Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Only, he had found himself absolutely resenting the fact that she’d told this tosser, whom she’d known for all of five minutes, so many personal little anecdotes about herself, when Gideon, who’d known her for years, was only now learning of them.
Secondhand.
Cat and Lucy glared at him, and Cam looked disappointed, while Reece looked confused by the animosity in his voice. Beth avoided Gideon’s gaze completely. And that more than anything else made him feel like dirt.
“Muh-my grandmother g-got sick. Cancer,” Beth told Adam, and Gideon swallowed down a surge of nauseating self-loathing that bubbled up his throat at the sound of both the stutter—her first of the day—and her quiet words. “During my first year of college. She didn’t w-want me to give up my studies to tuh-take care of her. But I gave up the violin because the lessons and recitals took up too much of my time.”
“I’m so sorry,” Reece said. Kind words. The right words. They seemed to come so easily to him. “How long was she ill for?”
“She fought long and hard for nearly seven years. And for the most part they were really good years. She only got very sick in the last six months of her life and she died nearly two-and-a-half years ago.”
Two-and-a-half years ago? Gideon and Beth had met round about that time. Before the old woman’s death? After? Suddenly it became of paramount importance that he learn this detail. But he couldn’t ask her this now.
“I’m glad most of those were good years,” Gideon said gently. Beth’s eyes lifted to his, the first time she’d looked at him since his needless cruelty earlier. He offered her a wary smile. “I was an arsehole again, Lizzy-bit, I’m sorry.”
“I suppose it’s your default setting around me,” she said, and his smile faded.
“I don’t want it to be. I’m trying to reset,” he murmured, and she nodded.
Her lips stretched into a small, complacent smile before she leaned forward, her gaze pinning him to the spot until he felt like a bug writhing on an exhibition board.
“You are?” He nodded in answer to her soft, breathless question. “Well then…try harder, Gideon.”
Her words startled a choked laugh from him and he nodded, their surroundings shrinking around them, until it felt like they were the only two people in the world.
“Anything for you, Lizzy-bit,” he promised. His tone was mocking, but he was shaken to hear a thread of sincerity running through the words. Her eyes flickered when she heard it too and she blinked, bringing them both crashing back to the reality that they were not alone.
Gideon glanced around cautiously. The gathering had gone silent and everyone was staring at them. Reece and Cam in confusion, Lucy in speculation, and Cat in absolute triumph.
“So, how long have you been boning Gideon?” Cat asked. She’d been waiting to ambush Beth as the latter came out of the guest powder room.
“I’m not,” Beth said calmly, having expected this confrontation. She’d attempted to delay the inevitable, but three glasses of red wine had had a predictable effect on her bladder and Beth had succumbed to the inevitable about an hour after her stupidly revealing exchange with Gideon.
“Oh, you so are,” Cat insisted.
“I’m so not.”
Cat knew her well enough to recognize the truth in her voice but, unfortunately, Cat also knew her well enough to know when she was dissembling.
“Maybe not now, but sometime in the past. In the recent past if the sparks flying off you two are any indication.”
Beth sighed, there really was no point in lying. Cat would sniff out the lie like a bloodhound.
“Cam’s birthday party. The night we shared the Uber. We were both drunk and we agreed afterward that it was a mistake.”
“Just the one time? Because this doesn’t feel like—”
“Three separate occasions. The last time was two weeks ago. It was still a mistake and we’ve moved beyond it because if we have any chance of succeeding as friends or—at the very least—friendly acquaintances, then sex can’t be part of the equation.”
“And yet, Gideon is so damned jealous of Adam he can barely see straight.”
That threw Beth and she peered at her friend in blank confusion for a few seconds.
“What?”
“What do you think all that was about earlier?”
“That was Gideon being Gideon. He can’t stop himself from taunting me.”
“Nope. That was Gideon so blinded by jealousy, he lashed out because he couldn’t stand that he didn’t have all of your attention. The way he normally—” Cat paused, her mouth dropping open in what looked like either a transient ischemic attack, or an epiphany. It was hard to tell which. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“If Gideon hadn’t kept provoking you the way he’s done over the years, how would you have been? Around him?”
“I don’t know, he put me on edge in the beginning—I was nervous around him—so I would probably have ignored him or something.”