Chapter I #2
My predecessor, a.k.a. my older half-sister, Hedone, let just anyone get together.
She had no rules. She was all about fun and pleasure and thought mortals should be too.
But there’s more to love than the physical side of it.
She found that out the hard way after she had a little too much fun on a married senator’s yacht and the entire thing was caught on film.
And her identity was almost leaked. That was a big no-no in our world.
She was currently hiding out on Pluto. Pluto was a resort for the gods.
Ironic considering it was named after Pluto, it being a lively resort and not some dreary underworld.
You could also thank the gods for it no longer being a planet. Planets were too closely monitored.
Under my careful watch, divorce rates were way down and couples reported higher satisfaction in their relationships.
“It’s not my fault that none of the couples met my department’s criteria. Do you need a recap of the guidebook rules?” I grinned over at Cassie, who read my mind.
“The rules,” she sang, waving her hand. A large gold guidebook appeared midair and fell open dramatically in front of Roman, who looked seconds away from burning my beloved book.
“Rule one: no love at first sight. Rule two: no grand gestures. Rule three: no enemies to lovers. Rule four: no falling in love under extreme circumstances or overly cinematic events. Rule—”
Roman snatched the guidebook and hurled it at the wall of windows that offered the perfect view of the California coastline. My father had grown tired of Mount Olympus and moved his operations to the States several decades ago. He felt that his grandfather, Zeus, was too overbearing.
The guidebook hit the glass with a dull thud and slid to the marble floor, pages splayed like broken wings.
Roman’s chest heaved, his fists clenched at his sides. “To hell with your rules.”
“Wow. That was a little cinematic, don’t you think?”
Admittedly, I loved taunting him. I really shouldn’t have. I was thirty years old and should have been way past this type of behavior. And I was. But there was just something about Roman that brought out the worst in me. Well, I knew what it was, but I refused to name it. Like, ever.
“There were some good couples this season. You just refused to see it. You broke hearts.”
“Actually, I saved them.” To be fair, I had considered one couple, Sadie and Pablo, but she was too young and they hated each other to start with, like passionately.
And even though the divine side of me whispered that they were a good match, I couldn’t trust it.
It had been wrong before. Very wrong. So, I defaulted to the rules. Rules were safer.
Roman scoffed. “What do you know about hearts? I’m not even sure you have one. Honestly, what do you even know about love?”
Cassie dropped her popcorn bowl. Her mouth hung open and her eyes flashed violet fury. She looked seconds away from hexing him into oblivion.
I shook my head, telling her not to while swallowing down the lump in my throat and stopping the sting in my eyes from manifesting into tears. I hadn’t cried in years. And I wasn’t going to give Roman the satisfaction. He wasn’t worth my tears.
I stared straight into his hypnotic eyes, refusing to back down.
Even though sometimes I feared I had lost my heart for good.
Lost me. And there was no way to get either of them back.
No one would believe it now, but once I was the happiest girl who ever lived, and I believed in love with all my heart—all the ooey gooey ridiculous parts of it.
And who was he to lecture me about love?
He’d divorced what the media called the perfect woman—model Carmen Lux, daughter of Anteros, god of requited love.
Yes, my cousin. A fellow demigoddess. (FYI: The modeling world is crawling with demigods and demigoddesses.
If only mortals knew, maybe they’d stop trying to live up to ideals that were never natural—or fair.)
I thought about throwing it in his face, but he and Carmen had a beautiful little girl, Junie. And I never celebrated the end of a relationship. Even relationships I knew were never supposed to be. That was one of my unholy gifts. I knew things I shouldn’t—and didn’t want to know.
But I wouldn’t be letting him off the hook after an accusation like that. “At least I know enough not to sell love or cheapen it,” I whispered.
He stood, and his glare sent a cold shiver through me. “You don’t know anything about what I do.”
I flashed him a toothy smile, more than done with our conversation. “Have a nice day, Mr. Archer.”
He threw his arms up in the air. “I’ll be taking this up with your father.”
“Good luck with that,” I called to his retreating figure with the confidence of a naked toddler. Or more accurately, a naked demigod. Seriously, they are all so full of themselves.
Meanwhile, Cassie’s warning was blaring in my head like a siren. As in the kind of sirens who lure you to your death. Oh yes, they’re real too.
My father and I had a complicated relationship, to say the least, considering I didn’t even know who he was for the first sixteen years of my life.
Not to say he hadn’t tried to make up for it.
But it disappointed him that I refused to use my gifts.
Gifts not even my sister had. Gifts maybe no one else had.
Those gifts and his guilt were the main reasons he gave me this job. And, you know, my sister’s “sabbatical” and her lack of supervision over the mortals. Hello, Jesse James and Sandra Bullock. That was a match that should never have happened. Poor Sandra.
But more concerning than any of that was . . . he liked Roman. No, he loved him. Like a son. His godson, in fact.
I had an icky feeling that Cassie was right—Roman’s visit would not bode well for me.