found myself turning my face toward him.
"Your clothes aren’t dry yet. Those have a drawstring, so they should fit you well enough."
Gideon's footsteps retreated. Every instinct within me was telling me to let him go, but I found myself asking, "Why are you being kind to me?"
The footsteps stopped and I found myself wishing I had the guts to open my eyes. But I wouldn't be able to find him and make him out. Not when he might be standing around something like furniture or a door. The last thing I wanted was to have a conversation with an armoire or something. Sadly enough, it had happened before. Fortunately, I'd been with my assistant, Angie, and she'd covered for me with the potential investors who’d witnessed the fiasco.
When Gideon didn't answer I found myself saying, "Is it because I'm blind?" Never in a million years would I have guessed myself capable of being so blunt. But Gideon was the first nonmedical person I'd had to deal with since learning that my blindness was irreversible. Maybe it wasn't right, but using him as a barometer of sorts would provide a picture of what I could expect in the years to come.
"Is that the first time you’ve said those words?" Gideon asked instead of answering me.
I felt heat crawl up my neck. I swallowed hard and nodded. “How did you know?”
“You move like someone who’s only just begun to lose their sight. You have no confidence in yourself and your ability to adapt to your surroundings.”
His bluntness shocked me into silence.
I heard him move again, but this time his footsteps were coming back in my direction. I was still sitting on the bed, so when he reached me, I didn't need to see him to know that he was looming over me. I heard him shuffle and shift his weight and sensed rather than saw him lower his body so he was crouched in front of me.
"Open your eyes," Gideon commanded.
That's what it was.
A command.
I'd given thousands of orders to hundreds of people in my business over the past decade, so I knew what a command was. And I knew when not to ignore one. I opened my eyes and was greeted with a dark shape. He was right in front of me.
"In answer to your question about why I’m being kind to you… I think you're a rude son of a bitch," Gideon said simply. His words caught me completely off guard. He was right, of course, but I hadn't been expecting him to confront me on my behavior. "That said, I'm being kind to you because I'm not big on kicking a man when he's already down."
"I'm not—" I began, but when his fingers touched mine, I snapped my mouth shut in surprise. Heat and electricity raced up my arm. I wanted to tear my hand away but found myself unable to move. I opened my mouth to tell him that I wasn’t down but stopped when he put something in my hand.
“I found this on the coffee table in your cabin.”
It took only a second to identify the object as paper, but my brain took a lot longer to process what any of it meant. When it did, everything just hit me all at once and I did what I always did when my fight-or-flight instinct kicked in.
I chose flight.
Chapter Four
Gideon
I’d expected him to deny or try to explain the contents of the note I’d pressed into his hand. Hell, I was even prepared for him to tell me to go to hell and shut down. What I hadn’t been prepared for was for him to shove past me, knocking me on my ass in the process and causing me to hit the side of my head on the nightstand next to the bed. I instinctively tried to ward off the attack I thought was coming, but when Lex stumbled past me, I realized he was just trying to escape.
“Fuck,” I groaned when I righted myself. I could feel something warm trickling down the side of my face, but I didn’t give myself any time to dwell on the injury. I was too concerned for Lex. I knew he wouldn’t get far but the layout of my house was tricky and there were a hundred ways he could easily hurt himself. “Lex!” I called as I climbed to my feet. My head spun a bit but I managed to keep myself upright. I heard a crashing sound from the