Chapter 12

Chapter

Twelve

P ersephone

The room Hades leads me to is nothing like the rest of his home. It's nothing like I imagine a bedroom in Greece to be like. It's nothing like the white room with the carved nooks in the walls that I share with Willa. The walls aren't painted a storm-gray, but instead a soft, warm, sandy beige. White wainscoting delivers a richly delicate welcoming that the rest of his home does not convey. The gold metal bedframe, with all its artful twists of vines and leaves is, a statement smack in the centre of the very large room. Draped across the mattress, is a plush green blanket of soft green threaded with delicate, and sparse gold roses. A cloud of pillows tops the head of the bed, and my bones instantly attempt to liquify with the need to sink into all that comfort.

I shake off the urge and let my eyes slide to the matching blush pink lamps that perch on mismatched white bedside tables. A cream-colored desk with a rose-pink chair sits to one side of the floor-to-ceiling window, while a bookshelf packed with books on Greek lore stands to the other side. A chaise chair in a pink so soft it almost looks white, sprawls over a very lightly tinted mossy carpet. The chandelier that hangs above it all appears to be dripping gold.

"There is a bathroom through that door." My gaze shifts to the door he gestures to. "And a closet through that one."

I feel suddenly, unexplainably, terribly unworthy.

Stiltedly, I turn to him. "Hades, this is—it's?—"

"Everything you deserve." His voice is quiet, and unlike all the other people in my life, there is something about this man that makes me think he has some kind of gifted insight when it comes to my most secret, shameful thoughts. Or maybe it's not some paranormal gift he possesses, but simply that he pays attention. He sees. He bothers to see.

I shake my head. My voice comes out softer than I intend. There is a slightly wounded ring to my refusal. "It's too much."

He disregards my words with a dip of his eyes to the small bag I carry. His voice, like him, is the rough to my soft. "Is that all you brought?"

I nod. My throat feels so dry. "Yes."

He frowns. "Do you intend to pack your outfit for the next day every day, Persephone? You are to spend six days a week here. You need more than a night bag."

I wet my dry lips, refusing to think about the way my blood warms as his eyes chase the movement. "I have four outfits here. I left five at the room I'm keeping in the house with the other students. That's all I have."

His eyes move up and down the length of my body, as though searing every dip and curve to memory before he instructs, "Unpack. Get settled and meet me in the kitchen."

With nothing more, he turns and exits the room.

Even when he's gone, I still can't quite catch my breath.

Everything—my whole life—feels suddenly surreal.

The shrill sound of my phone ringing snaps me out of my dazed contemplation of the twist my life has taken. I pull it from my pocket with shaking hands. Mom's contact lights up my screen in an invitation for FaceTime that has my insides twisting violently with nerves.

I can't answer here. This room is obviously nothing which I can afford, and I'm not ready to answer her questions. If Dad found out I was living with a man— giving him company, cooking him meals, and sleeping in his home in exchange for payment—he'd be on the next flight.

I let the call run its course and then turn my phone off.

Unpacking only takes a minute, and the closet is entirely too large for the few measly outfits I have. I feel ridiculous as I hang them in the sprawling closet that is, I hate to admit, bigger than the room I have at home in Alberta.

I don't bother with makeup while working during the day, because I'm constantly reapplying sunscreen, and I'm not trying to impress anyone. So, I don't have to think about that as I splash cool water over my face, dabbing it dry with the softest towel I've ever touched. It's really true when they say rich people live different.

Everything feels so different here. My senses are somehow both soothed and stimulated. Everything is so beautiful and pleasant to the touch.

I can't help but think it's going to be difficult when September comes, and I'm sitting coach as I travel home to my closet-sized room with the normal, rough from one too many washes, towels.

I find Hades in the kitchen, pouring two glasses of crisp champagne. I know it's champagne by the little bubbles that dance inside the glass. He's removed his suit jacket and unbuttoned the first few buttons of his black shirt, rolling the sleeves up forearms that ripple with muscle under tan skin.

Good God, and I thought he couldn't get any hotter.

His lips twitch, but it's faint. "Do you like champagne?"

"I have the few times I've had it." He raises a brow in question that I answer, "I don't drink much." I smile with a huff of laughter. "I don't really drink at all, actually."

"I like a glass with dinner."

"I'll remember that." I take the glass he offers me as my eyes slide to the kitchen beyond him. "Speaking of dinner—what kind of foods do you like?"

"I'm not picky."

I frown. "That's not helpful."

He takes a swallow of the champagne, his penetrating eyes coming to me. "I will like anything you make for me, Persephone."

"You really should call me Annie. Everyone else does."

"I like Persephone."

I pull in breath. My odd name isn't a hill to die on. "Is there anything you don't like?"

He considers, and then he shakes his head. "No."

I tease, "So, I can make you grilled cheese and chicken nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs, and you're telling me you'll be happy?"

"I won't complain," he says with sincerity. "As long as you promise they really will be in the shape of dinosaurs."

I laugh. It bursts from me entirely unexpected, because I did not expect his reply. "You can't be serious."

In all seriousness, he says, "I would never joke about dinosaur nuggets."

"You're handsome, wealthy, and funny," I observe. "You're the whole package, Hades, so why are you hiring me?"

His mouth turns up at one corner. "You think I'm handsome?"

"You know you are." Why do I feel so breathless?

That light in his eye turns devilishly dark. "What matters is that you think I am."

I push. "Why did you hire me, Hades? There has to be so many women throwing themselves at you all the time."

"Maybe that's why I hired you."

I cock my head, confused. "Sorry?"

"You have yet to throw yourself at me."

So, I was right. He feels wanted for little more than the things he can offer, not the man he is beyond the riches he can provide.

"If I threw myself at you?"

His voice drops to a rough kind of dark that strokes against the very core of me like a physical touch. "I would be hard pressed not to take you. To corrupt you. Completely. "

My breath stalls in my lungs. Oh, who am I kidding, I'm not breathing at all. He's stripped me of breath with only one sentence. He's tossed a match to the embers of me with only one dark look.

I really shouldn't, but I can't help myself. "It doesn't bother you?"

"What?"

I tip my head. "That I'm so much younger than you."

His eyes drag the length of me, blazing the fire inside me even hotter. "Should it?"

"Probably." I wet my lips. His eyes track the motion.

My belly knots.

He takes another drink. "You are a woman. Young, sure, but a woman all the same. And I am a man. If you invited, I wouldn't deny."

"Oh, wow." I breathe breathlessly. I clutch the glass between my hands, willing some of the chill to fan the flames inside me. "I—I—I don't know what to say."

"Persephone," he calls. I can't look at him. He rounds the island. He stops so close to me; I can smell the dark scent of him mixing with the sweet explosion that is the champagne in my glass. He commands, "Look at me."

I suck in a shuddering breath and squeeze my eyes closed. I feel ridiculous, but I'm shaking. Quaking down to the very bone. I started this inappropriate conversation with unintended consequences, and now I'm reaping those consequences. Because I can't look at him.

I've never felt fear like this.

"I am going to touch you," he warns, and then finger and thumb connect with my chin, tipping my head back. My eyes flutter open entirely of their own accord. I'm hit with the fullness of the dark attraction he exudes.

"Hades." His name is a tumble of overstimulated, raw nerves between us. I can't think.

"I've made you uncomfortable."

I shake my head. Then I nod. Then I murmur, "I don't know. I've never been like this with a man."

"Like what?"

"Alone like this. In a man's home. Trying to learn him." Why does this feel so intimate? "What he likes and doesn't like. What he expects from me." He is still holding my chin, keeping my eyes. I don't tell him he doesn't have to do that. I've been ensnared by his coal black gaze. There is nowhere else I can look. I rasp, "I don't know what you expect from me—from this."

"Exactly what you have given me. Natural conversation."

"I don't want to do something that might," I stutter. "Lead you on."

His dark eyes darken, but he chuckles, releasing my chin. "Natural conversation often results in light flirting."

Is that what we'd been doing? Flirting?

"Oh."

"I will endeavor to be honest with you in all that I can. I am a man entirely capable of engaging in light flirtation without physical expectation."

My face couldn't possibly be hotter. All I can manage is another a pathetic, "Okay."

He holds my gaze. "This is why I've hired you." I'm confused, and it must show, because he continues, "Talking to you makes me feel like I can breathe. You don't feed me what you think I want to hear. You don't show me what you think I want to see. You are natural and refreshing and innocently unexpected." His lips quirk. "And I very much look forward to your dinosaur nuggets."