Chapter 3
CUPID
The door of my office opened and I looked up in time to see Aine striding in with easy confidence that could only come with being the CEO of a successful company like Jinx. And of someone who was equally satisfied with the other aspects of her life. Nobody was confused about what she and Min got up to when her office door was closed. Apparently, she had no such worries about walking in on me.
"Do you have a minute, Cupid?" she asked.
I nodded and leaned back in my seat. "You're the boss."
She pulled out the chair on the visitor's side of the desk and sat down. "I wanted to talk to you about Valentine's Day."
I scowled, unable to help myself. "That nonsense?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you supposed to believe in it?"
"Why? Because they draw me as a cute little baby on all the cards and tell people that Cupid will hit them with his arrows?" I bunched my hand into a fist and tried to ignore the annoyance rising inside me. I don't know who it was that started that trend, but I hated it. With a passion.
"Have you ever done that?"
"Only to people that annoyed me," I responded offhandedly. "And they didn't fall in love, they just bled out."
A small smile quirked at the edges of her lips. "They do say that all is fair in love and war."
"They'd be wrong." I'd seen enough of both to be certain about that.
"Mmm. Anyway, even if you don't like Valentine's Day, we're a dating agency, we can't ignore it," she pointed out. "What do you need in order to put together an event?"
"I thought you had a team for that?" I had no idea why she was asking this of me when I was in charge of the matchmaking arm of Jinx and had nothing to do with any of the events that were held here.
She sighed. "I do. But I need a love god to helm it."
"You're a love goddess," I pointed out. "And it's also Min's domain." Though I supposed he was technically a fertility god, but most people considered that as being a love god, especially when he was part of the Council of love gods.
"Neither of us are well known enough," she countered. "At least, outside of the god realm. I could ask Aphrodite..."
My scowl deepened at the mention of the Greek goddess.
"But she's only a contractor, I'd rather have a god who worked for Jinx be the one to host the event," Aine continued, either not noticing my reaction or outright ignoring it. It could go either way.
I sighed. "Fine. But Aphrodite can't be the event organiser."
"I'll make sure it's someone else." If anything, Aine looked a little relieved, which I suspected might be because she wouldn't have to deal with a potential battle of the wills between a Roman and a Greek god. It was fair. I was a Roman god and I didn't want to deal with it.
"Are you thinking of a general mixer, or something else?" I asked, resigning myself to the reality of having to head a Valentine's Day party. What was good for the company was ultimately good for me. I enjoyed my job, and I wanted to do more of it. I hadn't had a chance like Jinx in a very long time.
"Whatever you think is best."
"That's how you end up with orgies," I muttered.
"Okay then, whatever is best and keeps people's clothes on until they're out the door. Once they're there, they can do what they want." She probably wouldn't mind if people took their clothes off afterwards, it would likely count as the sign of a good party.
"And I'm guessing you don't want any animal sacrifices?" I checked though I wasn't really serious. She'd never approve of that and I doubted most of our guests would either.
She raised an eyebrow. "What exactly did you use to do in Rome?"
I shrugged. "It would have been Lupercalia rather than Valentine's Day. I was never technically involved, that was all Lupercus."
"Ah." Understanding dawned on her face. Probably because she'd met the Roman fertility god herself and knew what he was like. That was the thing about love gods, most of them knew one another. And not just in a friendly way. I'd tried my best to stay out of it, even though it was sometimes easy to fall into temptation.
"Priests would sacrifice goats and dogs, and then there'd be whipping, nakedness, and matchmaking," I said.
"Sounds a bit like your orgy idea," Aine joked.
I thought back over some of the ancient festivals I'd seen and just shrugged. "I suppose so. But it always got Lupercus going, and I wasn't going to complain about that."
She snorted. "I'm sure. I know a thing or two about dating a fertility god."
"Who said anything about dating?"
"You're such a romantic." It was almost possible to hear her roll her eyes as she spoke.
"I am, actually." I wasn't about to get into the details of my relationship with Lupercus. It had been complicated at best and I was still impressed that we'd managed to keep most of the details to ourselves. "Did you know we've had seventeen successful matches so far?"
"Mmm, I do read your reports," Aine responded. "Which is why I want you to organise this party."
"Got it." I didn't really see what else I could say in response considering she was technically my boss. Though perhaps the next time I found myself in a position to accept a job from another god, I was going to say no. "Anything else?"
She shook her head. "I'll have Damien send over a guest list."
"Isn't he the one dating Aphrodite?" I asked.
"Yes, but he still works for me and isn't a Greek god. Isn't that your criteria?"
"I suppose so," I conceded. Perhaps it was still a little too close to comfort when it came to proximity to the Greek pantheon, but I had nothing against Damien himself. "All right, fine. Send him over for a meeting."
Aine nodded and gave me a friendly smile. "Great, thank you, Cupid. I think it's going to be a successful event."
"Mmm." I was sure it would be, even if I hated the idea.
"All right, I'll get out of your way now. Let me know if you need anything else."
"I will do."
She got up to leave and I leaned back in my seat, letting out a loud sigh. I hated the idea of a Valentine's Day event. It wasn't my kind of celebration to begin with and really had nothing to do with me. But I did understand where she was coming from when she said that she needed a love god to take the helm. I just hated the idea that it had to be me.
A ping sounded from my computer, and I frowned. It didn't normally do that. I opened up the notification, surprised to see that it was from our matchmaking algorithm. And that it had matched me with someone newly inputted into the system. I moved through to their profile and raised an eyebrow as I recognised the photo on the screen.
Eloise Finch smiled at the camera, her dark hair curling around her shoulders. It was only her staff photo, but it still caught the sparkle she had in her eyes whenever we spoke.
I knew my staff uploaded themselves to the matchmaking system, there was no reason for them not to when they worked with it every day, but I'd never once matched with any of them. I scrolled down to read more of her profile, even though I knew I probably shouldn't. There weren't a huge amount of surprises until I got to the section about immortality. It wasn't a question I'd ever asked humans, but a system that was trying to match gods and paranormals together, it was necessary.
She was a witch, which made sense after what she'd done with the papers the other day, but she also said she wasn't opposed to the idea of immortality, and her reasons were good ones. I'd never given much thought to which of my staff would be willing to take on a long life and which wouldn't, so it was interesting to see one who would.
I scrolled down further, getting to the preferences section and realising that this wasn't the kind of information that I should be privy to if she hadn't told me about it. I knew some of my staff did searches without the filters on, but that wouldn't have flagged it like this.
Which meant that the matchmaking algorithm had decided that we were truly a good match, at least as far as its number crunching allowed one. I was intrigued but closed down the profile without doing anything about it. I was her boss. If she wanted to do something about it, then I was sure she'd let me know. Right now, it wasn't my place to pursue her, even if there was a part of me that wanted to.