Mam2e

It's possible to trace back Gideon thinking about marriage the first week he and Eva were a couple.

Sat: the first date gone wrong

Sun: he tried (in vain) to talk to Eva, but she refused to answer the phone

Mon: she agreed to be his girlfriend, and the night ended with him making her the first-ever woman he'd taken home

Tues: things were good

Wed: she told him about Nathan, and he loved her even more -- but -- it turned into a bad night with her pulling a runner because she felt he lied to her about the nightmare she'd just witnessed.

Thurs: he sent her the Dear Jane note -- but -- he also went to see Stanton about Nathan, the first sign he already was planning to protect her. Plus he found out about Dr. Petersen

Fri: still no contact with her, but he was hoping she'd come back. He saw Dr. Petersen to arrange for individual and couples therapy.

Fri - Sat: sometime during this period, he re-created her bedroom as a safe room at his apartment and most importantly, bought her promise ring.

Sunday daytime: he figured out she wasn't going to come back on her own, and so he went after her, finding her at the Vidal Records garden party.

Sunday evening: he presented the ring box holding the promise ring, and as he saw a flash of panic cross her face, re-assured her it wasn't "that" ring -- he knew she wasn't ready, and he told her as much. But the clear message was that an engagement ring was in the future.

 

What was equally important was that when she was assured it wasn't an engagement ring in the box, her panic was replaced with a feeling of letdown. She recognized that a part of her would have been thrilled with an engagement ring. It was at that moment she understood for certain she'd already fallen in love with him.

Thank you LN .Does all the info stay in your head so organized and concise ?

It wouldn't surprise me if he started after that first limo ride. He fell in love as soon as he saw her. When they had that chat in his apartment after the garden party, he gave her the promise ring, she shook, he said it wasn't "that" ring your not ready. He had already started thinking weddings. For someone whose not romantic, wowzer!

I know ,right !Lol @he started after the first limo ride.

Does anyone else think that Gideon was already thinking /planning wedding back in Reflected when Eva chased him it his place and he found her there after his appt with Dr Patterson when he said what they had together was the one rock solid thing they should depend on and that he was going to give it to them and Eva was going to let him or words to that effect ?

I see it ssrph .You ladies( and gentlemen if any )are excellent at peeling back the layers ,I'm getting a lot of eureka moments .

I think the reason she said she doesn't like Stanton half the time is because he backs her mother when she was tracking her phone, letting her go wild with her over protectiveness, etc.  She thinks Stanton should support Dr. Petersen's efforts to let go.

Thanks SharonM745 Going back to Bared I see how this makes sense.

Hi WhiteyBitey

My best guess about Elizabeth's attitude is that somewhere inside her she knows Gideon was telling the truth about what hapenned to him especially after Eva confronted her inReflected ,so it's forced her to look at herself and her actions during that time and rather than take too close a look its easier to shift blame and see Eva as someone who is trying to alienate her from her son and is filling his head with junk.If she were to take too close a look at herself and actions during that time the picture is just too ugly and she can't face up to it so its easier to cast Eva as the villain .Don't know if I'm coming across clearly

Got you Julie54.Thanks.

Hi Everyone

Does anyone have any idea where Eva was coming from when she was speaking to Cary and she said she doesn't like Stanton half the time ,I thought they got along we'll enough in previous books .

Hi Sharonm745

Bwahahahaha @ the sex swing or two in the archway!

Hi Gigi

I don't believe that Gideon helped create the Corinne monster .She came back from France bent on winning Gideon over whatever the circumstances .When she found out he was falling for someone else never did she once consider stepping back and allow him to be happy something someone who loves him would do (an example thats been mentioned before is Magdalene )and perhaps since none of us are perfect fight for him fairly.Corinne was also married it doesn't seem that she considered her husband and his feelings whatever faults he may have before running after Gideon .It could have easily been her husband who snaps and has a mental break down after watching the woman he loves pine for someone else and then ultimately leave him to run back to him.

Corinne was all sweetness and light when she met Eva in front of Gideon and then everything she did behind his back to Eva was designed to hurt Eva ,cast doubt on Gideon's fidelity with the sole intent of driving them apart and all this stuff happened when she first came to N Y before Gideon ever came up with his ill conceived plan.Again Gideon had inadvertently given Corinne ammunition and she used that knowledge ruthlessly to drive Eva away with no thought for the consequences except achieving what she wanted .Eva herself ended up depressed and unhappy for weeks after Gideon started seeing Corinne and when she got over it and confronted Corinne she gleefully tries to insinuate she'd had a nooner with Gideon and that Gideon had in fact been doing her that very moring.More than that Corinne had been spending time with an increasingly unhappy Gideon at her side and she must have known it had something to do with not being with Eva and she never loves him enough to want what would make him happy ?Who does Corinne really love ?Herself ? The idea of Gideon ?I think Corinne would live with an unbearably unhappy Gideon as long as she had him that let him be happy with someone else again how much dies she love Gideon.How much would Corinne had cared if Eva had suffered a break down due to her and her misleading behaviour and ended up in the position that she Corinne is finding herself in?Something that was possible if Eva didn't have her support system and years of therapy.

Yes Corinne and Eva are big girls and had a big girl fight but Corinne was also playing a very high stakes game with her own feelings when she decided to leave a marriage and persue a man who'd made it clear he'd met someone who was important to him .Even without Gideon leading her on because of Nathan she would have ended up hurt because it looks like she came into town unwilling and unable to take no for an answer and to destroy whatever new relationship Gideon had whatever the consequences to him or the person he was seeing ,kind of similar to the way Gideon decided to protect Eva from Nathan and the police at all costs by using Corinne whatever the consequences .

I'm not celebrating that she's ill ,I wish she'd get better and create a life for herself far from Gideva.I hope this experience helps her come to her senses and she become again that good person Sylvia spoke of we never got to meet.

Hi Gigi thanks for the welcome ,I do believe we've met elsewhere ?

Hi Kirsten ,Nathalia and Gigi

Kirsten when you said Eva is subconsciously punishing Gideon ,that was a light bulb moment for me it helps put some of her behavior in perspective .It helps to see that the thoughts , feelings she has for Brett and her sending him mixed messages are not just for the sake of Brett but are due in part to a crack in her and Gideon's relationship that for me makes it feel less like a betrayal.

I was seriously bugged about the whole thing it helps to have people with a different view because it can help open your mind to another possibility /interpretation.

I think she needs to take the SD trip without Gideon and security detail and see Brett without Cary as a buffer because she needs to be the one to firmly put an end to whatever hopes he has and be able to resist whatever overtures he may make.If she doesn't resolve it on her own for herself without any coercion it'll never really be over for her ,him and us.

In this book I felt that something had fundamentally changed about Eva .I can't quite put my finger on it but I lost some of the liking I had for her in the first two books .In Bared and Reflected she was this refreshing heroine the type of which you don't come across often in romance novels I loved her .In this book something was off about her for me. I don't know if the Brett stuff is interfering because one of the amazing things about Gideva for me is their mutual love ,devotion ,captivation and obsession that leaves no room for either of them to be after another .I even got to thinking that she and Brett had more heat than Gideon in the sack as mad as that sounds because she's still after him when all he offered was sex and Gideon in affering her all of himself.When I started the book I had this dread that she was going to end up in bed with Brett and that still hasn't gone away going into the next book and perhaps that's the issue or I have issues .I read the book three times thinking that maybe the first time I rushed through it and didn't absorb her as a character or I've been reading so many other books and had been out of the crossfire world and needed to reacclamatise .I loved Gideon and have consistently in previous books and the strange thing is at times I felt he deserved better than her I even considered that maybe if Eva if so hot for Brett it wouldn't be a bad thing if she was with him .I know how wrong it is in my head but couldn't help it .I loved Cary in this book and I was off him a bit in Reflected ,perhaps it's natural to go off a character every once in a while and I'll get to really like her again in the next books.

Hi Gigi and Kirsten

Maybe when he asked for the ring Elizabeth thought it'd be for Corrine.

I also really didn't like when she had a memory of sucking Brett's nipple rings to get him hard inside her ,can you imagine if Gideon kept thinking about sucking Corrine's nipples to get her...Couldn't get why she was in that headspace .

I didn't like that Eva let Brett nuzzle her cheek and she was breathing too fast while he was doing it in her apartment and that she was reluctant for him to leave ,that's what makes me nervous about the trip the attraction seems too intense for comfort .

Hello Everyone ,I have been following the threads for months and have enjoyed them so mch and gotten so much insight ,it's good not to read in isolation.

Is it possible that Eva felt more for Brett in the past than she admitted even to herself and some of those feelings are surfacing now ?She has such an intense physical reaction to him that I fear going back to SD with all the memories they have there together may cause her to do something with him that will devastate her and Gideon especially if he catches at a vulnerable point because she seems unable to say no to him firmly and decisively .Is she strong enough enough to say no if he were to really push ?