Chapter Sixteen

Georgia snuggled in closer to Gideon. His back was firm, his skin was warm, and the sheets they lay on smelled of the two of them together. She hoped that was how they would end the weekend—together.

She couldn’t believe she or Gideon had the stamina, but eight areas of the room had been left with hard evidence of their insatiable need.

His strong pine cologne and her soft vanilla body wash were scents no chemist would put together and worn by people any matchmaker would say were completely wrong for each other, but in this bed, on this weekend, they had become so right.

Georgia stretched and tried to fall back to sleep, but her thoughts were louder than any rooster’s crow. Kim’s belief that the man lying next to her was Brandon had to end. Last night something shifted between her and Gideon, changed enough that her lie, as innocent as it had begun, felt like a betrayal now.

Each time she’d lied to Kim about Gideon she’d felt a little worse, a little more terrible. A little more like she was falling down a hill that she could never climb back up.

It was time for Georgia to admit who she really was and who she really wanted—Gideon. The man breathing evenly next to her who could turn her breath to smoke, her body to fire, was her truth.

She couldn’t lie to Kim anymore and she couldn’t lie to herself. Besides, it was a hell of a lot easier than telling Gideon. Admitting to the man she’d hurt so many years ago that she never, never wanted to hurt him again was somewhere she was still too gun-shy to go. But she wanted to. Once she told Kim that Brandon had been a lie, she and Gideon could figure out whatever they were—whatever they would be.

It was time to pair the affair in her mind with the one in her life.

Georgia glanced at the clock: 7:33 a.m. She longed to close her eyes, fall back to sleep against Gideon’s back, her arms tight around his waist. She yearned to be woken hours later by Gideon’s kiss, but this was more important. She slipped out of bed and dressed quietly. The memory of Gideon sliding her dress to her ankles rocketed through her as she zipped up the smooth fabric. His eyes had turned to molten emeralds when he saw she was naked underneath. She wanted to see that look from him as often as she could. Along with the look in his eyes as they came to orgasm together last night, a gaze that told her she was whom he wanted. That it would be the two of them connected for as long as the world would allow. His searing gaze hadn’t lied and she wouldn’t anymore, either.

Once dressed, she kissed him lightly on the lips and ran a hand over his forehead. He stirred but didn’t wake. She left a note for him on the nightstand and went to make what was happening between them a little more real—a little less like a fantasy.

…

The bed was empty when Gideon awoke. In his sleepy state he wondered if last night had been a dream—if the whole weekend had been. He propped his head up, hoping to hear Georgia in the shower, or making coffee in the kitchenette, but the room was silent.

Had he only imagined their connection last night?

He lay back on his pillow with a sigh, when he noticed the note she’d left for him on the nightstand.

Changing for breakfast. Be back soon.

Soon wasn’t fast enough. He needed her next to him now, cuddling and laughing in the morning light. He needed her next to him—always in front of his eyes. No, he couldn’t go there yet, but he could safely fulfill his first wish.

He showered, dressed quickly, and headed down to Georgia’s room. He’d surprise her. Pick her up for breakfast like someone who wanted to be real for her, to seem real. Not like a nighttime dream, not like a daylight fantasy. No more hiding what had been right there all along.

His gait was fervent when he exited the elevator and headed down the hall. He straightened his light blue polo, cleared his throat, and was about to knock on her door when he heard Georgia’s voice through the wall.

“Did my showering wake you?” she was saying.

“Nope, it was time I got up anyway,” a weaker voice—Kim’s, probably—replied.

“Sorry I didn’t stay here last night,” Georgia said. “I fell asleep after…”

His heartbeat jetted up, a buzz surrounded him. She was talking about him, about them.

“Don’t be silly, I’m glad you didn’t, it means everything is going exactly as it should,” Kim said. “What are you guys going to do now, other than ravage each other every chance you’ve got like you have been all weekend?”

Gideon stepped closer to the door. He couldn’t help it. This was information Georgia would never share on her own. He needed to hear it, to know if she could feel the same. He should have just knocked. Let Kim’s question go unanswered. Asked Georgia himself, but he desperately wanted to know where her head was at. Where his head should be—if the way he felt in the morning light was just a dream.

He pressed his ear to the door, held his breath, and waited.

“I’m not sure. I can’t predict what he’ll do,” Georgia said.

“If I know Brandon, it’ll be something spectacular.”

Brandon? Why the hell were they talking about Brandon? Gideon strained to hear more, pressed so severely against the wood he could have gotten a splinter.

“I’m sure he’ll ask you to come live with him in New York City,” Kim continued, “or at the very least to come visit, often,” she added with a giggle.

Gideon’s hands fisted. His jaw was tight and his chest was tighter. Unless she’d snuck out at four in the morning and fucked Brandon, too, she was lying—about him, about them. What she’d said last night had been a bunch of crap. She did care whether people knew they were together. Maybe not all the ex-classmates who meant nothing to her now, but Kim was her best friend, and clearly Georgia didn’t want her to know that her plan had blown up.

Would rather lie than admit she’d been with Gideon.

Prickles of cold sweat burst over the back of his neck, and his stomach tumbled down to the floor. Like a dog that had been abused, he went right back to that fifteen-year-old boy with toilet-wet hair getting laughed at.

Georgia had not changed, and in the wake of his humiliation and anger, he realized he hadn’t, either, not when it came to her. She’d never seen him as anything other than Gilligan—anything other than the skinny dork with too big glasses who was too into computers.

No matter how much he made her wail or what she said to him behind closed doors, they were the same two people they had always been—people who had no business even being near each other.

Gideon stepped back from the door. He couldn’t listen anymore. He glanced down the hallway, but he couldn’t walk away, either. Georgia needed to know he was fully up to speed on her bullshit. She hadn’t fooled him. She never would again. In high school, he would have run away and hid. In high school, he had. Not this time. He pounded on the door and the room fell silent. As it should have—his knock was not friendly; it heralded something ominous.

Georgia pulled the door open. She was wearing a white tank top and jean shorts. Kim sat behind her on a bed in her pajamas.

“Oh hi.” She shielded him with the door.

“All you have to say is hi?” Gideon replied, tasting metal.

“How are you?” Georgia added with a smile.

Ten minutes ago, that smile would have had the power to make him tell her everything that had been in his mind and heart that morning. Not anymore.

“Who’s here?” Kim craned her neck.

“Do you want to tell her, or should I?” Gideon crossed his arms over his chest and widened his stance. “Considering she thinks I’m Brandon.”

Georgia’s eyes went gray. “I was just about to tell her.”

“After everything I just heard about Brandon, do you seriously think I believe you?”

Kim rose and walked to the door. “Hello,” she said, clearly not recognizing him. She seemed to have no idea who he was.

“It’s Gideon.” His skin boiled even hotter.

She continued to stare at him blankly.

“Neill,” he added. His eyes burned in his skull.

“Oh.” Kim blinked. “Is Georgia late for something? Did Reece send you?”

Gideon laughed angrily, heat engulfing him from every angle. “Right, why else would I be here? You have no idea she’s been lying to you all weekend.” She’s been pretending I didn’t even exist.

Kim turned to Georgia.

Georgia’s mouth opened. “Kim, that was what I was trying—”

“I came to escort Georgia to breakfast,” Gideon interrupted. He could have let her speak, but she probably would have taken over their story and changed it to fit her lies. No more of her manipulation, her reign over his being. He was going to end this. “Since she’s spent the whole weekend fucking him, I guess she’ll be going with Brandon instead.”

“Gideon, please…” Georgia started, her eyes watering onto her pink face. There was nothing she could say to make it better. There was nothing she could do to hide the person she really was. He stepped away from the door and started down the hall. He never should have come here. He never should have believed that Georgia was different. That he was—that they could be.

“Wait!” she cried, following after him.

He rushed toward the elevator, ignoring her pleas. He stabbed the down button, still facing away from her. “No, Georgia, I’m through with your lies.”

“I never lied to you.”

“But you did lie to Kim.” He could only see red, like everything had been dipped in fire. The same fire licked at his stomach, threatened to ignite everything inside him. “Unless I imagined hearing Brandon’s name.”

“No, it started that way, but I was just about to tell her when you knocked on the door. Why were you listening anyway?” She squinted.

How could he explain? Because he had to know what she really felt for him? He couldn’t admit that, especially when he knew the answer. She felt nothing.

He exhaled, still not meeting her gaze. “Let’s keep this to one shitty thing that’s been done at a time. I’m sorry I eavesdropped,” he admitted, “but I am not at all sorry about what I heard.”

“But what you heard wasn’t everything,” she tried, the veins in her neck tightening in effort.

“I don’t believe you, Georgia. I never should have believed you.” The fire in his stomach climbed up into his throat, making it hard for him to breathe. The boy Georgia had broken in high school choked and spit to life, fighting to escape her destruction yet again. “I thought you changed. What an idiot I was. Fooled into believing you actually…” He couldn’t continue. With what he knew now, he would never confess what Georgia had made him believe. What she’d made him feel.

The elevator button still shone. He couldn’t stand here with her anymore. He couldn’t let her ruin him again.

He turned away from her and went for the stairs. “Cat’s out of the bag, Georgia, you’re still a frigid bitch. You’d drop me in a second if Brandon started sniffing around at what apparently isn’t that hard a club to get into.”

He heard her breath catch. He hoped that would be the end of it, but Georgia followed behind him.

“Don’t act like you’re innocent.” Her voice echoed after him in the cement corridor of the stairwell.

“I don’t have to act. I am innocent,” he replied, continuing down to the lobby.

Her footsteps came faster, her voice filled with deep breaths. “Really, you didn’t just screw me because of who I was? Because being with me made you feel like you’d finally beat me, like you’d finally won?”

He swallowed hard, his eyes on his descending feet. He might have had those thoughts at the beginning, but that wasn’t what the two of them had become. Was it?

He finally turned, stopping her on the step above him. Making them equal height. “You would rather tell your friend that you were with Brandon than me. Like I’m that same loser I was in high school. Like you can’t even admit you were in the same room with me. Even though we both know…” His chest seemed to squeeze in on itself.

No, she is not doing this to me again. I am ten years older. I am ten years better. But Gilligan had been the one listening at Georgia’s door. That wounded boy had been holding his breath while he hoped to be healed by what he was about to hear. Instead, Georgia’s words proved what he always knew. He was a loser who didn’t deserve anything or anyone, just like everyone in high school had always said. His Rolex felt heavy on his arm, as did the realization that he did care what all these people thought, what everyone thought. He would always have something to prove. It wasn’t just Richard he was trying to impress, it was everyone.

Her white lie to Kim had uncovered his sickest truth.

He spun away from her and kept moving stair by stair until he hit the lobby and swung open the door.

She was not deterred. She entered the lobby behind him. “You have it all wrong, Gideon,” she said, keeping his pace. “Kim was the one who had her heart set on me being with Brandon. I was just about to tell her this weekend hadn’t worked out like she’d hoped when you got there.”

He spun to face her. He needed to see her eyes. They were the darkest blue, as if her pleas were piling up inside them. “You can keep repeating that, but I don’t believe you.” Every muscle in Gideon’s body became an earthquake. “You are a fucking terrible liar. I’m amazed, seeing you do it so much.”

Her jaw seemed to soften. “Fine, I know I lied at the beginning, but now—”

“Now what?” he interrupted. “You would have kept fucking me if I hadn’t caught you saying you wished you could be fucking Brandon?”

Her lip trembled. “I never said that. And if you would have come just five minutes later, you would see how irrational you are being.”

He held his hand up. “Stop lying.”

Her eyes locked on his for a moment, searching, seeking, before falling to her feet.

“You’d never tell her about me.” His words shot like bullets. “You think we’re still in high school and you’re better than me. Considering what I witnessed this morning, you aren’t, Georgia. You’re worse than ever.”

Her eyes met his again. They were gentler than he’d ever seen them, trembling like scared children in her uncertain expression. “You don’t mean that.”

“I guess everyone was right about you—you are a failure. You might have fooled me for two days into believing you were someone special, but your act is wearing thin.”

Moisture tinged Georgia’s gaze and her lip trembled. The urge to reach out for her flashed, then disappeared. No, she is not the woman I thought she was. He was not the man he thought she’d turned him into. Having her on the ropes made him want to finish the job. She hadn’t destroyed him, not in high school and not now.

“Alec and I had a bet, too,” Gideon said, the words coming before he could stop them, using what had been so easy to throw away. “He bet me I couldn’t get you into bed if you knew it was me. That was the real reason why I kept fucking you.”

“That’s not true.” Her eyes were wet, blue irises drowning in what would become tears.

Gideon shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I lost anyway, since it turns out you always wished it wasn’t me.”

He wondered how much longer they would fight. At least if they were fighting, they were talking, because once this was over, they were over.

“I wish it hadn’t been you, now,” she seethed, the dampness in her eyes becoming dust. “It never should have been you.”

Her words poked like tiny arrows in his chest, but he wasn’t about to show it. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

She gazed at him powerfully, her face tightened. Whatever part of her he seemed to have cracked was mended and stronger than ever. “Good luck with your dinner. I hope you can find someone to take care of your lie.” She headed back to the stairwell and left him alone in the lobby before he could respond.

But what could he say? Not only was whatever they were doing over, but the dinner was fucked now, too.

So was his life. She’d eviscerated him. Made him believe she actually cared for him, could care for him, but she’d been lying all along.

Wishing he was Brandon.

He saw some of their ex-classmates gathered outside the ballroom where breakfast was held. They had heard everything. At least now the rumors would stop. Georgia Cahill and Gideon Neill were nothing.

They would never be anything again.