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His fume fades as fast as it struck. He takes his own turn at cocking a hip and dipping his hands into his front pockets. “I don’t expect you to understand. Only to know that I looked so long and hard for Nancy for a reason.” He fills his chest with air. “I do love her, Maximus. More than I’ve loved anyone in my existence. And I promise you, with every striation of every cell in my being, that I’ll take care of her no matter what.”
I tilt my head, intensifying my scrutiny on him. He doesn’t flinch. Even his hands leave his pockets, dropping next to his thighs with tight determination. This energy… I’ve not felt it since the first moment he set foot in my apartment and initially laid eyes on me. He’s stripped off the royal urbanity. An emperor with no clothes. Hewantsme to see him like this, vividly exposed. Brutally honest.
“I see you mean that,” I finally utter.
“Thank you.”
His shoulders relax. Poor guy. He really thinks he’s done here.
“But I already doubt how you’ll back it up.”
Sure enough, new tension shoots up his spine. But his voice continues as a calm flow. “She doesn’t just deserve the beauty of tonight. She should start enjoying the rest of her existence. So, I’m going to build her a new home in Olympus. This time, it’s going to be a palace. Every feature she wants and more. I’ve had the location reserved for a while now. It’s in a valley that even Hera doesn’t know about. Your mother will lack for nothing there, Maximus. She can do all the things she wants to. Reading, gardening, painting…”
“No.”
Before half a second passes, I long to take it back. Not the word but its severity—and the bullet of panic driving it in the first place.
In reply, Z makes the restaurant tremble again.
Even Medea, with her proud posture, looks ready to do the same while quietly gesturing toward a table in the corner with lighted votives and a bouquet of the rare green orchids that are Mom’s favorite.
He thanks the graceful attendant in a quiet tone. His rebuttal to me is equally toned down, but only in volume. His indignance is dark and savage in his throat.
“No? That’s it, hmmm?”
I jog my chin but harden my stare. His intent is all too clear—to push every one of my buttons as possible—but I won’t make it that easy. He’s my father, but he’s never been mydad. Not a shred of that history is here to mess up my mind.
“You heard what I said. Two simple letters.NandO.”
His features tighten. So do his fists. “So…no, you don’t want your mother to have the life she’s richly earned? The home she’s worked so hard for? Orno, you don’t want her to be fully happy and fulfilled? To never lack for anything, ever again?”
He’s looking more like Gatsby to me by the second. At the same rate, I’m feeling more like a bullet in the chamber, newly knocked by a firing pin.
“Do you really think I don’t want any of that for her?Allof that?”
“Then what, exactly, is your problem?” he charges. “You’re staring worse than the damn gorgons, when I’ve just declared I want to take your mother away from her hovel and make her my adoredagapiuntil the afterlife takes her.”
I suck down a hard breath, accessing my ultimate self-control to ignore how he knows about Mom’shovel. That’s before my attempt to address the intimate endearments he keeps insisting on.
Somehow, in some way, I return his unblinking surveillance—even as he pushes in closer to me.
“You hearing me?” He’s near enough to clasp his hands over my shoulders. “I want to give her paradise, Maximus. I swear it to you on my balls.”
At any other time, under any other circumstances, I’d likely give that declaration more credence. The All-father puttingbothhis balls on the line…that’s some meaningful stuff, as my fifty-plus half-sisters and brothers would likely help testify. But here and now, all I can offer the man is a tighter regard than before.
“Yeah?” I finally return. “And what if paradise isn’t there any longer? You have a contingency plan forthat?”
Z cocks his head. Lifts half a brash smirk off the upper end of his mouth. It freaks me out, reminding me too much of a mafia boss in a cross-assessment with an underling. I’m nothing like that to him, and I know that, but the uneasiness is persistent.
“What are you getting at, son? Tell me. I command it.”
At once, my muscles flinch in protest. They’re serving my mind, which yearns to tell him where he can put hiscommandand every vain assumption behind it. But timing is an essential life skill, especially when doling the sting of humility.
“Olympus…isn’t safe.”
His tawny brows push toward each other. “Bullshit. Who fed you that nonsense? Was it Hades? Certainly not Poseidon…” Just as angrily, they jump back up. “No. I’ll bet it was Regina Nikian. I should’ve told Ares to yank her home sooner. Couple of decades of gossip magazines and reality TV, and even the most loyal soldier will hatch all sorts of insane schemes.”
“No,” I protest. “You’re looking in the obvious crevices.” As if manifested from the purpose of helping my point, a multicolored spider creeps clear of a seemingly small fissure in the stone wall near my head. But when I hold my hand out, the creature climbs out and fills my palm. “The most dangerous foes hide in the friendliest places.”
