Chapter 38

Chapter

Thirty-Eight

HEPH

“Why?” I ask Athena as we pull up to the restaurant.

“Why what?”

“Why are you helping Ellen? She is nobody to you. She’s worse than nobody, she is the mother of the man who may have killed your mother. Who lied to you?”

“None of that was her doing. Even if it was, I don’t think she is in the right headspace to be making evil plots.” She shrugs. I’m ready to drop it when she adds, “Paris told me something, and I don’t know if it’s true. I don’t know who to trust.”

“You can ask me. I won’t lie.”

She looks at me for a few moments, like she is trying to figure me out. It makes my skin crawl.

“I don’t think you would lie to me, or anyone. Why lie when you can use the truth like a war-hammer.” She laughs, making this cute little sound.

“That is fair.” I open the car door and step out, holding it open for her. It’s a popular restaurant, and I haven’t realized there would be a line around the building.

“Maybe we should try somewhere else,” I offer.

“No, it’s okay. I know the owner, and the Godwin family has a standing table here.”

“The Godwins have a table?” I’m a little confused.

She smiles at me and leads the way into the restaurant. Sure enough, the hostess sees her, greets her by name, and guides us straight to one of the best tables in the place.

The second the hostess is gone, a waiter is there to take our drink order.

“Do you eat red meat?” Athena asks me.

“Absolutely.”

“Allergic to anything?”

“No.”

“Good.” She takes both of our menus and hands them to the waiter. “We will take two of your largest ribeyes and one of all the sides, and a bottle of Macallan. Put it all on my family’s tab.”

“Yes, Ms. Godwin.” The waiter shuffles away, and I can’t help feeling a little emasculated.

“I can pay for my own meal.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can, but a few years ago my father and I had a bet going, he lost badly, and now I get to come here whenever I want, with whomever I want, and he foots the bill. Trust me, this will be one of the smallest he has seen from me.” She gives a devilish grin. “You’re actually doing me a favor. I like to jab at my father whenever I can.”

That does make me feel a little better.

We sit in silence for a bit. Not awkward silence, however, and I’m finding myself getting more and more comfortable.

“So what was your question?” I prompt.

“Right! You asked why I am looking after Ellen. Paris told me how she and Perseus met, and that for a while she put you and him up at a little apartment when you were young.”

“Yes.” I’m not sure where she is going with this, but I am treading carefully.

“Right, well. He then told me that you guys were brought to the estate when she needed someone. It would have been right after she left my father, and he banished her.”

“Yes.”

“He said that you, Perseus, and Eros took care of my mother in a way I couldn’t. I’ve read a little of her journal and letters she wrote during that time, and I know that she was depressed and you three helped her get out of bed and eventually became the reason she started living again.”

“A lot of good it did in the end.”

Athena reaches across the table to take my hand. “It did a lot of good. You helped her in a way I wasn’t given the opportunity to, and I am forever grateful to you for that. Showing Ellen the same generosity is my way of paying that back. Maybe not for Paris, but for the universe. I am putting more of that kind of energy into the world. Maybe I am paying it forward.”

“Don’t tell anyone this,” I say leaning forward, “but I fucking love that movie.”

Her eyes light up with laughter. “I won’t tell a soul.”

“I may have misjudged you,” I say once the waitress drops off our steaks and ton of little bowls piled high with all kinds of side dishes.

“No, you got it right. I’m a bitch. I’m proud of that fact. I was there to take what should have been mine. Granted, if Perseus just talked to me, and had given me what I was after, then maybe I would have let him have it, but probably not.” She takes a sip of her whiskey. “I have made it my life’s mission to be the one person you do not want to put against in this city. We were on opposite sides of a problem, and if you hadn’t come at me the way you did, I wouldn’t respect you.”

Her words take me by surprise. Apparently, I’m not the only one who can use the truth like a war-hammer. I don’t know what to say, so I take a bite of my steak, which of course is the best steak I have ever had.

“But, in light of everything, I hope we can be on the same team.”

“You mean with Paris.”

“I mean with Perseus.” She sets her fork down, so I do the same, preparing for this to go very bad very fast.

“What about him?”

“I am calling the lawyer and seeing what options are available with my mother’s estate. After reading her journals, I can see that he was just as much a son to her as I was her daughter. So, I am looking at options where we can split it all. Equal distribution without selling the estate. I know it’s your home, and I’m not taking it. The lawyer is to come up with several options that he can present to Perseus and me. Then I intend to come up with a solution that we are both amenable if not content with.”

“Why would you do that? As of right now, everything would be yours.”

“Because it shouldn’t be. I may be a badass bitch, and trust me I am, but that doesn’t mean I am unreasonable, some of the time. That, and I like you. All of you. I envy the family you have built. The bond.”

“Don’t you have brothers? Don’t you have a real family to go home to? ”

“Let’s just say there are reasons my mother left.” She gives me a tight smile. “But yes, I have two brothers and my father. It’s complicated. I’d die for them. I’d also kill for them. But that doesn’t mean we have the same bond that you have with Perseus, Heph, and even Paris. I have an extended family that is a nightmare, and my family owns an island where it’s fair to say the occupants of Heathens Hollow hate every single Godwin. So, I’ve never really felt… at home.”

I nearly choke on my steak. “Your family owns Heathens Hollow? The island in Puget Sound? Are you kidding me?”

“We have a family estate on it. Olympus Manor. It’s where Freya used to live. It’s where she died… or where we believed she died.”

I know Athena Godwin runs Medusa. I know Medusa is a huge company. But owning an island. That is next-level billionaire type of stuff.

“So why have you been fighting so hard for Freya’s house? It sounds like you have more money and assets than you know what to do with.”

She looks down at her lap and then back at me. “I’m stubborn. I don’t like to lose. And I despise being underestimated. You all thought you could scare me away. My goal was to show you that nothing can break me. Nothing.”

“You’ve proven that,” I admit. “Nothing we did could.”

“You can thank my upbringing for that. Life was not easy at Olympus Manor.”

“So you grew up on the island?” I ask. “I’ve never been, but I can imagine it’s beautiful.”

“It’s creepy as fuck,” she says with a scowl. “It’s wet, it’s foggy, it’s full of cliffs and jagged rocks. It’s a fishing town, so it always has a stench. Basically, it’s the backdrop to a gothic novel. So no, I’m not a fan of Heathens Hollow. I know you all think I’m a princess and lived this fairy tale life. But trust me, it wasn’t. Like the island, it was cold, dark, and often times gloomy. I couldn’t wait to move to Seattle. And the minute I could, I did. And for the most part, I’ll stay here. Yes, I visit Olympus Manor to see my family. But I will never see that place as home. I haven’t felt a true sense of home since… well, my mother’s house is starting to. I know Perseus has tried to get me out of there. All of you have but?—”

“I think he might be falling in love with you,” I say.

“Eros?”

“Perseus,” I correct .

She nods. “I know, but you know if he loves me, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.”

“I know.” I take another bite of my steak. “So, Paris gave you all our secrets. Tell me one of yours.”

“Then it wouldn’t be a secret,” she says, stabbing a piece of scalloped potato.

“Consider it a peace offering.”

“Are we discussing peace?” She blinks back at me. “Are we going to have a truce?”

“I’m not Perseus. I don’t hate fuck. So a truce would make it a lot more fun when I finally have you riding my cock.”

“Okay then.” She gives me a sultry smile that makes my dick start to swell. “I have had more fun fighting with you and the others than I have had in a long time. I can’t remember the last time I was really challenged, and I love it.”

I smile and shake my head. “That’s not a secret. I watch how your eyes light up when you are in the heat of battle. You have to give me something better than that. Something darker.”

She pauses, studies my face, and then licks her lips. “Fine.” She leans forward and in a low voice says, “I killed a man when I was a teenager.”

I can’t tell if she’s joking. It doesn’t appear that she is, but surely she must be.

“It was our butler. I pushed him down the stairs, and his neck snapped.”

“An accident?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “The fucker came into my room and tried to have sex with me. If it weren’t for Phoenix stopping him… Well, let’s just say I wouldn’t have been a virgin in my twenties.”

“So you killed him?”

She nods. “I’d do it again. Over and over again.” She takes a drink of her whiskey. “Is that a dark enough secret for you?”

Fuck…

This woman truly is something. Fascinating.

“I think I’m falling in love with you.” I raise my glass to cheers her. “At the very least, in awe of you. Here’s to wiping out assholes from the face of the earth.” We clink glasses, and I ask, “Did you get into trouble?”

She smiles. “I’m a Godwin.”