Page 102

“Yes,” she said, cutting off my thoughts. Her grin split into a wry smile. “Am I missing something?”

I hated myself for what I was about to ask. “What do you have this week for work? Do you need to go home for anything?”

Reyna’s eyes narrowed, like she was debating calling me out for suggesting we part. “Same old. A few meetings and a boat load of paperwork to prepare for the end of the year.” She took a long sip of her cappuccino. “My mother asked if we could come to dinner on Tuesday.”

I had to hold back an emphaticyes. “Tuesday works.” Reyna’s eyes lit with a smile. “Who should I expect to woo?”

The smile dropped right off her face. “My parents and brother.” Then in a harsher voice, “My cousins sometimes come.”

I opened my mouth. Again, to speak without thinking. But my desire to bring her smile backwas stronger than my routine of choosing my words carefully. I’d been consciously avoiding the topic of our arrangement.

But before I could, an insistent knock came from my front door. Reyna and I both looked over, and I rose.

Her eyes tracked over my forearms as I pushed my sleeves back down to the wrist.

The knock hit again. “Just open to the door, Emre.” His knocks were distinct, two crisp hits. Nothing more than necessary to get my attention.

The door cracked open hesitantly, like he was worried about the state he’d find me in. Reyna was wrapped in a thick robe and I was clothed. But Emre had made one too many jokes about not recognizing me without the suit. But when his head peaked through, all my attention centered on the hard line of his mouth.

“What?” I said, the rough, authoritative tone that I’d once been so used to sounding foreign.

“You have visitors.” Based on Emre’s cadence, I knew it wasn’t Dominic or Lukas knocking down my door.

I turned to find Reyna walking toward me with pinched brows. “What is it?”

“I have to handle something,” I said, reaching for her and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

Emre cleared his throat loudly. “Pardon the intrusion, but I don’t think you will.”

My head snapped to my head guard. “Excuse me?”

He didn’t even flinch. “This is going to take longer thana moment.”

Shit.

I let out a heavy sigh, running my hands over my face. “Fine.” My responsibility was grating, a feeling Iwas deeply unused to. I looked back to Reyna. “You’re welcome to stay here.” She could turn Olympus into her own house for all I cared.

Actually, that sounded like a brilliant plan.

But something in my words seemed to sober her, the easy smile she’d sported all morning falling away. “No, I—” Her words broke off on a sigh and she, quite obviously, forced a smile. “It’s about time I go home. Get my life in order a bit.”

Reyna always had her life in order, which made her choice of words odd. I’d be following up on that later.AfterI dealt with whatever was making Emre’s naturally cool cadence twist into a fidgeting mess. “One second,” I told him.

Emre nodded, closing the door with a sharp snap.

Reyna closed the space between us quickly, stepping into my embrace and wrapping her arms around my torso tightly. Like she was savoring it. She breathed in, two deep inhales. Then pressed a kiss to the base of my throat and looked up at me. “Go be a god,” she said, with another forced smile.

I ran my hand down the side of her face, gripping her jaw and stealing a deep kiss. “I’ll come find you.” And then, because I felt an almost startlingly strong urge to see her smile once before I left, I said, “Then I’ll be a god with you,” and winked suggestively.

Reyna let out a short, but genuine, breath of laughter, then ushered me away. “I’ll see you soon.”

?

“Everyone quiet,” I barked. “One at a time.”

Emre was right. This was going to take longer than a moment. I had not one, butfivegods in my office,all looking like they were two seconds away from their heads popping off from anger.

“This isbullshit,” Mia Ceres barked, stomping her foot with such force it made her curls bounce.