Chapter Twenty-One Aphrodite
Chapter Twenty-One
Aphrodite
Aphrodite stared glumly out the window, watching the rain fall in heavy sheets against the London pavement.
It was only five p.m., but already the skies were dark as the wings of night.
Really, the weather in this city was more fickle than she was.
Zeus could have cleared the rain with a mere wave of his hand, but he’d promised Demeter at the last gathering on Olympus that he would no longer interfere in natural weather patterns.
Though Aphrodite suspected he broke his word on occasion. There was no chance it would still be raining at Ares and Julia’s engagement party that Friday.
A party that was still happening, despite Aphrodite’s attempts to scare Julia off.
She headed toward the front staircase, only to pause at the door to Eros’s room. Voices sounded inside: the low rumble of Hephaestus’s murmur, followed by Eros’s childish giggle.
She hesitated a beat before pushing open the door.
The nursery had always been Aphrodite’s favorite room of the Mayfair house.
Its walls were covered in a whimsical William Morris print—real nineteenth-century wallpaper, not the new patterns they were churning out now, but an old one of tigers gamboling through trees.
Scattered throughout the room were a painted train set, an old-fashioned rocking horse, and a massive stuffed giraffe, the kind that you would find on the display floor at Fortnum & Mason.
Eros sat at the child-sized table. Hephaestus sprawled next to him, his legs stretched out on the carpet, a bowl of vanilla ice cream in one hand. “This is our secret, okay, Eros?” Hephaestus said softly. “Don’t tell Grannie Hera. She never let me have sugar before bedtime.”
“What about Mommy?” Aphrodite asked. “Can I be in on the secret, too?”
Hephaestus looked up, his startled expression giving way to a sheepish grin. “You caught me red-handed. Eros wouldn’t go to sleep, so I thought…”
“Thought you would bribe him with sugar?” she teased.
“Daddy!” Eros reached a hand across the table, gesturing for more ice cream.
Aphrodite couldn’t help but smile. “Looks like you’ve made him an addict.”
Hephaestus held the spoon toward their toddler’s mouth. “If sugar is his weakness, then so be it. There are worse things to want. Things you can’t be certain you will ever get.”
Aphrodite wasn’t sure what to make of that. It was oddly personal and yearning. It made her wonder.
To her own surprise, she sank onto the carpet next to them, not caring that her dress would wrinkle. “Come on, then. Share the love.”
Hephaestus smiled. He might not have been handsome in the traditional sense, but when he looked like this, glowing with joy, he was handsome in a different way. Solid, steady. Kind.
“My pleasure,” he said huskily, and scooped another bite of ice cream.
Aphrodite’s breath caught as Hephaestus placed the spoon in her mouth, his eyes on her lips. The room was suddenly quiet.
Then a clatter rose from the ceiling. Aphrodite looked up and saw that Eros’s Hot Wheels cars were flying, whirling through the air on a race course visible only to him.
“He’s levitating things now?” she asked, and her husband shrugged. The gods’ powers were always erratic, especially so when those gods were mere children.
“He was making Thalia cry earlier. I took over his bedtime when I found her sobbing and told her to take the rest of the night off.”
Oh no. “What did Eros do to make her cry? Did he hurt her?” Aphrodite asked.
“No, I mean exactly what I said—he made her cry. He was sitting in her lap facing her, a hand on either side of her face, while she wept. She said he had tugged into her heart and called out the tears.”
Hephaestus refrained from pointing out that this was the other side of the coin from what Aphrodite did: playing on people’s emotions, making them feel, or desire, what she wanted them to. He was her son, after all.
She looked up again at the flying cars. Eros’s little brow was furrowed in concentration as he guided them on their path, utterly absorbed in his imagination. Just like his father.
“I wonder what he’ll be the god of,” she mused.
“Mischief,” Hephaestus offered.
Aphrodite laughed. “I was thinking more like flying cars, once the mortals invent them, but I like your suggestion better.”
Unconsciously, she had leaned closer to Hephaestus, her shoulder nudging against his. He shifted as if adjusting his legs on the carpet, but the movement brought his head closer to hers. She felt a sudden urge to draw his mouth onto the curve of her neck, to feel his lips on her skin.
“Aphrodite,” he growled, and she thought he must feel it too—this sudden, intense pull between them. Then he let out a breath. “I have some news. I’m heading to Paris tomorrow to help with a crisis in the French office.”
“For how long?” Aphrodite did her best to sound surprised.
She was the one who’d set this in motion.
Earlier today, she had slipped out to meet with the head of the TWL London offices, a brisk British woman named Arabella.
Aphrodite had magicked Arabella into thinking she needed to leave town, and that she couldn’t do so without Hephaestus’s help.
She had also filled the woman with a fierce desire to forget the whole conversation, so that no one would suspect Aphrodite of fabricating this work crisis.
She would be sneaking out tomorrow night, and she didn’t want Hephaestus to find out.
“Only for a night or two,” Hephaestus replied. “I was thinking…what if you came with me? We could leave Eros with Thalia and be back for the engagement party Friday.”
Aphrodite was supposed to say no, but her mouth couldn’t form the word.
“We could stay at that hotel you like—the small one on the Left Bank, by the river. I’ll make a dinner reservation at Septime.
And you can keep busy while I’m helping Arabella put out the so-called fire in the Paris office.
” He hesitated. “Maybe you could visit that fashion designer you love, the one who makes the red shoes?”
“They’re shoes with red soles,” Aphrodite murmured, though her heart swelled at the fact that Hephaestus was trying to recall Christian Louboutin’s name. All fashion designers were worshippers of Aphrodite, of course, but Louboutin had long been one of her favorites.
“We could go shopping in the Marais,” Hephaestus added. “And get drinks at Candelaria.”
His words were as magical and seductive as one of Aphrodite’s own spells.
She found herself imagining it all: Waking up in that jewel-like room, wandering into the early morning light for fresh croissants and coffees, coming back to the still-rumpled bed and falling onto it with Hephaestus.
Her thighs would hook up around his waist, his weight settling over her, until his emergency alarm went off and he had to leave for his meetings.
They would find each other again at the end of the workday and disappear into an art gallery or wine bar, holding hands like mortal lovers.
She hadn’t realized, when she had manipulated Arabella into wanting to leave London, that the woman would choose to go to Paris.
Eros had withdrawn his jumbo-sized box of Legos from the closet, but neither parent paid him any mind. Aphrodite twisted around so that she was facing Hephaestus, who watched her steadily.
She felt a sudden urge to tell him everything. About her fears that Julia would become a goddess, that her rise would mean Aphrodite’s fall. About the regrets that sometimes caught at her, the loneliness. The desire that pulsed through her right now.
She couldn’t tell him. Hephaestus had been born a god, and a male one at that.
He had no idea what it was like to feel vulnerable or weak, at the mercy of someone else.
Certainly, he wouldn’t approve of what Aphrodite had done, in her various attempts to get rid of Julia. To protect her own position.
Hephaestus had never resorted to subterfuge or tricks in his whole immortal life. If he found out what she was planning, he would never look at her like this again: his expression soft and tender, almost worshipful.
Aphrodite couldn’t bear that thought.
“I wish I could come,” she said softly, “but there are some things I need to handle in London.”
“Right, you’re helping Mother with the party. Thank you for doing that.” Hephaestus dropped a quick kiss on her brow. “I know she doesn’t always make it easy.”
“Let’s do Paris another time,” Aphrodite said swiftly.
Hephaestus nodded, but a light had dimmed in his eyes. “I’d love that.” He stood, holding out a hand to help her to her feet. “Why don’t I get Eros to sleep. Unless you want to do bedtime tonight?”
“No, I’ll leave you to it. Thank you.” Aphrodite smoothed her dress, trying to suppress the longing, or confusion, that still pulsed through her.
She’d felt a moment of desire for her husband, but so what? Aphrodite was the goddess of sex. It was in her very nature to feel lust. She had more important things to focus on right now.
Namely, destroying Julia.