Allegedly Captivated by You is coming out November 18th, which is soooo soon you guys! Thank goodness, because SPOILER ALERT this book ends without us finding out where Megumi is! Can you imagine how distraught the world must be without this information? [Matthew says: I honestly had no idea there was still new information to be obtained about the world of Crossfire.]
I’m not even going to bother reminding you what was going on, because the answer is nothing.
Chapter 23
I leaned back into him, admiring our joint reflection. We took great pictures together.
Which made me think of other pictures …
“Promise me,” I said, “that you’ll never watch the video.”
This entire series is just this – one big word association. There’s never a natural flow to conversations. Instead, every scene goes something like this: “Tigers…Tiger Woods…Golf…Golf balls…balls…penis…GIDEON!” Except insert whatever drama of the moment is currently going on in the book. I mean, when is the last time someone has referred to a movie as a picture? Terrible association, Eva, terrible. I have much higher hopes for the flow of Captivated by You. [Matthew says: You do?]
Inside Eva’s brain:
Marshmallows -> Hot chocolate -> Oops burnt my tongue -> Cunnilingus -> Quickie with Gideon -> Gideon works at Cross Industries -> Megumi isn’t at work today, oh yeah, guess she’s missing -> I miss Gideon -> Sex with Gideon in the shower -> Water -> OH MY GOD MEGUMI DROWNED SOMEWHERE!
So I just singlehandedly solved the big mystery of Megumi using the skills I’ve developed reading this series.
In the meantime, nothing is really going on with Gideon and Eva [Matthew says: And yet this book ceaselessly continues.] except she makes Gideon super swear he won’t watch the sex tape of her and Brett.
The gala is full of boring introductions and conversations with minor minor minor characters as you’d expect. Cary dances with a sexy red-headed woman and then goes off to bang her in the middle of dinner, which doesn’t sit right with Eva. She gets up to chase him down then Magdalene shows up.
Magdalene at one point seemed like competition for Gideon’s heart, but then was just being used by his brother to piss Gideon off, and then she started being nice to Eva. They have a conversation about absolutely nothing. I can’t even.
Unfortunately(?), Eva loses track of Cary. [Matthew says: Man, at the rate characters have been disappearing, this series might be tolerable 2/3 of the way through the next book.] Double unfortunately, Gideon’s mother shows up to basically tell Eva how much she hates her.
She grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me over to a dark corner. Then she caught my hand and looked at my gorgeous Asscher diamond. “That’s my ring.”
I tugged free. “It was your ring. It’s mine now. Your son gave it to me around the time he asked me to marry him.”
She looked at me with those blue eyes that were so like her son’s. So like Ireland’s. She was a beautiful woman, glamorous and elegant. As much a head-turner as my mother, really, but she had Gideon’s iciness.
“I won’t let you take him away from me,” she bit out between brilliantly white teeth.
“You’ve got it all wrong.” I crossed my arms. “I want to get you two together, so we can put everything out in the open.”
“You’re filling his head with lies.”
“Oh my God. Seriously? [Matthew says: Wow, this is the first time Eva and I have ever had the same reaction to someone!] The next time he tells you what happened—and I’ll make sure he does—you’re going to believe him. And you’re going to apologize, and find some fucking way to make it easier for him to bear. Because I want him healed and healthy and whole.”
But it only gets worse.
I started walking away but stopped. “What I think is really interesting is that after I confronted you last time, you didn’t ask Gideon about what happened. ‘Hey, son, your crazy girlfriend told me this crazy story.’ I can’t figure out why you didn’t ask him. I don’t suppose you’d want to explain?”
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think you would.”
I suspect we’re supposed to be awed by Eva, protecting her man and confronting everyone in his life who wronged him. This just doesn’t sit right with me, though. I feel like Gideon should at least be here for all of this. It’s just so inappropriate given she’s only met his mother a couple times. [Matthew says: This doesn't sit right with me either. It feels like Eva taking charge of Gideon's recovery rather than supporting him. This is his battle to fight, when he's ready for it. You don't do an abuse victim any favors by taking more agency away from them.]
Eva, who suddenly appears to be on the world’s most boring journey, is so close to getting back to Gideon when she sees Deanna sitting in her seat! Damn it. [Matthew says: It's like The Odyssey, if Odysseus kept getting stuck on islands where strangers would have angry conversations with him about sex.]
Whatever Gideon thought, it was obvious to me that her interest in him was as hot as ever. And while he offered no encouragement aside from listening to whatever she was saying, just the fact that he was giving her attention was watering that weed.
“She must be great in bed. He fucks her a lot.”
What the ever loving fuck? Who said that! Who comes up behind a person and says that?
It was Cary’s redhead, who had the flushed, bright-eyed look of a woman who’d just had a very nice orgasm. Still, she was older than I’d first thought from a distance.
“You should watch out for him,” she said, looking at Gideon. “He uses women. I’ve seen it happen. More than it should.”
“I can handle myself.”
“They all say that.” Her sympathetic smile rubbed me the wrong way. “I know of two women who’ve experienced severe depression over him. Certainly, they won’t be the last.” [Matthew says: Casual reminder that depression is a chronic illness, not a phase. Now back to the trendy erotic novels that keep getting this wrong!]
“You shouldn’t listen to gossip,” I snapped.
She walked away with an irritatingly serene smile, reaching up to pat her hair as she skirted tables on the way to her own.
It wasn’t until she was halfway across the room that I placed her face.
OH MA GERD it’s Dr. Terrance Lucas’ wife Anne Lucas who Gideon had an affair with in order to get revenge on Dr. Lucas.
Why are all of these people always in the same fucking place? It’s worse than every high school show that somehow puts all of its students in the same classes and lunch periods even though that is a thing that almost never happens unless there are only like 30 people in your school. [Matthew says: Even better/worse, doesn't this take place in Manhattan? How is everyone always in the same place? In MANHATTAN?]
Eva freaks out to Gideon about this, and he says he didn’t notice her being there.
Gideon’s face turned hard. He turned his attention to the room, sweeping it from one side to the other, with a slow searching glance. “I don’t see her. Or anyone like you described.”
Eva…Anne Lucas has been dead for five years! So the rest of the series is now also a ghost story.
“Isn’t Anne a therapist?”
“Psychiatrist.”
A sense of foreboding made me restless. “Can we go now?”
Why is her being a psychiatrist giving her this feeling of foreboding unless I’m right about the ghost story thing? There’s no other explanation. [Matthew says: Psychiatrist -> studying the mind -> Jedi mind tricks -> Jedi come back as ghosts -> psychiatrists come back as ghosts. CROSSFIRED.]
The gang returns home, and Cary confesses he didn’t actually sleep with anyone (BECAUSE SHE WAS A GHOST):
“Yeah, well.” He pulled back, looking sheepish. “I still rubbed her off, since I’d taken it that far, but my dick stayed tucked in my pants.”
I’ll pretend I didn’t read that.
Eva reminds Cary that they’re headed to San Diego tomorrow, and Gideon shows up to be like, “Hey, about that, we need to talk more!” But they make out and the book ends abruptly.
Tagged: books, crossfire, Entwined with You, Eva Tramell, Excerpts, Gideon Cross, Humor, romance
