The Gideon Affair

Paige’s hand smacked the wood conference table, startling Mickey from his rant.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it, M. Edward’s a god, blah, blah, blah. Back on point, please. When did this start?”

He took over at that point. Mickey was managing to make things worse.

“Phae was the target, Paige. When she didn’t play with Markus and Joa

Mickey laughed in a way that sounded more evil than friendly as he added a bunch of names to the board. “Perry Waterman is in full damage control mode. Alan has been a wingnut for years and fuck knows why Perry continues to clean up the guy’s messes. But he’s offered an olive branch to Gideon in exchange for … well, I suppose you could say it’s in exchange for not blowing this whole thing up.”

“I don’t like where this is going,” Paige drawled.

Shit. She had no idea.

“No!” She bolted out of her chair so fast it toppled over. “Absolutely not. Are you two out of your minds?”

Here we go, he thought.

“Who came up with this brilliant idea?” She was yelling. “Do you know what you’re suggesting?” The yelling had turned to accusation and finally, “Why me? No, for real, Edward. Why me?”

He took a big, deep breath and put his hands on Paige’s shoulders. The string of disjointed questions she was barking indicated a healthy dose of shock. She was freaking out for good reason. “Sit down, babe.”

Mickey had left them alone to talk, but so far, all she’d done was go off on him.

“Oh, back off, bud,” she snarled. Wheeling away from him, she put the conference table between them and kept yelling. “I’m serious, Mr. Ba

If it weren’t for the fact that her face was on fire and her breathing choppy, he might have feared for his well-being. Instead, his libido read the signals she was putting off and was taking careful notes.

Flushed face. Mouth slightly swelled from all the lip biting. Heaving chest. Eyes flared with more than heat.

She was crazy if she thought a table was going to protect her.

Turning all the cards face up, he gave it to her straight. “Moira made the suggestion and Mickey accepted for you.” He winced without letting it show, appalled at his clumsy words.

“Moira Ke

She wasn’t ready but needed to know what was happening next. Using the drip-drip-drip method of imparting information would never work with Paige.

Moving toward he, he laid it out. “Yeah, Moira Ke

“There has to be another way,” she pleaded.

Putting his arms around her was self-serving but he did it anyway. Now that he knew what it felt like to hold her close, he wanted to explore those feelings. Only the fucked-up-ness of their present situation stopped him from going further.

Some part of Edward knew they were at a crucial moment in their relationship. What he was asking of her was a lot, but hidden in the request being made on the pretext of calming a career crisis was the ultimate in self-serving wants. Paige herself.

He wanted her and wasn’t averse to pi

With an arm around her waist, he held her fantastic body against him and feathered his fingers down the side of her face.

“Will you marry me, Paige?”

She lowered her forehead onto his chest and mumbled, “You’re killing me.”

When she looked up again and met his eyes, she solemnly asked, “Who’s asking? Edward or Gideon?”

Ouch.

What the friggin’ hell was going on? Was she being Punk’d? That had to be it because although this really couldn’t be happening, somehow it was.

They’d stumbled into a Hollywood nightmare of sexual depravity, drugs, money, and power.

As if that wasn’t enough of a movie plot, Gideon, or rather Edward by way of Gideon, was being offered a brass ring. The wi

But it wasn’t enough for Gideon Shaw to simply play along. To protect Phaedra Bellamy, he was agreeing to let the sex tape thing play out one more time and laugh off Joa

And that was where Moira came in. She could spin the most deplorable stories in a positive light. Getting an invitation to the director’s club was cool and all, but that was the great unknown. There was still the matter of Gideon Shaw the actor and worldwide celebrity. The backlash couldn’t fall solely on him.

And somehow that convoluted logic led to this insane plan to take some of the sting out of having his reputation trashed by pulling a secret romance out of their hats. Moira thought it was just the thing to keep the ladies in swoon mode and the guys wishing they could all be the handsome actor.

That was how she ended up in an audacious embrace that had her plastered to Edward from the waist down. Some part of her almost wrapped her legs around his waist before she snapped out of it.

The icing on the cake? Hearing him ask her to marry him.

Was it physically or emotionally possible to be ecstatic and crushed at the same time?

Until she heard him say the words, the notion of being married to Edward hadn’t entered her mind. Not in any meaningful way, despite years of doodling Paige Ba

But now that he’d said the words, all she could focus on was how cruel and fucked up this situation was. For her. She was in love with Edward and no matter what, Gideon, although very real, was also a figment of their imaginations. Who was asking?

It was impossible to ignore the pout on her face, mostly because it felt so foreign. So not her usual self.

Hold on. What was happening? How could she possibly navigate this bizarre situation if she wasn’t herself?

“This would be fu

Edward nodded solemnly and tightened the arm around her waist. Despite Paige’s resolve to behave with adult decorum, each time she felt his body press into hers, she practically became a giggling, drooling twit.

He still hadn’t responded to the Edward-Gideon riddle, which was the only reason she wasn’t all over him like a rash. It wasn’t a trick question, for heaven’s sake. An answer wasn’t too much to ask.

Her granddad, an irascible old-school gentleman farmer who wore his Army hat every Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day and who never met a flag he didn’t stop to salute, teased her nonstop when she was younger about her complete lack of ability for waiting. If being patient was a virtue, she was screwed.

Eh, whatever. Mr. Silent can take a hike. Paige fingered the smooth silk of a tie she’d chosen for him to wear. She started to talk only to have her words vanish into the ether when Edward’s hand slid slowly from around her waist to perform a bold caress of her ass.