His jaw tightened. “No.”
“What?” The flat-out refusal sent me into a tailspin.
“Answer my question.”
I studied his face and saw the mask he wore around other people but had never worn with me. He reached his hand toward me as if to brush my cheek with his fingertips, then pulled back at the last minute. In that brief instant in which he pulled away, I heard his teeth grind, as if not touching me was a struggle. Agonized, I was grateful he hadn’t.
“I need you to explain,” I whispered, wondering if I imagined the wince that crossed his face. Sometimes I wanted to believe something so badly, I deliberately manufactured excuses and ignored painful reality.
“I’ve given you no reason to doubt me.”
“You’re giving me one now, Gideon.” I exhaled in a rush, deflating. Withdrawing. He was standing in front of me, but he seemed miles away. “I understand you need time before you share secrets that are painful for you. I’ve been where you’re at, knowing I needed to talk about what happened to me but just not ready. That’s why I’ve tried very hard not to push you or rush you. But this secret is one that’s hurting me, and that’s different. Don’t you see that?”
Cursing under his breath, he cupped my face with cool hands. “I go out of my way to make sure you don’t have any reason to feel jealous, but when you do get possessive, I like it. I want you to fight for me. I want you to care that much. I want you crazy about me. But possessiveness without trust is hell. If you don’t trust me, we’ve got nothing.”
“Trust goes both ways, Gideon.”
He sucked in a deep breath. “Damn it. Don’t look at me like that.”
“I’m trying to figure out who you are. Where’s the man who came right out and said he wanted to fuck me? The man who didn’t hesitate to tell me I tie him up in knots, even as I was breaking up with him? I believed you’d always be brutally honest like that. I counted on it. Now—” I shook my head, my throat too tight to say anything else.
Grimness thinned his lips, but they stayed stubbornly closed.
Catching his wrists, I pulled his hands away. I was cracking open inside, breaking. “I won’t run this time, but you can push me away. You might want to think about that.”
I left. Gideon didn’t stop me.
*
I spent the rest of the afternoon focused on work. Mark loved to brainstorm out loud, which was an awesome learning exercise for me, and his confident and amiable way of dealing with his accounts was inspiring. I watched him breeze through two client meetings in which he conveyed an air of command that was both reassuring and nonthreatening.
Then we tackled a baby-toy company’s needs analysis, zeroing in on poor return expenditures as well as untapped avenues, such as mom-blog advertising. I was grateful that my job was a distraction from my personal life, and I was looking forward to going to my Krav Maga class later, so I could burn off some of my edgy restlessness.
It was just past four when my desk phone rang. I answered briskly and felt my heart leap at the sound of Gideon’s voice.
“We should leave at five,” he said, “to get to Dr. Petersen’s on time.”
“Oh.” I’d forgotten that our couples therapy sessions were on Thursdays at six P.M. It would be our first.
Abruptly, I wondered if it would also be our last.
“I’ll come get you,” he went on gruffly, “when it’s time.”
I sighed, feeling far from up to it. I was already raw and irritable from our fight earlier. “I’m sorry I hit you. I shouldn’t have done that. I hate that I did.”
“Angel.” Gideon exhaled harshly. “You didn’t ask the one question that matters.”
My eyes closed. It was irritating how he read my mind. “Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re keeping secrets.”
“Secrets are something we can work through; cheating isn’t.”
I rubbed at the ache behind my forehead. “You’re right about that.”