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“Okay,” I said softly.

Adrian’s eyes whipped back to mine, dropping down to my lips and then back to my eyes. “Go get dressed.”

?

Not that I couldn’t have guessed, but this was a bad fucking idea.

My mother was putty in Adrian’s hands, hanging on his every word. She’d almost burst into a flurry of sparkles when he handed her a rich bouquet of flowers. And my father a bottle of whiskey that earned an impressed scoff. Some of his highest praise.

And Adrian…

Adrian was acting completely unbothered. He was loving and charming and acting completely infatuated with me. And every time he touched me and I flinched, he didn’t react. Just smoothed a hand over the part of my body that had jerked, like he somehow knew he wasn’t the one to cause the reaction.

That it was all my doing.

He was a strong, immovable force who’d dug his feet in and refused to be swayed by my attitude or my anger or my demand to end this.

He was fighting for us. In his own way.

And the terrible, horrifying, depressing part of it was that I used to dream about this. Dream about a man who knew me so well and loved me so much that we could weather any storm together.

I just hadn’t imagined the one we’d be hit with was this big. This damaging.

When I’d come downstairs dressed and ready, he simply said, “Let’s go.” And that was the last we spoke until stepping foot into my parents' home.

As comfortable as he was, how easy in conversation and helpful around the kitchen, you could tell there was something going on. My motherandfather had both shot me confused looks at various points in the night, picking up on my discomfort.

At a certain point, Adrian’s own irritation started to peek through. I could tell he was actively wrestling against it, trying to shove it down to make room for his agreeable side. But it was hard to miss the way his movements were tense and his jaw hard.

At least to me, it was.

Dinner conversation was filled with small talk and updates aboutanythingbut politics or our relationship. Until my mother snapped and demanded answers. “How’s Olympus, Reyna? I haven’t been up there in years, but I remember how beautiful it was.”

I couldn’t lie to my mother. Not right now. “It’s beautiful. I feel…I feel very comfortable there.”

I focused on my mom’s excited titter rather than turn to meet Adrian’s eyes, leaving them to burn a hole in the side of my face. “Well,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Before we have dessert, you wouldn’t mind if I showed Adrian around the gardens, would you? That way you can speak with your father quickly.”

“And so you can pester him with questions?” I asked, the first real smile I’d shown all day pulling to my lips.

My mother sucked in a relieved breath at the sight, her maternal instincts honed to tell the difference, and smiled herself. “Of course. Adrian, dear, come with me.”

Adrian rose and I looked to him on instinct. Our eyes held for one long, poignant beat before he dropped my gaze and looked at my mother. “After you, Ravenna.”

Once they left, my father looked to me. “My office.”

I nodded, following him with one last look over my shoulder to where Adrian was disappearing into my mother’s towering gardens with her.

Once inside his office, I asked, “What is it, Dad?”

My dad let out a deep sigh, like this conversation was about to be hard on him. If we were going to talk about what I thought we were, yeah it was going to be a tough one. One I wasn’t sure I could handle in my current state. But I bucked up and straightened my spine.

He rounded his large desk, one I used to marvel at as a girl, sitting on the floor messing around with toys as he worked.

He flipped through a few files before pulling a thick, brown file out. Inside was an equally dense stack of papers. Silently, he extended his arm to pass them to me.

And when my eyes landed on the top line, I sucked in a shocked breath. “Dad…” I trailed off, needing to keep reading to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.

But no. It was real.