Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
They were coming up on the gardens. He opened the gates, and the large arbor with climbing vines seemed to welcome them as they passed under it and stepped onto the flat stones leading to the small patio where they’d enjoyed sitting together surrounded by the various flowers and grasses growing throughout the garden.
Gideon pulled out a chair and waited for her to settle in it. She liked facing the rose trees. Some of them were tall, with branches extending out and covered in small pink roses. Others were a little smaller, with larger yellow blossoms. The newer rose trees were much smaller but still blossoming and had various colors of flowers on them.
Gideon took the chair to her right, where he could see her and the entrance to the garden, but also keep an eye on either side of them. He waited for her to take out her travel nebulizer and put her medication in it before speaking.
“You have a great deal of compassion in you, Rory, but you know you haven’t looked at me once since you walked out on me.”
She hadn’t. She couldn’t. She nodded her head in acknowledgment. Understanding intellectually why he’d had to do what he did was one thing. Admiring him for it went along with that. Her heart didn’t necessarily understand. That was a different situation altogether. She couldn’t go through a betrayal again. He had his family. His loyalties. Whatever he did with them, that was a lifetime commitment.
She pressed her fingertips to her lips to keep him from seeing them tremble. She wasn’t going to cry, although she felt burning behind her eyelids. She hadn’t agreed to meet him to make him feel worse. She knew he suffered. She knew he was devastated. She hadn’t wanted to give him false hope any more than she wanted to give herself false hope. The temptation to be with him had been too strong to resist. That was the truth, and she always made herself face the truth.
“I know, Gideon. I’m not being entirely fair, but I’m trying. I just want you to talk to me. Tell me about you. Your childhood. You’ve never given me anything of you. I need that to understand you.” She just needed to know about him. She needed to hear his voice. To sit with him. To be with him. She just needed . . . him.
He sighed. Ran both hands through his hair to create more chaos. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, trying not to look at his face. She liked his hair unruly. Untamed. It went along with that man she’d first seen in the bar. By turns sweet and gentle and then predatory and dangerous. Sexy and tempting. He had so many looks.
“It isn’t pretty, Red. In fact, most of the time, I can’t sleep. You already have nightmares. You’re sensitive and compassionate. Putting my childhood in your head might not be a good idea.”
“There you go again, Gideon. Protecting everyone around you. I’m asking you to tell me. Do your friends know your childhood? What you went through?”
“Some of it.” His voice was clipped. Abrupt. “But no, not the things I would be telling you.”
He was saying he would understand if she retaliated and told her friends. Even his friends. She wasn’t like that. If he told her the darkest moments in his life, she would never repeat them. She would hold them close to her, thankful he trusted her and wanted to repair the damage he’d done enough to give that to her. She wasn’t going to say that to him. She wouldn’t use the words “trust” or “safe.” She would let him make up his mind.
She started the nebulizer and kept her gaze on the San Francisco sky. It was dark, and the fog had rolled in over the water. It looked ominous, but it hadn’t reached the harbor or inland yet. There were clouds drifting, but she caught glimpses of stars.
The cold night air made her shiver a little, but she preferred cold to heat, and she was certain Gideon had brought a blanket with him to tuck around her. He carried it in the backpack he wore. He’d set the pack beside his chair, and she indicated it with a small gesture. He didn’t need more than that sign, pulling the blanket out and folding it around her.
“I grew up in a neighborhood ruled by a mafia family. It wasn’t a sleek, cool mafia family like you see in movies or read about. At least not from my perspective. My father was involved. Most of the families I knew were involved, none in a good way. It turns out my father probably was a sociopath, but as a little kid, I didn’t know that. I just knew he was cruel, and everyone, including me, was afraid of him, for good reason.”