5

5

Cassandra

I hold off telling Alexandra about my new “boyfriend” for as long as possible, but in the end I can’t avoid it forever. The last thing I want is for my little sister to see news of us splashed across the gossip sites.

Still, I wait until the very end of our lunch to blurt out, “I have something I need to tell you, and I need you not to get your hopes up.”

Alexandra laughs a little and folds up her cloth napkin. “With an intro like that, I’d almost expect you to tell me that I was right last week and you’ve fallen madly in love with your boss.”

It would be so much easier if I could tell the truth, but if I share what’s really going on, she’ll worry. More, I am very careful to hide how much I go without to ensure Alexandra has everything she needs. She has enough hurdles after what our parents did. The last thing I want to do is add to her burden. She’d start making her own sacrifices to help me, and that I can’t allow.

If she knows I agreed to Zeus’s bargain to help her, she’ll feel bad and tell me I don’t need to do it. No, better to keep up the lie Apollo and I are about to spin to the whole of the city.

I’ll come clean at the end, when I can explain why it was all worth it.

I take a deep breath. “Yeah, about that.”

Her eyes go wide. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not joking.” My skin heats. “I wanted to tell you first. You know how this city is. We’re going to be photographed and they’re going to say terrible things about me. Just, uh, heads up.”

Her smile fades. “I wish it wasn’t like that. You’re not our parents. You’d think after twelve years, they’d have realized it.”

“They don’t care, Alex. Our parents dying wasn’t enough. They need someone to punish and we’re still here.” Not that we have a choice. I don’t know if our parents would have tried to leave the city after failing in their plan. They never got the chance. They died the same night they attempted to enact the assassination clause.

Leaving us to pick up the pieces. “They’ll keep punishing us as long as we’re here.”

“I’m sorry.” She reaches across the table and takes my hand. “You shouldn’t have them putting a damper on a really great thing. I’m happy for you, Cass. He seems like a really good guy.”

I swallow past the sudden lump in my throat. I hate lying to my sister, but it’s for the best. “He is.”

The entire walk back to the office, I wonder if I’ve done the right thing in not telling Alexandra the truth. I’ve been her guardian for nearly a third of my life; at this point, keeping the less savory details of my life from her is second nature.

I’ve done the right thing. I’m sure of it. She’ll be happy when I explain the situation fully and have a solution to the problems that have plagued us for twelve years. A true escape.

In the end, pretending to date Apollo in order to investigate Minos is a small price to pay.

Being back at my desk feels particularly surreal. Nothing’s changed and yet everything’s changed. I don’t know how to explain it. Apollo is still my boss, at least until Zeus’s payment clears my account. That should be where it ends, but I can’t help obsessing over how we’re supposed to play pretend for all of Olympus. Not just in carefully constructed public dates. At a house party. The intimacy that will be required leaves me breathless and a little sick to my stomach.

I don’t know what I’m doing.

I glance up to find Apollo standing in the doorway to his office, looking adorably ruffled and mildly uncomfortable. “Cassandra.” He clears his throat. “We have less than a week until the party begins. We should, ah, make an appearance this weekend.” He’s still not quite meeting my gaze. “I’ve taken the liberty of booking us dinner at the Dryad.”

Of course he has.

It’s where he takes all his first dates, so I should have considered the possibility that this fake relationship would be expected to follow the same route. There’s just one problem.

The Dryad is one of the most elite restaurants in the entire upper city. There’s a wait list for the wait list. The fact that he’s able to get a reservation so quickly is a minor miracle, but it doesn’t change the fact that there’s a firm dress code for the place and I don’t have a single piece of clothing that fits it.

I’ve spent five years painstakingly building up a capsule wardrobe that won’t embarrass me while working for Apollo. My job puts me in contact with a number of the Thirteen and various families within power, and they might loathe me on principle, might make snide comments about my body just within hearing range, but they cannot fault my style. It’s become a point of pride for me.

Shame heats my skin, and the fact that I feel shame for something so far beyond my control stokes my ever-present anger to the surface. “Yeah, that’s not going to work for me.”

Surprise lights his dark eyes. “It won’t?”

If he was anyone else, I’d cut him off at the knees, but this is Apollo and not even I am heartless enough to go there. I look away, all too aware that my pale skin must be an unsightly crimson. “I don’t have anything to match the dress code.”

“Oh. That’s all?”

I whip back around to face him. “Excuse me? What the fuck do you mean, that’s all? If I show up in one of the dresses I already own, I’ll get turned away and you’ll be laughed out of the building. How does that help anyone? Maybe you have a humiliation kink, but I don’t.”

“Kink shaming, Cassandra? Really?”

My skin flushes hotter, and I can’t tell if it’s embarrassment or me dying a small death at the word kink on Apollo’s tongue. “What? No. That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant.” He considers me. “You’ve agreed to this plan.”

The abrupt change of course pulls me up short. “Uh, yes?”

“So you agree that my taking any measures to ensure the success of the plan is reasonable and not charity?”

I immediately see where he’s headed and glare. “That’s logical, but I don’t like it.”

“I know.” His lips curve, his smile making my heart beat erratically. “You’ll be paid for overtime, of course, but I have a call to make.”

“But—” It’s too late. He steps into his office and closes the door firmly behind him.

I glance at the clock. It’s already three. I don’t know what resources he’s going to pull in to outfit me in a new wardrobe in twenty-four hours, but that’s obviously his plan. I swallow past the pride threatening to choke me. He’s right. This is to further the plan, not because it’s charity. Come to think of it, Zeus made an offhand comment about my wardrobe during that last meeting, but I’d been too flustered to think much about it.

It doesn’t matter. I know what Olympus will think when they see me at Apollo’s side in clothing that’s blatantly new. They’ll call me a gold digger and whisper that I’m sleeping my way to the top to reclaim the power my parents lost.

It’s not the truth, but Olympus never cared about the truth. Not when a juicy story is dangled in their faces. Not when a convenient lie covers up an ugly reality.

It’s fine. I knew this was coming. It’s why I warned Alexandra earlier.

I press my hands to my desk and focus on breathing through my anger. It doesn’t matter what those piranhas of the upper city think. This relationship with Apollo isn’t real and it’s only temporary. I’ve dealt with the nasty comments and sidelong looks for twelve years. I can do a few weeks more.

At the end of this, Alexandra and I get out.

I can bear anything to reach that conclusion. As long as I don’t try to follow in my parents’ footsteps, the worst the Olympian assholes will launch at me are words. I’m not so thin-skinned to let that deter me from my end goal. Zeus’s money will get us far, and I won’t do anything to give him cause to say I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain.

At five o’clock exactly, two dark-haired white women walk through the door. I instantly recognize Psyche Dimitriou and her oldest sister, Hera. Oh, Hera’s name used to be Callisto, but since she married Zeus, she’s secured a position within the Thirteen as the new Hera. The sisters couldn’t be more different. Hera is tall and lean, a walking blade with an attitude to match. She can get away with cold eyes and snarling at anyone who comes close in a way I could never dream.

Psyche is a few inches shorter and my size, her abundant curves clothed in a really cute little sundress in a pin-up style with cherries printed on the fabric. I’ve met her a few times since she showed up at a party on Eros’s arm, newly married and navigating the deep Olympus waters with apparent ease. She’s sweet, but she must have teeth beneath that soft exterior, or the upper city would have eaten her alive already.

She focuses on me. “Cassandra. So wonderful to see you again. You look lovely as always.”

“Psyche.” I pause, flicking a glance at Zeus’s wife. “Hera.”

Hera surveys me. “Well, at least you have style. That’s better than the last one.”

“Callisto,” Psyche hisses. “Be nice.”

“Are you going to tell her to be nice?”

I raise my brows. “I can hear you.”

“I know.” Hera flicks her hair over her shoulder. “But you’re a rare woman who appreciates honesty, so I’m sure you won’t mind.”

“Callisto.”

She ignores Psyche and stalks to Apollo’s door to rap on it twice before walking in. Psyche gives a deep sigh that I recognize on a cellular level. It brings a reluctant smile to my lips. “Sisters, huh?”

“The best and the worst, both at the same time.” She crosses to me. “This is all very hush-hush, but I’m to understand that you need a wardrobe.”

I have to concentrate to keep my skin from heating. It works much better in Psyche’s presence than in Apollo’s. I thought I was prepared to be judged, but this is happening so quickly. “It’s for work.”

“No need to be defensive,” she says mildly. “You know who I am. In my opinion, no one needs an excuse for new clothing.” She casts a long look at my body. Unlike most people in this city, it’s not judgmental in the least. More like she’s assessing my size. “There is a designer who’s recently branched out into more plus-sized fashion who I trust implicitly. She has a decent number of items in stock that will match the criteria Apollo relayed. Zeus is picking up the bill, so I suggest you take advantage of this because she’s incredibly expensive.”

Psyche Dimitriou is one of Demeter’s daughters. She might have been raised outside the city proper, but even before her mother was Demeter, the family was richer than most people in Olympus. For her to say this designer is expensive?

I have to fight down a shudder at the idea of spending that much money on clothing. “Like you said, Zeus is footing the bill. Might as well charge up his credit card or whatever.” Clever of Apollo to anticipate that I might dig in my heels if he was the one paying for things. He’ll have known that I don’t give a fuck if I max out Zeus’s credit cards—if such a thing is even possible.

“Perfect.”

Hera walks back into the room, looking smug. “Let’s go.”

Which is how I end up in the back seat of a town car with the two sisters, cruising onto one of the three bridges that connect the upper city with the lower. I’ve never been over the river before. There’s some kind of barrier similar to the one that surrounds the greater city, albeit much weaker. It buzzes lightly across my skin about halfway across the bridge. Supposedly one needs Hades’s permission to cross, but I think it must be more complicated than that. Both women must have standing invitations, seeing as how their sister is married to the man. That must have been enough to get me one as well.

At least this time.

I fight down a shiver as we turn south in the lower city and follow the street until the buildings grow into warehouses. The car parks in front of one with a stylized sign reading Juliette’s. Recognition sparks. I’ve heard of this woman. She was run out of the upper city by the last Zeus because she got a bit too vocal about her suspicions that he killed his second wife, a suspicion most of Olympus shares, not that any case was ever opened. Since then, I’ve seen Juliette’s pieces on everyone from Psyche to Helen—now Ares—to Hades’s wife, Persephone.

Moving to the lower city hasn’t hurt Juliette’s career any. If anything, it’s added to her notoriety and increased her perceived value. There’s little the petty assholes in the upper city love more than novelty, and she’s selective in her clientele, which only has them frothing at the mouth all the more. If I show up at events wearing her clothing, it will certainly send a message.

It doesn’t matter. This is all temporary. I don’t care what those assholes think of me, so I’m not going to let their perceptions change my mind about this.

Psyche leads the way through the front door. Inside, the warehouse has been converted, the ceiling lowered and a shining curtain blocking off the space toward the back. There are quite a few racks of clothing arranged by some system I can’t quite identify at first glance. It’s not color and it’s not style. Maybe size? Though Juliette does custom pieces, and most designers who offer similar don’t go into expansive sizing. Certainly nothing that would fit me.

Then again, Psyche is a client, so maybe I’m wrong there. I must be if they brought me here to shop. The Dimitriou sisters don’t have a reputation for being needlessly cruel. More, Apollo signed off on this. He wouldn’t allow them to set me up.

Really, Cassandra? Putting your faith in him? He might be kind, but he’s still a member of the Thirteen. You, of all people, know what he’s capable of.

Maybe to others. Not to me.

Or maybe I’m a fool and about to have pie on my face.

I straighten my spine and follow Psyche and Hera to a remarkably charming sitting area arranged around a platform with a half circle of mirrors. A door off to the side must be the changing room.

Psyche looks around. “Juliette?”

“Here.” The rattling of a rack against the stained concrete floor precedes the tall Black woman who appears from between the racks. She used to be a model, and it shows in the way she carries herself, her simple but elegant black clothing, and the short, dark curls that leave her features on appealing display. I can’t begin to guess at her age, but she must at least be in her forties if she was around when the second Hera was. Possibly even fifties, since most designers don’t make names for themselves in their early twenties, especially when they were models first. Some models flicker and fade in the face of age, but time seems only to have polished this woman with something more than beauty. Strength.

She arranges the rack next to the changing room and motions long fingers at me. “Well, let me look at you.”

I hold my chin high as I approach and do a slow spin. When I face her again, approval lights her features. “I like your style. I can work with this.” She tilts her head to the side. “But first, what kind of vision do you have for this event?”

I hadn’t really thought about it, but the words come unbidden. “They’re going to talk about me regardless of what I do. I want to give them something to talk about.”

Juliette’s smile is knife-sharp. “Then you’ve come to the right place. Let’s get started.”