If anyone out there ever does a search for “Entwined with You Search Engine Optimisation” we’re definitely going to be number one, I can just smell the success, motherfuckers! [Matthew says: We’re getting less and less subtle about how we’re totally selling out over here. Buy a mug!]
When we last left off, Eva had confronted Evil Reporter Deanna over the phone. Though Deanna’s accusations about Gideon are actually very much grounded in reality, she herself is easily written off as just another Desperate Woman Scorned. If her motivations had been just an iota more compelling, she probably would have made the list of our misunderstood characters, which is one of the highest of honours on BBGT. [Matthew says: A Crossfire character who isn’t motivated solely by sex would be understood by the other Crossfire characters just as well as if they were speaking Russian.]
Chapter 8
Eva finds Gideon pacing in his office.
The indolent, well-pleasured male I’d eaten dinner with was gone, replaced by an urban predator who dominated his competition.
I always find it really odd how she often describes him like this, as an animal. She doesn’t even call him a man, just refers to him as “male”. [Matthew says: In case we forget? “Oh, shit, I forgot Gideon is a MAN.”] Eva must keep male urban predator Gideon pleased or Gideon MAD. Gideon dominate competition NOW.
Eva is upset Gideon didn’t tell her that he’s being sued (by a man he punched in the face.) In his defence, Gideon had intended to, but instead chose to comfort Eva when she was upset about her mother being an asshole. I’m with him on this one, a lot of distracting stuff happened last chapter, how could anyone keep track of what they intended to do when they got home from work in this series!
That night, Eva is able to catch Gideon at the start of one of his nightmares, and after she wakes him up they talk about why he’s been having them more frequently lately.
“I killed a man,” he said grimly. “It’s never been safe for you to be with me when I’m sleeping, and that’s even truer now.”
“Gideon …” I suddenly understood why he’d been having his nightmares more frequently. He could rationalize what he’d done, but that didn’t alleviate the weight on his conscience.
Christ, it’s about time this is addressed. Come on, Eva, wouldn’t it be pretty insane if Gideon didn’t have complex feelings about murdering a man despite the rationalization? [Matthew says: I like how it actually takes Eva time to realize “huh, maybe murdering a dude… makes you feel bad…”]
They cuddle and talk about happier dreams he could have, which obviously include sex because this is a book from the Crossfire series.
“God, I love your mouth.”
“You should dream about that, then. And all the naughty things it can do to you.”
“Give me some examples.”
I gave him plenty, talking in a low soothing voice, my hands stroking over his skin. He slipped away from me with a deep exhalation.
I held him close until long after the sun rose.
Who needs lullabies or comforting words when you can soothingly talk dirty to someone?
The next morning, Eva decides it’s time to talk strategy with Gideon about his public image.
“I’m mostly thinking of how to combat a smear campaign focused on your temper.”
Oh oh! I can help.
Step 1: Don’t beat people up in public.
Step 2: Don’t beat people up in general. Maybe just a quick punch in the face, but you know, avoid assault.
Step 3: Hug a baby or something, but don’t punch said baby in the face. Not even if he smiles at Eva.
Step 4: Continue down this path of not violently attacking people when your personal life is constantly under scrutiny.
Glad I could help, Geva.
Eva suddenly becomes a search/marketing professional, and begins criticising Gideon for his Crossroads Foundation charity’s abysmal website. Sadly, as this is pretty much the career path I’m pursuing, I found this to be the most interesting thing that has ever happened in the series.
That earned him a quick, smacking kiss to the temple. “It took me a ridiculous amount of time to find out about the Crossroads Foundation.”
“You didn’t know where to look.” [Matthew says: I feel like this is a really bad excuse for having a disorganized website.]
“Your search optimization really blows,” [This scene is even better because they’re using blows in this context.] I countered, pulling up the website. “And there’s only this splash page, which is pretty, but ridiculously bare. Where are the links and info about the charities that have benefited? Where’s the About page on the foundation and what you hope to accomplish?” [Seriously? Gideon is like Super Businessman Extraordinaire and there’s no About page? Come on. It’s not quite the same level as English major Anastasia Steele has never used email or the internet to do research, but it’s pretty dang close.] [Matthew adds: What information is on this website? I literally can’t think of anything else you would put on a website for a charity.]
“A packet detailing all of that information is sent out to charities, hospitals, and universities twice a year.”
“Great. Now, let me introduce you to the Internet. Why isn’t the foundation tied to you?”
“Crossroads isn’t about me, Eva.”
“The hell it isn’t.” I met his raised brows with my own and shoved a to-do list in front of him. “We’re defusing the Deanna bomb before it blows. This website needs to be overhauled by Monday morning, with the addition of these pages and the information I’ve outlined.”
I know there is some hilariously stupid logic going on there – Like the Deanna situation being completely reversed simply by improving this one webpage. But I was into this scene.
Seriously, what the fuck does this say about the series that I was genuinely nodding along and tying to brainstorm along with Eva ways for Gideon to create a better landing page for his foundation and get the word out about the good he’s doing. It’s not even clear what this foundation does, but I was like, “Fuck yeah, let’s get our hands dirty, Eva! Let’s create a damn About page already!” What does it say about this series that this is the only “plot line” (and it can’t even be considered a plot line) that I’m actively invested in.
Also, what does it say about me that my reaction to this is SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION, Y’ALL.
Hey, Gideon, I’d love to launch your Adwords campaign for you. Guys, all I want is a happy ending to this series where Crossroads Foundation is ranking higher on Google than the Britney Spears movie Crossroads. I think that’s more important than any supposed character development going on.
This is Eva at her absolute best, and I daresay it might even be the sexist part of the book. If she went to work for Gideon now, I wouldn’t even judge her because her changes to his website make sense. But I don’t really believe that Gideon wouldn’t have a team of professionals already working on this shit. Just saying. [Matthew says: Ariel, you are clearly forgetting the rule that the main character must be better than the love interest’s paid professionals, as was established when Ana became editor-in-chief of Christian’s publishing house after working there for a few weeks. ROMANCE WRITING TIPS 101, Y’ALL.] He’s supposed to be this business genius, an urban predator if you will, and he’s got no About page or links to information about the charities he’s helped? I’m sure he would have hired wiser people than this unless he drunkenly created this page one night on his lonesome, which I seriously doubt.
Sadly for me, this subject is dropped to talk about how Gideon already has plans to manage every situation Deanna claims she’s going to use against him. This for some reason becomes a discussion about Eva and Gideon getting married someday. How do these conversations shift so rapidly? The whiplash I experience reading this series is insane.
He leaned back. “Think about it. The lid is about to blow on a scandal involving you and me. What’s the swiftest way to defuse it?”
“Stay away from me. That’s what you’d be advised to do. Distancing yourself from the source of a scandal is Crisis Management 101.”
“Or do the opposite and marry you,” he said softly. […]
“I just…” I blurted it out in a rush. “I want you to ask me when I can say yes.”
Tension gripped his body. He leaned back, his eyes wounded beneath his frown. “You couldn’t say yes now?”
I shook my head.
His mouth thinned into a determined line. “Lay out what you need from me to make that happen.”
Eva explains that he needs to be more forthcoming with information because she still feels like he’s hiding things. Gideon makes the good point of asking her to be more specific, so he can answer any lingering questions she currently has.
What burning question do you think Eva is going to ask Gideon first?
Take Our Poll“Vidal Records. Why are you in control of your stepfather’s company?”
“Because it was going under.” His jaw hardened. “My mother had already suffered through one financial meltdown; I wasn’t going to let it happen to her again.”
“What did you do?”
“I was able to convince her to talk them—Chris and Christopher—into taking the company public, then she sold Ireland’s shares to me. In addition to what I acquired, I had the majority.”
Well, that was the most boring question she could have picked. Did anyone else remember that as one of the series’ most important unsolved mysteries?
Eva gets a call from her mother and agrees to come over and talk to her. She also gets a text from her friend asking what she’s wearing on their big night out tonight. Shit, somehow this one day is going to get drawn out into two more chapters I bet. We still have to go to Eva’s mom’s house AND on this night out.
With that information out of the way, it’s time to talk about important business issues again!
“This is all very good,” he praised, gesturing at his desktop. “Especially considering you pulled this together in a matter of hours.”
I preened a little, thrilled to have impressed a businessman whose acumen had made him one of the most successful individuals in the world.
Let me just reiterate, he didn’t hire someone who had the sense to create a fucking About page on a website about a charity. Something that people might actually want to know before donating to a charity.
This of course leads into Gideon telling Eva he still wants her to come work for him. That had definitely completely slipped my mind since we haven’t heard about it in half a chapter. Gideon wanting Eva to work for him is to Entwined in You what Damien being gay is to the entire House of Night series.
As per usual, a few different things happen in a jumble towards the end of the chapter. Just in case any are significant, [Matthew says: Wait, there are significant things happening in this book?] here we go:
1) Gideon tries to convince Eva he’d provide her with a fun, challenging job, and that even if they disagreed at work they could totally leave that drama behind in the office. I’ll believe it when I see it, people. Given Gideon and Eva can barely have a night at home without drama as is, I have considerable doubts about them being able to manage work and home drama.
2) Eva stops home and chats to Cary’s boyfriend Trey, and it’s a nice scene. Eva ships Cary/Trey over Cray/Tatiana, so she tells Trey they should hang sometime. He seems like a nice dude. But this bit cracked me up in conjunction with #5 on this list. Trey asks Eva how she’s doing, and this is her response:
“Dodging reporters, hoping my boss gets engaged, planning on setting one parent straight, fitting in a phone call to the other parent, and looking forward to hitting the town with the girls tonight.”
“You’re awesome.”
I really hope Trey is being sarcastic. Best character ever if that’s the case. What the fuck about being hopeful that her boss gets engaged makes her awesome? Or talking to her parents? Or going on a girls’ night out? I think that is just referred to as “being a generic human.”
3) Clancy, Eva’s mom’s driver/security guy picks Eva up to bring her to see her mom. They get to talking, and they talk about how Eva’s mom never told her she saw Nathan that day outside of the Crossfire building, and Clancy points out that Nathan was trying to scare Eva and no one wanted to give him that satisfaction.
4) Eva talks to her dad on the phone, and for some reason also tells him her boss might be getting engaged. Why the fuck does she feel the need to tell everyone this? I’m surprised there wasn’t a scene thrown in where she told Clancy this or the cashier at a corner shop.
5) Eva asks Clancy what he would do to protect his wife, and he’s like, “What wouldn’t I do?” So I guess the implication is that everyone is completely absolving Gideon for the murder even without knowing that’s what they’re doing?
Question for you guys:
How many of you are Orange is the New Black fans? If television isn’t your thing, what is something you’re currently super into?