Page 4 of Ireland

“It’s not about whether you’re right,” Eva argued, half-sitting on the edge of her desk. “It’s about respecting Ireland enough to value her opinion.”

“If I didn’t respect her, I wouldn’t have pressed her to start taking the reins at Vidal,” he reminded. And his sister had paid him full market value to repurchase her shares from him, insisting he’d earned it because he’d brought Vidal Records back from the brink and turned it around. Unfortunately, while her father had the heart and soul for music, Chris didn’t have the head for business.

Eva glared at him. “That’s work stuff. And I know you’ve categorized this situation as solely that, but it has to be very personal for your sister.”

“Because of that moron Teller?” he scoffed. “No way.”

“In part. But mostly because you’re you.”

His mouth curved. “The love of your life? The man of your dreams?”

“You’re baiting me on purpose!” she complained.

Releasing a deep breath, Gideon said evenly, “She still has a lot to learn about playing the game.”

“Then take the opportunity to teach her. She’s not a child! She’s the same age you were when we got married.”

“But she’s still dating losers. She needs to stop wasting her time on idiots.” He’d been saying so for years. If there was a guy on the planet worthy of dating his sister, he’d yet to meet him, and he met a lot of people all the time.

Eva sighed. “You have no idea how hard it is to find a decent guy.”

Standing, his wife approached him on towering stilettos with needle-thin heels. He had no idea how she walked in shoes like that, but he certainly loved how her full hips rocked back and forth with every step. She’d elected to wear a dress in soft gray that matched her eyes. It was a garment that would be modest on most women. Long sleeves, a neckline that reached her collarbone, and a hemline that brushed the tops of her knees. But it clung to her lush body like a second skin, taunting him with reminders of how good she felt in his arms.

She reached up and began to fuss over the knot of his tie and the point of the handkerchief in his breast pocket. It was something she did often, not because he wasn’t pristine, but because it gave her a socially acceptable reason to run her hands over him. “Ireland has a right to participate in decisions concerning her.”

“No one is saying she doesn’t.” He caught her wrist and gave a gentle squeeze. “I’ll argue, however, that since Teller approachedmewith the matter, it’s my problem to solve.”

“My god, you’re infuriating!”

Eva watched her husband straighten away from the jamb in an elegant unfolding of powerful muscle and steely-eyed determination. Butting heads with him was an exercise in patience—and arousal. He was a man who knew what he wanted and how to achieve it, and that level of supreme confidence turned her on as much as his devastating handsomeness.

It also exasperated the hell out of her sometimes.

As Gideon’s hands slid around to cup her buttocks and pull her close, Eva’s head tilted back to look up at him. A dozen blissful years together, yet the impact of his strikingly gorgeous face hadn’t lessened even a little. There were lines now. Faintly in his forehead and around the wickedly sensual mouth she’d felt over every inch of her body. They were also around his eyes. She loved them all but especially the crow’s-feet because they were laugh lines. Permanent echoes of joy. She’d helped to put them there, and it was what she was most proud of.

A pervasive and all-too-familiar frustration agitated her. There was so much she wanted to give him, so much more they deserved to have. But he never complained or even mentioned it.

Tension entered the space between them. Had he followed the direction of her thoughts as he so often did?

“I’ll concede that I could’ve handled things differently,” he murmured, studying her intently with those magnificently blue eyes.

“But not that you should have,” she countered, her voice husky. “I know both Chris and Christopher were on board with the way you handled it, but still…”

“I went to her office based solely on your input. So, I did at least take a step in the right direction.”

His body was so hard and warm, Eva couldn’t help but feel protected and safe. It was intrinsically crucial to her husband to provide a shield for those he loved because he hadn’t been protected or kept safe as a child. If he believed that delaying aresponse would give a bad actor an opening, Gideon wouldn’t wait. He simply couldn’t.

She pressed her lips sweetly to his. “You see a problem and handle it, and I love you for that. I really do. I’m just saying that sometimes you overlook the human component.”

“That’s not true. I factor it in, I just don’t give it the same weight you would.” He bent and nuzzled her cheek.

“She’s your sister. You’ve got to weigh her feelings with a different scale.”

“Angel, you’re way more upset about this than she is, I promise you. It’s fine. She’s fine. So fine, in fact, that I have a free hour because I carved out more time to meet with her than was needed.”

Reaching up, Eva ran her fingers through his luxuriously sexy hair. He lifted her feet from the floor and walked toward the pink velvet sofa in the seating area.

“Lauren,” he called out, using the wake word for the office’s latent artificial intelligence. “Privacy.”

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