Not that I bought it as her sole motivation.
Maybe I was just the lesser of two evils.
Maybe she was keeping her enemies close.
"All right.
Thank you."
No denying I felt better.
A weight I hadn't realized I was carrying around was suddenly relieved.
"Something else," Magdalene went on.
"He went after you."
My grip tightened on the phone receiver.
Gideon always came after me .
because I was always running.
My recovery was so fragile that I'd learned to protect it at all costs.
When something threatened my stability, I ditched it.
"There have been other women in his life who've tried ultimatums like that, Eva.
They got bored or they wanted his attention or some kind of grand gesture .
So they walked away and expected him to come after them.
You know what he did?" "Nothing," I said softly, knowing my man.
A man who never spent social time with women he slept with and never slept with women he associated with socially.
Corinne and I were the sole exceptions to that rule, which was yet another reason why his ex sent me into fits of jealousy.
"Nothing more than making sure Angus dropped them off safely," she confirmed, making me think it'd been a tactic she'd tried at some point.
"But when you left, he couldn't chase after you fast enough.
And he wasn't himself when he said good-bye.
He seemed .
off."
Because he'd felt fear.
My eyes closed as I mentally kicked myself.
Hard.
Gideon had told me more than once that it terrified him when I ran, because he couldn't handle the thought that I might not come back.
What good did it do to say that I couldn't imagine living without him when I so often showed him otherwise with my actions? Was it any wonder he hadn't opened up to me about his past? I had to stop running.