reading the hot gossip to try to find out about Gideon and Eva as a couple, he'll have learned when the story first broke "Gideon Cross and Ex-Fiance Seen Together!" Just days after Gideon had caught Eva in a passionate embrace with Brett. Maybe when Brett later gave that radio interview, where he said he'd reconnected with her and wanted another chance, he already knew Gideon had (to all the world) replaced her with Corrine. So Eva's unattached. Sure, she told Brett at lunch she's in love with Gideon. But obviously if you believe the gossip sites, Gideon doesn't love her back. Right now, he's back with the woman he'd wanted to marry years ago.

Sylvia has hinted we'll see Brett again. I'll bet when the concert tour ends, he shows up in New York. And here's one more yummy theory about gossip potential. What if Gideon's brother Christopher finds out "Golden Girl" Eva is Eva Trammel. Imagine how Christopher could exploit that. Business wise, it would be a golden (pun intended) opportunity: great publicity for the single, for the band, for the Vidal Records label. Personally, it would be an outrageous way to hurt Gideon by using one of Gideon's female cast-offs. We know Christopher uses Gideon's women - just ask Magdalene. Christopher could find out from Sixth Ninths band members all about Eva's wild six months of being a groupie, sleeping with Brett anywhere any chance she could get. Then  she vanished (pulled her typical "runner"), and Brett spent years pining, wishing he could find her again. Just listen to the lyrics of "Golden." Christopher starts spreading little rumors that turn into big tabloid lies Brett got back the girl that got away, Eva, just like Gideon got back the one who got away, Corrine. Oh the yummy love triangles. The tabloids would go nuts.

 

And Gideon would just have to sit there and eat it. He's got reason, too, to still be as insecure right now about Brett as Eva had been, until the very end of Reflected, insecure about Corrine. The whole reason Eva kissed Brett was because of her insecurities about Gideon and Corrine. Gideon hoped the settled that with hours of sex in the limo. But days later, when he deliberately made Eva insecure about Corrine, Eva pulled a "runner" of sorts, went out to lunch with Brett. Thinking from Gideon's point of view, how much might he be scared Eva might get insecure again, over the act Gideon went back to Corrine. Insecure despite the fact Eva now knows Corrine is just an act. If the sight of him with Corrine drives her crazy with jealousy, especially if Corrine pulls another dirty stunt on Eva? And Brett's in town? The one glimpse we got into Gideon's head, the New Year's snippet, includes him saying to himself Eva could have anyone she wants. We know, from Eva's point of view she's made amazing progress on working out her Corrine issues. But Gideon hasn't worked out a lot of his issues yet. Now the shoe is on the other foot, Eva's hot ex chasing her and still some sort of unfinished business between them.

So Ms Magdalene

I doubt she'll be starting any trouble in EWY. Her hopes and dreams of being with Gideon are long gone..! What I don't understand is Eva say's Christopher " knew her body well" so they must have been sleeping together for a while, why would she take that chance, not even knowing if Christopher would use that against her for revenge with Gideon..!

Clearly the girl is dumb...!

 

Outwardly, Magdalene would have kept herself unattached and ladylike. But underneath, she must have been seriously sexually frustrated. Christopher exploited this.

 

Being around such an incredibly hot Gideon. Knowing that Gideon did &%$! other women, lots of them. But wasn't laying a hand on her. Christopher probably moved in on her and seduced her but promised to keep secret they were sleeping together. Why not? Christopher would have loved secretly sleeping with the woman that, prior to Eva, Gideon had on his arm the most when at high profile affairs.

 

Gideon had been possessive of Corrine, meaning he didn't like any other men near her. (I mean, look how he gets when some guy even looks twice at Eva.) Over the years, Magdalene had seen other women (so she gossiped to Eva) who tried attention getting stunts with Gideon that backfired. Magdalene is a fool, but she's a schemer too. Around Gideon, she would have acted all sweet and kind and soothing, the same way Corrine acted in public (see the chapter near the end of Bared that covers the dinner at the Waldorf, the night Eva met Corrine in the middle of a fundraiser.) Privately, she would have been vicious to women who did get Gideon in bed. Look how she treated Eva the first time she met Eva, sensing (correctly) Gideon had slept with her earlier that night.

He was 5 when his world was shattered. His happy home became a place where he parents started screaming at one another. Then his father killed himself. And everyone knew all about the sordid mess, the Ponzi scheme. Other kids bullied him. I imagine he turned into an angry kid years before the Vidals finally sought help. Not really for his sake. For Elizabeth's. Now Christopher was getting out of control, and she was pregnant with Ireland, a difficult pregnancy at that. One more factor was Gideon's age at that point. Somewhere around 11 to 12. The hormones presaging puberty now kicking in, making him now an angry moody kid.

If Gideon needs to keep up the act to convince the cops he left Eva to win back his former fiancé, he'll need to keep seeing Corrine in Entwined while the coast is not yet clear. That's going to be interesting. Especially now that Gideon no longer has to keep Eva completely in the dark, like he'd had to those weeks of the Nathan cover-up. He'll be able to tell her the truth.

But also now, she'll probably start becoming aware of the full extent of the public appearances he's keeping up with Corrine. And how the tabloids and the gossip sites are exploiting it, which right now is to Gideon's advantage. Remember, the story is from Eva's point of view. The last thing we know for sure were public are the pictures from the vodka party. But only because that's the last thing Eva looked it. She didn't need to see any more. And she quit torturing herself checking Google alerts any longer. She buried herself in work, threw herself into her Krav Maga classes, and when she needed to, retreated into a protective shell at home. Cried and licked her wounds.

The gossip sites must be going wild over Corrine and Gideon. Digging into their old engagement. Digging into her current divorce. Remember when he first started dating Eva and she had been torturing herself with daily Google alerts feeding all her insecurities. Her and Gideon one day. Gideon spotted outside a restaurant with Magdalene the next night. His "bevy of beautiful socialites" is how one gossip rag put it. And they had been speculating she and Cary were romantically involved too.

We know Gideon took great care to be seen with Corrine at least once near the very end of Reflected. Escorting her out of the Crossfire after 5 p.m. headed to his car (and presumably on a date from there.) He timed it for after Eva had left for the day. But unfortunately, she hadn't left the building's vicinity, so she saw them. That can't have been the only time he went out of his way recently to be escorting Corrine in public, hand at the small of her back. Especially because when they had their showdown, Corrine threw in Eva's face the fact Gideon is spending all his free time with her. Let's take the ALL with a huge grain of salt - after all, this is Corrine deliberately trying to make Eva jealous. But certainly, Gideon is spending some time with her.

What if, when his mother first found out Gideon may be being abused, that there were no physical signs yet. That it was still at the initial stage where the abuser was showing Gideon how to touch himself. From what Gideon told Eva, that's how it began. The abuser said he needed to touch himself to relieve stress, and he manipulated Gideon into thinking he'd been doing it "wrong."

 

Hand jobs aren't going to leave marks on him. What if based solely on an exam at that stage, which would fail to turn up signs of any physical trauma, Elizabeth decided he was lying and allowed the abuser to continue to see Gideon. Now the guy knows the coast is clear, because no one believes the kid. Nor had anyone been watching anyway; they'd left Gideon alone with him a lot. Now the abuser has free reign to do whatever he wants. Gideon's nightmares expressing "it hurts" coupled with his hang-ups about anal play both point to forcible penetration being done to him at some point,

Hi LNCronan,

I think that Gideon's actions in the elevator could be explained away. He could have spun the story to the police about how; he needed to remind Eva to stop calling him, following him, going after his family members, friends, etc. (depending on the timeline) and I think that would only be based on the accounts of witnesses. Somehow I doubt that the detectives could gain access to every single office and employee in the building.

I have one quick question; if Gideon and Stanton didn't meet in their respective offices, then where did they meet? I seriously doubt that there would be a phone trail between the two men either, which leads me to my next question; How did these two men communicate if they didn't communicate by phone?

 

How did Gideon sneak in to see Eva at her apartment in the Entwined excerpt? By disguising himself to look like some ordinary 20-something guy. Old college sweatshirt. Yankee's cap. He could be using similar means to sneak near Stanton, maybe at Stanton's home. And again, I'm not saying the police are going to manage to find some evidence in tapes, phone records, etc. Gideon and Stanton are too smart. All I'm saying is I think the cops are DIGGING HARD. Trying to link the men in any way around the time of the murder and maybe subsequent to it. 

 

Certainly, Gideon's not using any of his phones to reach Stanton, It's no mistake he's not phoned Eva once, anywhere, since Detective Graves saw him on his cell phone, his face looking like someone just died. Guessing correctly it was Eva on the other end.

Oh I'm going to dice and slice Dr. Lucas too. And Gideon's mother.

 

I started with Christopher because it's odd Eva let him off so easy when her original plan was to harass him too. I think that's a "red herring" designed to mislead us, Christopher getting off easy. Sure, he was only a little kid when the abuse itself happened. But he grew up too in a house full of secrets. And he's a rotten human being as an adult.

 

Gideon gets furious whenever Lucas comes near Eva. But from day one, Christopher has been hitting on Eva. It started the night of the advocacy dinner, the first time Gideon and Eva went out together. From day one, Gideon told her to stay away from him. That videotape of him with Magdalena at a later time finally opened her eyes he's a creep. But Christopher doesn't know that tape exists, or on the off chance he does know about it, he has no way of knowing Eva is aware.

 

When last we saw Christopher near the end of Reflected, he tells Eva he wants to take her out. And he's been playing a mind game with her about Gideon going back to Corrine (or so Christopher and everyone else thinks.) I see Christopher as turning into an even nastier bad guy against Gideon. And trying to drag Eva into his machinations. And Eva deciding to start harassing Christopher too. Gideon trying to get her to back off from fighting on his behalf. And her refusing to do so.

I'm not saying that Stanton and Gideon were meeting at one another's offices subsequent to Nathan's death. In fact I doubt it at all. But I think the cops are doing is digging hard to find any sort of connection between the two men. If they're going after surveillance tape to check on both men's comings and goings to their offices, they're probably pulling more phone records too, and financial records and other sorts of things. Trying to find anything. They cast wide nets hoping to catch something. Because even the smartest criminals can trip themselves up. In fact, the more powerful the men, sometimes the more arrogant.

 

It struck me as odd that within the same 24 hours or so, we have three separate things stuck within parts of the story that concern the public areas of both Stanton and Gideon's offices. Tapes of Stanton's seized, and we don't know how many days either. They could be looking at one day. They could be looking at every day since Nathan died. In the same period, we have Gideon very publicly escorting the ex-fiance he got back out of his office building to head somewhere after work. And we have Gideon sneaking around his own building by meeting Eva in the building security office itself.

 

One explanation: Monday lunchtime, he jumps into the same elevator as Eva in front of a lot of witnesses. So to counter that, Monday evening, he makes sure he gets spotted leaving with Corrine. Because he's paranoid about security footage now. By Tuesday lunchtime, the cops have come and gone to Stanton's office to get tape there. So when Gideon needs to talk to Eva after lunch, he sees her in probably the safest spot in the building, the security office itself. Did Stanton alert Gideon the cops have come back yet again digging around?