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After cleaning up, we all go back to Athena’s room to crash on her bed, since she has the biggest. And after everything with Paris and the incredible sex, I think we all just needed to feel close to each other.
Athena and Eros fall asleep almost immediately, but my mind is racing with conflicting thoughts and emotions. I get out of the crammed bed and go to the window, glancing down at the grounds below.
Did I ever hate Athena? How could I hate her and want her so fiercely at the same time? Is this lust? Is this love? Is this—
“I can hear your brain on overdrive. What’s wrong?” Heph whispers, pulling me tighter in his arms from behind.
“I just… I don’t know…”
“What do you know?”
“I know I love you.” I place a kiss on his chest. “I know I want Athena. And I know what we all just did was one of the most erotic things I have ever experienced, and I want to do it again.”
“I love you, too. So what’s got your mind spinning?”
“I’m supposed to hate her. We are fighting over this house and the inheritance and everything, and I just… How can I fight for what should be mine when every instinct I have tells me to love her, protect her, help her? How do I know that once all this is over, she won’t just pack up Eros and leave?”
Heph draws a deep breath. “Honestly, you can’t. You won’t know what is real between you two until this inheritance is no longer an issue between you. We are all in the middle of a war with Paris, and we need to figure out when this fight is over, where our loyalties lie and what that is going to look like.”
“You’re right.”
“I know,” he says, nuzzling into my neck, “but can we figure this out in the morning. Sleep first.”
“Okay.” I give him another kiss on the head and close my eyes. “Let’s go to my bed. There’s more room.”
Tomorrow, I will start my own cold war, and by the time Paris is handled, there will be nothing in the way between Athena and me.
Chapter
Forty-Three
Athena
All day I have been running around trying to get the last details for this party handled. Thankfully, my party planner can handle most of everything after I change the original date. The theme is the roaring twenties, and I am throwing a ball so extravagant Gatsby himself would be proud. I guess the theme of excess is fitting, considering the responses I have received from the article. Most have praised me as a strong woman taking what I want, while others call me a greedy whore. I don’t think I have ever had a theme so accidentally on point.
The best part is the way it has come out as a women’s interest story, meaning most people don’t care, which has made all those photos worthless. Except maybe that one of Eros on his knees on the balcony. I look good in that one. I am thinking of having it framed.
The only thing I am nervous about is my father’s, and even my brothers’, reactions. It turns out he doesn’t really care who I am seeing, and my brothers are so busy with their women, that they barely even notice. My father has even made a crack about me needing that many men to keep me in line. I roll my eyes when he says that, but we now have a standing invitation to dinner at my family home—Olympus—when he gets back in town next week. I’m not sure if the guys will be ready to meet my dad and brothers quite that soon. I’m not even sure if I want to bring them home.
I think back to the conversation I heard between Perseus and Heph last night. I got maybe the tail end of it, and Heph is right. I can’t know what Perseus and I have, what we all can be, while that inheritance is sitting between us. But the idea of giving it up for a man makes my stomach twist.
If I am going to give it up, it will be on my terms, but it’s a huge sacrifice to make for a man. Plus, there’s a bigger fear. One I don’t want to face…
I am not sure they will want me without it.
What if it’s the game, and the fight, keeping them interested? Not me.
I slip on my silver-and-black beaded flapper dress and the string of pearls that hit my waist. I twist my body in the mirror a few times, loving the way the beads shake and catch the light.
“Hey, baby girl.” Eros enters my room without knocking. “Awe you’re dressed. I was hoping to catch you naked and fuck you over the vanity before the party.”
