“Did you tell anyone? Did you tell your mother?”
“No. My God, if she’d known, she would’ve gotten me out of there. But Nathan made sure I was too afraid to tell her.” I tried to swallow past a tight, dry throat and winced at the painful sandpapery burn. When my voice came again, it was barely a whisper. “There was a time when it got so bad I almost told her anyway, but he knew. Nathan could tell I was close. So he broke my cat’s neck and left her on my bed.”
“Jesus Christ.” His chest was heaving. “He wasn’t just fucked up, he was insane. And he was touching you…Eva.”
“The servants had to know,” I went on numbly, staring at my twisted hands. I just wanted to get it over with, to get it all out so I could put it back into the box in my mind where I forgot about it in my day-to-day life. “The fact that they didn’t say anything either told me they were scared, too. They were grownups and they didn’t say a word. I was a child. What could I do if they wouldn’t do anything?”
“How did you get out?” he asked hoarsely. “When did it end?”
“When I was fourteen. I thought I was having my period, but there was too much blood. My mother panicked and took me to the emergency room. I’d had a miscarriage. In the course of the exam they found evidence of…other trauma. Vaginal and anal scarring—”
Gideon set his glass down on the end table with a harsh thud.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling like I might be sick. “I’d spare you the details, but you need to know what someone might dig up. The hospital reported the abuse to child services. It’s all a matter of public record, which has been sealed, but there are people who know the story. When my mom married Stanton, he went back and tightened those seals, paid out in return for nondisclosure agreements…stuff like that. But you have a right to know that this could come out and embarrass you.”
“Embarrass me?” he snapped, vibrating with rage. “Embarrassment isn’t on the list of what I’d feel.”
“Gideon—”
“I would destroy the career of any reporter who wrote about this, and then I’d dismantle the publication that ran the piece.” He was so cold with fury, he was icy. “I’m going to find the monster who hurt you, Eva, wherever he is, and I’m going to make him wish he was dead.”
A shiver moved through me, because I believed him. It was in his face. His voice. In the energy he exuded and his sharply honed focus. He wasn’t just dark and dangerous in his looks. Gideon was a man who got what he wanted, whatever it took.
I pushed to my feet. “He’s not worth the effort. Not worth your time.”
“You are. You’re worth it. Damn it. Goddamn it to hell.”
I moved closer to the fireplace, needing the warmth. “There’s also a money trail. Cops and reporters always follow the money. Someone may wonder why my mother left her first marriage with two million dollars, but her daughter from a previous relationship left with five.”
Without looking, I felt his sudden stillness. “Of course,” I went on, “that blood money’s probably grown to considerably more than that now. I won’t touch it, but Stanton manages the brokerage account I dumped it in and everyone knows he has the Midas touch. If you ever had any concern that I wanted your money—”
“Stop talking.”
I turned to face him. I saw his face, his eyes. Saw the pity and horror. But it was what I didn’t see that hurt the most.
It was my greatest nightmare realized. I’d feared that my past might negatively impact his attraction to me. I’d told Cary that Gideon might stay with me for all the wrong reasons. That he might stay by my side, but that I’d still—for all intents and purposes—lose him anyway.
And it seemed I had.
I tightened the belt on my robe. “I’m going to get dressed and go.”
“What?” Gideon glared. “Go where?”
“Home,” I said, weary to the bone. “I think you need to digest all this.”