Reflected in You

What's inside (10 sections)

1. Back together, but on new terms
2. An engagement that solves nothing
3. Cary unravels
4. Stanton draws a line
5. Deanna and the threat of exposure
6. Therapy and the work neither wants to do
7. What drags
8. Where they land
9. Key takeaways
10. FAQ

I did not plan to jump straight into Reflected in You. I finished Bared to You late on a Sunday and told myself I would take a break from Eva and Gideon. Then I kept thinking about Cary on that couch and about the way book one ended, with love declared but trust still thin. By Tuesday I had the second book open on my kitchen table. I wanted to see if they could stay together once the first rush wore off.

They cannot, at least not cleanly. That is the point of this middle book. Reflected in You follows Eva Tramell and Gideon Cross through the weeks after they agree to try again, when caring a lot stops being enough and old injuries start setting the schedule. It is told again in Eva first person voice, close and anxious. The standard print edition from Berkley Books runs 338 pages and was first published in 2012 as the second volume in the Crossfire series, picking up directly after Bared to You.

If you have not read book one, the setup is simple. Eva is twenty four, working in advertising in New York, living with her best friend Cary Taylor. She survived sexual abuse as a child by Nathan, the son of a former stepfather, and she works in therapy to keep panic and control issues from running her life. Gideon is twenty eight, founder of Cross Industries, rich enough to buy privacy. He survived prolonged abuse as a child by a family friend. They met in the Crossfire building where Eva works, fell into a fast and obsessive bond, and ended book one still in love but shaken by Gideon surveillance of Eva and by a violent clash around Nathan.

This book asks what happens after that kind of start.

Back together, but on new terms

The novel opens with Eva and Gideon trying to reset. Eva is back in her Upper West Side apartment with Cary. She is going to work at the agency. She is seeing her therapist. She tells herself she will keep boundaries this time. Gideon says he will respect them. Within days both promises bend.

Gideon pursues repair the only way he knows at first, with access and closeness. He calls often. He sends a car. He wants nights together at his penthouse. He wants to know where Eva is and who she is with. Eva loves the attention and also resents it. She has learned in therapy to name that split. She says it out loud. I want you near, and I need room to breathe.

One early scene felt honest. Eva tries to focus on a client mockup while Gideon texts, then calls, then shows up in the building. Her boss Mark notices. Eva feels proud and embarrassed at once, then stays late to catch up. When they are calm, they are tender in a way book one only hinted at. Then pressure builds from outside, and their private deal starts to crack.

An engagement that solves nothing

Gideon proposes fairly early, and Day plays it as romance tangled with strategy. He gives Eva a large ring, tells her he wants forever, tells her he has never offered this to anyone. Eva says yes through tears. She loves him. She wants to believe a public promise will steady them.

I read the engagement as Gideon trying to lock in safety. If Eva is his fiancee, she will not leave when the next fight comes. If the world knows she chose him, figures from his past will back off. Eva senses part of this. She likes wearing the ring to work. She likes telling Cary. She also feels the weight of it when she argues with Gideon the next day and thinks, now a normal fight feels like breaking a vow.

The ring changes how others treat them. Eva mother Monica is thrilled and starts talking venues. Eva stepfather Richard Stanton is polite but watchful. He congratulates Gideon while asking quiet questions about security and press. At the agency, Eva gets teasing and a few sharp comments about marrying money. She tries to keep her head down and prove she earned her job.

Inside the relationship, the engagement raises the stakes without fixing the habits. Gideon still checks on Eva movements through his team. He still dislikes her time with male friends and clients. Eva still tests him by withholding details to see if he will overreact. They have the same fight as in book one, only now it ends with staring at the ring instead of the door. At one point Eva leaves it on the nightstand during an argument. Gideon goes pale and pockets it. That silence felt heavier than shouting.

Day makes clear a proposal does not cure trauma. It gives them a story to tell friends while they keep doing the harder work, or avoiding it.

Cary unravels

For me the strongest thread is Cary Taylor. He was the warmth in book one. Here he slides.

Cary is still Eva roommate and closest friend, a male model with his own history of abuse. At the start he parties too much, misses castings, comes home late smelling of clubs. His boyfriend Trey, a kind veterinary student, wants a steady partner. Cary wants fun and numbness. They fight in the kitchen while Eva pretends to sleep in the next room.

Trey pulls back. Cary acts like he does not care, then falls apart in private. He misses work because he is hung over. He picks a fight with Eva about Gideon to avoid talking about himself. One night he comes home sick and Eva sits with him on the bathroom tile until he steadies. She does not lecture. She holds his hair and tells him she is there. It mirrors scenes where he once sat with her after nightmares.

Eva feels guilty. She has spent months focused on Gideon while Cary needed attention. She tries to make up for it by covering his rent, by calling his agent, by inviting Trey to dinner to broker peace. None of it works because Cary has to choose help himself. When he finally admits he needs structure, it comes after a scare at a shoot and a blunt talk with Stanton about money and limits.

Day lets Cary stay funny while he struggles. He teases Eva about work clothes and cooks pasta at midnight. When Eva and Gideon tired me, Cary kept me reading. His arc mirrors theirs. He chases intensity to avoid memory, with less money to hide behind, so his crash shows faster.

Stanton draws a line

Richard Stanton, Eva stepfather, steps forward here. In book one he was background money and protection. Here he acts like a father who has paid for past mistakes and will not pay quietly again.

Stanton is wealthy, married to Eva mother Monica. He helped raise Eva after Nathan abused her, paid for therapy, hired lawyers when needed. He adores Eva but he does not trust Gideon. He has Gideon looked into. He asks Eva direct questions about tracking, about fights, about whether she feels free to say no.

There is a dinner at the Stanton apartment that stayed with me. Monica fusses over the table. Stanton pours wine he barely drinks. Gideon arrives polite and controlled. Stanton asks about Gideon security team and reports on Eva. Gideon answers smoothly. Eva watches both men perform calm and feels like a teenager again, fought over by protectors. After Gideon leaves, Stanton tells Eva he will support any choice she makes, but he will not fund silence around abuse again. He means Nathan, and he means Gideon if Gideon hurts her.

Stanton also deals with Cary. He has helped Cary with money before. Now he sets limits. He will pay for treatment but not for parties. He tells Eva not to cover for Cary lies. It is firm without cruelty, and Eva dislikes hearing it because it sounds like her therapist.

Monica is less steady. She loves Eva and loves the idea of a rich son in law. She pushes wedding talk when Eva needs space. She still struggles to face what Nathan did and what her denial cost. When Nathan reappears at the edges, calling Monica and claiming he has changed, Monica wavers. Stanton steps in hard. Eva sees her mother hesitate and feels young again, disbelieved. Gideon sees it too, and for once he does not use it to pull Eva closer. He listens.

The Stanton material gives the book weight outside the romance. Money is not just glamour. It pays for therapists and guards and lawyers. It also buys control, and Day shows both sides.

Deanna and the threat of exposure

If family is one pressure, the press is the other. Deanna Johnson, a reporter with a grudge, circles Eva and Gideon through much of the book.

Deanna wants a story about Gideon. She hints she knows about his childhood abuse and his past relationships, including Corinne Giroux. She approaches Eva at events, calls the agency, leaves messages that sound friendly but land like threats. She suggests Eva does not know who she is marrying. She suggests Gideon past will embarrass Eva family.

Eva reacts with fury and fear. Fury because Deanna tries to use private pain for attention. Fear because Eva carries her own secret about Nathan and knows how exposure feels. She does not want her history printed as context for a Gideon profile. She does not want Cary dragged in as the troubled roommate. She pictures headlines and office gossip.

Gideon reacts with cold control. He has his team monitor Deanna and warns Eva not to speak to her. At times this helps. At times it proves Eva point that he manages people rather than trusting them. A gala late in the book brings it together. Cameras, Corinne across the room, Deanna watching, Eva adjusting her dress, Gideon with his hand firm on her back. They smile for photos while barely speaking. The threat works as steady dread. For two people whose healing depends on choosing when to tell their stories, that feels violent even without contact.

Therapy and the work neither wants to do

Both Eva and Gideon are in therapy, and those scenes form the moral spine.

Eva sees Dr. Parker regularly. She reports fights honestly, or tries to. She admits when Gideon jealousy felt good because it felt like proof of love. She admits when she provoked him to test him. Parker does not take sides. He asks what safety feels like, what warning signs showed up before panic, what patterns repeat from her years with Nathan. He reminds her that insight is not the same as change, and that love does not obligate her to accept monitoring.

One session centers on the ring. Eva tells Parker she said yes because she loves Gideon and because she was tired of fighting. Parker asks what she did not say to Gideon first. Eva lists three things. She still fears his anger. She hates his security reports. She worries closeness covers fights instead of resolving them. Saying the list shakes her more than the proposal did.

Gideon sees his own doctor, though we learn about it mostly through what he tells Eva. He resists at first, frames therapy as maintenance. Slowly he admits more. Nightmares. Needing control of rooms and schedules because as a child he had none. Touch that can feel safe and threatening within minutes. He tells Eva he hates that about himself.

At home they try timed talks and naming triggers before bed. Sometimes it helps. Often one uses therapy language as a weapon. Day does not present therapy as a cure scene. Progress looks like Eva leaving a party before panic peaks. It looks like Gideon saying he had a nightmare instead of leaving without a word.

What drags

I should be direct about the problems, because they match book one, louder.

The book repeats itself. Fights follow a set shape. Gideon demands closeness and information. Eva pushes back. Gideon watches more closely. Eva confronts him about control. They spend a long night physically close. They wake tender and promise to do better. A new trigger arrives, often a text from Corinne or a message linked to Nathan or Deanna, and the loop restarts. The first two times it feels intense. By the fourth time I could predict the lines.

The physical relationship takes many pages without adding new meaning. To keep this tasteful, Eva and Gideon are often physically close in penthouses and apartments and hotels, and Eva narrates those nights at length with focus on longing and comfort. The frequency still slows the plot. One tender night after a gala feels like the tender night after the last argument. Readers who want high heat and low plot may enjoy the rhythm. I wanted fewer such scenes and more time with work, with Cary recovery, with Stanton and Monica.

Some side figures feel thin. Corinne sparks jealousy. Deanna threatens exposure. Eva coworkers get brief moments then vanish. When the book stays with Cary, Stanton, Monica, and the therapists, it feels layered. When it returns to jealousy over exes, it feels like marking time.

None of this made me dislike the book. It made me skim the middle. If repetition bothers you, or if monitoring in relationships upsets you, this will be hard. If you need clear boundaries early, Gideon will frustrate you past page two hundred.

Where they land

The last third tightens. Nathan pushes closer to Eva family, forcing Eva to face memory rather than manage it from far away. Stanton hires extra protection. Gideon offers his guards, which helps practically and complicates emotionally. Eva has a panic episode described with care, shaking and narrowed vision and Cary voice talking her through breaths. She does not bounce back quickly. She cancels work. She sleeps badly. She tells Gideon she needs her own plan, not just his plan for her.

Cary hits his low point and finally accepts structured help. Trey does not rush back, which felt right. Eva cannot fix Cary and cannot abandon him. She visits, she calls, she lets Stanton handle money while she handles friendship.

Eva and Gideon end still engaged but sobered. They keep the ring. They keep the apartment and the penthouse as separate bases rather than merging fully. They agree to keep therapy and to tell the full truth there, even when it looks bad. The final scenes are domestic. Breakfast, a work event where Eva introduces Gideon without flinching, a night where they talk instead of reaching for each other to end a fight. Deanna has not printed the worst. Nathan has not gone away. Corinne has not vanished. Threats pause rather than resolve.

Day closes with a pull toward book three, Entwined with You. Eva says she loves Gideon and that love has to include freedom to leave. Gideon says he will learn to live with that fear. It is not a clean happy ending. It is a decision to keep working.

If you read Bared to You and cared about Eva voice and Cary friendship, yes, keep going. You will get more of that, with higher stakes around family and press. If you hoped book two would fix control issues quickly, you will be disappointed. I finished liking Eva more, worrying about Cary, respecting Stanton, and believing Eva and Gideon might make it only if therapy stays central.

FAQ

Is Reflected in You the second book in the Crossfire series?

Yes. Reflected in You was published in 2012 by Berkley Books as Crossfire book 2, continuing Eva Tramell and Gideon Cross after Bared to You. It leads into Entwined with You.

Who is Deanna in Reflected in You?

Deanna Johnson is a reporter who pursues a scandal story about Gideon. She pressures Eva at events and through calls, using his past and Corinne to threaten public exposure.

Is Reflected in You very explicit?

Yes. Eva and Gideon are physically close often across its 338 pages, though this summary keeps that tasteful. The book also covers panic, therapy, family conflict, substance use, and press threats.