Page 3 of A Goddess Unraveled (Olympus Rising)

The seagrass had crept closer to the beach since Lexi’s last visit, growing into the path where she and her horse, Jackie O, liked to run. Dion galloped beside her, keeping a close eye on their pace and trying to pretend he wasn’t all-in as they raced toward the outcropping. She would never tell him that the only times he won was when she and Jackie O let him. But the abundant seagrass wasn’t the only thing she noticed as they raced toward the finish line. The yellow aura haloing her mare’s head had not been there the last time they rode together.

Lexi beat Dion by a neck, and he slowed down while she continued toward the next crop of rocks that marked her boundary line. Dion got his horse galloping again when he realized she wasn’t ready to turn back.

“Hey, brat! Where are you going?” he yelled.

“I was thinking Halifax. From there, maybe Iceland.”

It was hard to talk and gallop at the same time, so Lexi slowed down and let him catch up. He was breathing heavily as he pulled beside her.

“What’s gotten into you, Lexi? There’s a party starting soon.”

“We don’t need to be there as soon as it starts.”

“I don’t, but you do. It’s your graduation party.”

“Woo-hoo. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in poli-sci. Throw me in with the rest of the fish.”

When he didn’t say anything, she looked over and found him glaring at the horizon like he wanted to pick a fight.

“Something wrong, Dion? Trouble in corporate paradise?”

“No. Although I wouldn’t call it paradise. It’s a job.”

“A job you love. Don’t try to deny it.”

“Yes, I love my job. It’s pretty much the only redeeming quality in my life.”

Lexi continued to stare at her brother. Had something happened since the last time they’d talked? “What else could be wrong with your life? You’re the eldest son, heir to the Maxwell Sporting Goods throne. Your hair hasn’t receded yet. And you pretty much get away with anything.”

It took him a minute to answer as their horses carried them farther from home. “Just ignore me. I guess the commitments are weighing a little heavier than usual. Family obligations are a bitch.”

“Don’t get me started on obligations. I’ve reached my wit’s end. I might do something crazy, I swear.”

“What kind of crazy?” Dion pulled his horse to a stop, and Lexi was forced to turn Jackie O around to talk to him.

“I’ve been a legal adult for over four years. I’ve earned my college degree. I’ve pretty much crossed off everything on the Maxwells’ to-do list under the name Alexandra . They can’t stop me from doing whatever I damn well please from this point on.”

Dion forced out an exaggerated sigh, like he wanted the universe to hear him. “If you figure out how to do that, let me know. Speaking of things you don’t know, I feel obligated to tell you that something’s coming. Something I’m not allowed to tell you. And it’s going to fuck up your reality. At least, your version of it.”

“What is it? Why can’t you tell me?”

He glanced around as if he thought someone could be listening. “The only reason I’m saying anything is because I don’t want you to hate me when you find out. I’m covering my ass.”

He spurred his horse into a canter and started back toward the estate, while Lexi steered Jackie O in circles. What was this thing that would fuck up her reality? She didn’t even want to guess. Sure, her life had been paved with gold—two beautiful homes, a high-end education, luxuries so outrageous they often made her feel guilty—but it all came at a cost. Even her parents were showing the signs of wear. What more could they ask of her? It had to be bad if Dion wasn’t allowed to say.

Lexi stopped her horse to stare at the horizon, watching the sun take its final bow and appreciating the certainty that it would be there again tomorrow. She could make a run for it. Go back to the airport and take the first flight out. Would they freeze her assets and force her back home? They’d threatened it before, and a few times she’d been angry enough to test them, almost. She knew that money meant freedom, and she really needed her freedom right now. Did her family have that much power over her? Was she truly that fucked?

~

The first guests to arrive were Lady Twila and her man, Sir Henry. Descendants of Italian royalty, they always looked like runway models. Lady Twila claimed she never wore a speck of makeup, and every time Lexi saw the woman, she appeared younger and more stunning. She probably spent a fortune on skin care.

Today, the Italian beauty was dressed in a silver gown. It was gathered at her slender waist with a braided belt, also spun from silver, the kind you find in a mine, not a fabric store.

“ Buonasera, signora Twila . Your dress is bellissima ,” Lexi said as she offered an exaggerated curtsy.

Lady Twila lifted the hem of her gown, sweeping it back and forth. “Don’t you love how the delicate strands reflect the room’s light? And you look like a vision of heavenly beauty this evening, signorina Lexi . I love the floral motif.”

“Grazie.”

Lexi glanced self-consciously at her V-neck sweater. She’d chosen the yellow one with three big dandelions on the front. It had been an impulse buy, far from her norm, but she’d been drawn to things that weren’t her norm lately. She’d paired the sweater with jeans, and black suede Prada heels with studded ankle straps to class up the look.

“How are you, Sir Henry?”

Lexi turned her attention to the man standing with Lady Twila and leaning casually on a walking stick. He didn’t need it for walking. It was more for flash. This one resembled a phoenix, its orange neck curved downward to form a hook.

Sir Henry wore a relaxed smile that barely creased his skin, which was always overly tanned, and his black-framed glasses exaggerated the size of his intense, dark eyes. She loved that his suit jackets were never an expected color, and he often paired them with some kind of embellishment. Today the jacket was royal blue and accented by a silk scarf in honey gold with white polka dots. No sequins this time.

“Right as rain. I would like to congratulate you on your recent academic accomplishment. Pardon me if I cannot keep track. There have been so many.”

“That’s okay. I graduated from university.”

“So that’s it, then? No more aspirations?” He held Lexi’s gaze, but not in an accusatory way. The man had a knack for putting people at ease even when he was asking difficult questions.

“As far as college pursuits, that’s it for now. I’m planning to take a solo trip this summer. I’ll be visiting three continents over two months.”

Their eyebrows could not have moved faster, slamming into perfectly parted hairlines.

“Is that so?” said Lady Twila, her lashes fluttering like butterflies. “What an exciting prospect.”

It was impossible for Lexi not to read their shock. They knew the hoops she probably had to jump through to get such an exciting prospect approved. How sad was that?

An hour later the living room was filled with mingling guests. Emily and the twins were huddled in one corner. Octavius and his sister, Diana, were already disagreeing about something, based on all the hand gestures. Burt had staked a claim near the champagne fountain (no surprise there) and Nora chatted with him as she nibbled from a plate of stuffed mushroom caps. Lexi kept her greeting with Nora brief only because her mom took issue with the woman, although she refused to say why. Lexi really needed to stop indulging her mom’s pettiness.

Then there was Uncle Z, short for Zenith. He wasn’t really her uncle, but had earned the title when he became her godfather. As usual, he insisted on meeting everyone at the door like he ran the place, although his linebacker physique and lumberjack beard made him look more like a bouncer than a butler.

Lexi had only expected to see the misfits this weekend, but as she watched the guests arrive, there were many faces she didn’t recognize. Being the daughter of an overzealous CEO, she had become accustomed to her dad inviting unrelated guests to family gatherings. It gave him an opportunity to forge new business partnerships while plying guests with alcohol and gourmet appetizers. After the fourth group of strangers arrived, however, Lexi started to question the intent behind these random invites.

Each of the newcomers had brought their sons, all of them close to her age. She’d already been introduced to Will from Argentina, Sami and his older brother, Yash, from Kolkata, and James from somewhere in England, all of them still navigating the perils of college. After years of blocking Lexi from making any kind of love connection, her parents had laid out the choices for her like an all-you-can-eat buffet. WTF?

Someone grabbed her elbow, and Lexi was forced to smile at yet another boy, this one no older than eighteen and wearing that unfortunate top-heavy hairstyle that should never have caught traction. Dion was quick with the introduction.

“Hey, Lexi, I want you to meet Roderick. He and his family live in Bruges, Belgium.”

“Call me Rod. And we’re actually looking at property in Boston,” Rod pointed out as he stared at the dandelions on Lexi’s chest. “I’ll be attending Harvard next year, and my parents don’t want me living on campus.”

“Dorm life isn’t so bad,” Lexi said. “I met my best friend there, and we remained roommates until graduation.”

“I heard you attended Boston College. That’s a much smaller campus, with half the population and a higher acceptance rate.”

Lexi pretended she hadn’t already made up her mind about this entitled brat and continued to smile at him. “I don’t know what the acceptance rate has to do with living on campus, but I know plenty of people whose parents didn’t want them in dorms. I had to beg my parents to let me. If you’ll excuse me, I need to have a word with my dad.”

With single-minded intent, and no remorse for cutting out on the boy from Bruges, she located her dad next to the bar talking to Cherry, a petite blond and longtime member of their live-in staff who had a knack for knowing everything. Lexi made her way over and got his attention with a pointed eyebrow lift. He nodded and finished up his conversation while Lexi helped herself to a bottle of water from the cooler.

“What’s on your mind, graduate?” He threw an arm over her shoulder and took a pull from his drink. He was already over the limit, which kind of surprised her, but his alcohol intake rarely gave her an advantage during serious discussions. She knew that the trick with her dad was not to make accusations sound accusatory.

“It’s just that I’m noticing there are a lot of guys my age here. Guys I’m meeting for the first time. Is it merely coincidence that the friends you’ve invited have sons who had nothing better to do than help some random girl celebrate her graduation?”

Lexi tipped the water bottle over her lips and gulped. She’d started to ramble, which was not out of character for her, but she couldn’t afford to lose focus. Not this weekend.

Her dad shifted his weight, looking like she’d caught him switching the expensive Colombian coffee for a cheaper brand. Of course she was right about the plot.

“First of all, you’re far from random. And it was your uncle Z who suggested we invite a few boys your age. Your mother and I assumed you were ready to toss in your line and see what you might catch? James was valedictorian of his high school. Did he mention that?”

Lexi frowned. Not about the valedictorian comment, which still stung. It was the sports metaphors. They always popped up whenever her dad was forced to discuss personal matters.

“That’s about the lamest confession I’ve ever heard. I don’t care whose idea it was. You all had to know that it would be obvious to me. Now I feel like I’m on parade or something.”

“Don’t be silly. Just think of it as a trial run for when you get out into the real world. Not that you haven’t experienced the real world. But you know what I mean.”

Yes. The world where there are no chaperones .

While her dad attempted to climb out of the hole he’d dug, she curbed her annoyance for the sake of not making waves. She’d been in plenty of arguments with her parents over lesser things, and many of them involved her uncle Z, who could be a big fat baby when he didn’t get his way. Lexi was ready to put the final nail in the coffin of her old life, which meant letting their controlling bullshit slide off her back for now.

Instead, she surveyed the room, checking out the boys she’d been introduced to. A couple of them were cute, in a hair-gel, country-club kind of way, but she could already tell they had the emotional depth of a thimble. Was it so unreasonable to want more from a potential “catch”? How embarrassing would it be to spend an entire weekend with a house full of available men and not take advantage of at least one of them? Not that she was interested in losing her V-card over the weekend. She wasn’t that desperate.

As she pondered the ramifications of allowing her parents to play matchmaker, the front door opened and another stranger walked in—an incredibly handsome stranger who appeared to be arriving alone. He was dressed like one of her dad’s board members, but she’d never done a double take on any of those stuffed shirts.

This guy looked younger than those cronies, too, and she noticed right away that he hadn’t bothered to button his charcoal suit jacket, which offered a lovely view of his chest. Were those ripples under the rows of tailored pleats? Yikes. She blinked to be sure she hadn’t just imagined the smolder.

The man matched every description she’d read of a hottie with a body: wavy chestnut hair that hadn’t been forced into a style, glowing olive skin, and the bone structure of Adonis. He radiated vitality, and she gripped her water bottle until the cap threatened to pop off.

Tempted to press the cool plastic against her forehead, Lexi watched the mystery man turn to her uncle Z and offer a respectful, albeit antiquated, bow. Despite the formal greeting, she saw familiarity there, which became obvious when her uncle Z scowled behind his blond beard. Who was this guy? Was he crashing her party?

No sooner had she asked herself this when the stranger’s eyes found her—a blazing golden gaze that reminded her of a beach bonfire, and she was unable to move or even blink as a smile grew on his lips.

She had not just imagined the smolder.