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With every word she spoke, the sarcasm in her tone grew thicker and thicker.
“That’s not what I mean,” I protested. “It wasn’t the fact he kissed me that freaked me out. It washowhe kissed me. It was slow. Soft. Like he was reminding me who we were to each other. Bringing me back to reality, more or less.”
“And because Gideon did the same thing, you…what? Think Samuel has come back from the grave?”
“He felt so much like him. So much so that I sort of freaked. Told him it was a mistake. That it can’t happen again.”
“Let me see if I have this straight.” She set her mug on the coffee table and fully faced me. “You had sex with the man you haven’t been able to stop thinking about since you met him a week ago, and you told him it was a mistake because you think his dick feels a little too much like your dead ex-boyfriend’s?”
“When you put it like that, it sounds crazy.”
“Because itiscrazy, Gin.” She took my hands in hers, squeezing them. “You enjoyed yourself last night, right?”
A shiver trickled down my spine from the memory of Gideon’s body moving in time with mine. How he seemed to know exactly what to do to push me higher and higher until I unraveled around him.
“More than I have in a long time.”
“Then don’t run from this. I get things are complicated, that Samuel still owns a big piece of your heart. And that’s okay for him to have a piece. But only a piece. In a few weeks, it’ll be five years since he died. It’s time to move on. To open yourself up to the possibility of finding someone to own the other pieces of your heart. And I think Gideon might be really good for you, if for no other reason than you’ve finally slept with someone other than Liam.”
“I know. I just…”
“You can’t help but feel like you’re betraying Samuel,” she finished before I could get the words out.
I closed my eyes and nodded, a lone tear trickling down my cheek. That was precisely what it all boiled down to. Maybe if they’d found his body, I wouldn’t have held onto the idea of him still being alive like I did. I feared a tiny part of me would always hold on to that hope until proven otherwise.
“I saw how devastated you were when they found Samuel’s car.” She squeezed my hand. “When the police said there was no way anyone could survive losing that amount of blood. But you can’t keep doing this to yourself. You need to live your life. Samuel would want you to be happy.” She narrowed her gaze. “Does Gideon make you happy?”
I opened my mouth, trying to formulate a response. I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I’d never really thought about it. I wasn’t sure I knew Gideon well enough to say he made me happy.
“He makes me feel…”
“Yes?” Melanie prodded.
“That’s it. He makes me feel.”
“If you ask me, that’s a step in the right direction.”
“Except I ran out on him after telling him having sex was a mistake.”
She shrugged, grabbing her coffee and slinking back against the couch. “Explain the situation to him.”
“You want me to tell him I freaked because he reminds me too much of my dead ex?”
“You don’t need to go intothatmuch detail, at least not right away. But you can at least open up to him. Tell him your fears. If he’s worth your time, he’ll understand.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then he was never worth it to begin with.” She grabbed the remote and powered on my TV, scrolling through my movies and settling on one of our all-time favorites,The Count of Monte Cristo. “But I have a feeling this one will be worth it.”
I brought my coffee back to my mouth. “That’s what I’m scared of,” I muttered under my breath.
ChapterNineteen
Gideon
All my attention was focused on the monitors surrounding me as I watched a woman in a charcoal pencil skirt stride into my foyer, her heels clicking against the marble floors.
“Mr. Sinclair, I presume?”Willow greeted with practiced poise as she answered the door.
