Entwined With You (crossfire, #3)

The third installment of Sylvia Day's Crossfire series continues the intense romance between Eva Tramell, a young advertising assistant in New York City, and Gideon Cross, a billionaire real estate mogul. Eva and Gideon share a volatile, passionate love complicated by their parallel histories of childhood sexual abuse. In the previous book, Eva's stepbrother Nathan Barker, who raped her repeatedly as a child, resurfaced in New York. The novel opens with Eva learning that NYPD Detective Shelley Graves suspects Gideon of killing Nathan and that Gideon staged a public breakup to deflect police suspicion.

Eva returns to her Upper West Side apartment, unable to go back to Gideon for fear the detective is monitoring her movements. In the lobby, she encounters Deanna Johnson, a freelance reporter investigating Gideon's "dark side" who harbors a grudge from a one-night stand in which he treated her callously. Eva deflects but takes her card. That night, Gideon appears in Eva's bedroom, using his ownership of her building to enter undetected. They reunite physically and emotionally, and Gideon confesses that he killed Nathan because no restraining order or security detail could guarantee her safety. Eva accepts what he has done, though they cannot yet stop hiding their relationship.

The next morning, Gideon reveals he has secretly taken over the apartment next door, furnishing it with a blend of their belongings as a hidden shared space. He gives Eva a burner phone to communicate through his chauffeur, Angus McLeod, a former agent with MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence service. Eva resists the phone's GPS tracking until Gideon offers her the ability to track him in return. He confirms he has told his ex-fiancée, Corinne Giroux, that he can only offer friendship, though Corinne wants more.

At her job with Waters Field & Leaman, a leading advertising firm, Eva juggles the pretense of being single. Her boss, Mark Garrity, confides his desire to propose to his longtime partner, Steven Ellison, and their conversation opens a window into Eva's own anxieties about commitment. Meanwhile, Brett Kline, Eva's ex and the front man for the rising rock band Six-Ninths, invites her to the Times Square premiere of the "Golden" music video, a song inspired by their past relationship. Eva reluctantly agrees, asking her best friend and roommate, Cary Taylor, to accompany her.

Eva and Gideon's evenings together become an anchor, but the weight of Gideon's trauma surfaces. He wakes screaming from nightmares in which he fights his abuser and still loses, expressing anguish that the abuse produced physical responses he conflates with complicity. Eva assures him his experience was rape and carries no shame, and she encourages him to continue therapy with their therapist, Dr. Petersen.

Eva discovers that her mother, Monica Stanton, has planted tracking devices in her belongings, including a compact and her cherished Rolex graduation gift. Devastated, she storms out and tells Monica she wants no contact until she receives a sincere apology. A deeper blow lands when Eva's father, Victor Reyes, a California police officer, discovers the unsealed juvenile records detailing Nathan's abuse. Victor flies to New York, and Eva takes him to her Krav Maga self-defense studio in Brooklyn, where he channels his rage and sees his daughter's strength. Gideon offers to call Monica, who has been phoning repeatedly, both to calm her and to begin publicly working his way back to Eva through her mother. The crisis deepens when Eva discovers Victor and Monica slept together in her apartment, appalling her because her stepfather, Richard Stanton, pays for it. Eva confronts Victor, and they reach an uneasy truce before he returns to California.

Gideon's lawyers inform him the police may have an alternate suspect. Detectives Graves and Michna visit Eva with photos of Andrei Yedemsky, a Russian mob figure found dead wearing Nathan's distinctive sapphire bracelet. The detectives suggest Yedemsky killed Nathan. Eva relays this to Gideon, who confirms Nathan was wearing the bracelet when Gideon left him, meaning someone moved it to Yedemsky's body to frame the mobster. Neither knows who orchestrated the cover-up, and the implication is disturbing: Whoever protected Gideon knows what he did.

At the "Golden" premiere in Times Square, Gideon attends with his teenage sister, Ireland Vidal, approaching Eva's group as a staged step toward public reconciliation. The music video features an actress closely resembling Eva in sexually explicit scenes with a Brett lookalike, effectively outing Eva as the song's subject on national television. Eva is mortified, and Gideon leaves abruptly. Over dinner, Brett tells Eva he intends to pursue her regardless of her feelings for Gideon.

Gideon takes Eva to a private Caribbean resort. On the beach the first night, Eva misinterprets his emotional withdrawal as rejection, but Gideon reveals he has been agonizing over proposing. He asks her to marry him, and Eva says yes. The next morning, she discovers a prenuptial agreement and is initially hurt, but she realizes the document is designed not to protect Gideon's wealth but to bind her to him, offering escalating incentives for staying married, attending therapy, and having children. Eva's sole revision is adding her father's surname: She becomes Eva Lauren Tramell Reyes Cross. They marry barefoot on the beach with only Angus and the hotel manager as witnesses, agreeing to present the marriage as an engagement publicly.

Back in New York, Eva tells Cary about the engagement during a tense lunch in which he angrily confronts her for shutting him out. Cary reveals he has known all along that she and Gideon were still together and is hurt by the lies. He shares his own crisis: Tatiana Cherlin, the model he has been seeing alongside his boyfriend Trey, is pregnant, and the baby may be his. Eva proposes creating a charitable foundation with the five-million-dollar settlement she received from Nathan's family, asking Cary to help run it.

At a charity gala, Gideon introduces himself to Eva's bosses as her fiancé, their first public acknowledgment as a couple. Eva encounters Anne Lucas, a psychiatrist who was once involved with Gideon. Anne's brother-in-law sexually abused Gideon as a child. She warns Eva that Gideon uses and discards women. Gideon's mother, Elizabeth Vidal, also corners Eva, accusing her of poisoning her son's mind. Eva challenges Elizabeth to ask Gideon directly about his childhood abuse and demands she believe him.

The crises accelerate. Corinne swallows a bottle of pills and is hospitalized; her husband, Jean-François Giroux, attacks Gideon at the emergency room after learning Corinne was four months pregnant and miscarried during treatment. Gideon sends Eva home and disappears for nearly two days. He returns having flown to California to obtain a court injunction against Sam Yimara, a former videographer for Six-Ninths who possesses explicit footage of Eva and Brett and is attempting to sell it. Deanna tipped Gideon off; in exchange for her silence, he offered her an exclusive on their wedding photos. Detective Graves also appears at Eva's Krav Maga class, cryptically advising her to keep thinking about Nathan's bracelet. In the final scene, Eva pulls Gideon toward her bedroom, declaring he is hers for the night. He replies that he is hers every night. They are married, still keeping secrets from the world, but more committed to each other than ever.