Page 1 of Winning Back Persephone (Jinx Paranormal Dating Agency #9)

PERSEPHONE

I entered the bar, scanning the people waiting to try and find my mother. Not that anyone would know she was my mother just by looking at us, most people thought we were sisters, which was just a product of being several thousand years old and immortal. Aging was different for us, especially as both my mother and I were frozen in our early twenties.

I spotted her perched on a stool at the end of the bar, watching everyone who came in like she was worried I wasn't going to show up.

That was what I got for being Demeter's daughter. Even after nearly three thousand years, she wasn't able to relax and let me live my own life. Unless I forced her to.

Her entire face lit up when her gaze landed on me, and I headed over in her direction.

"My beloved," she said in Ancient Greek as she got to her feet to pull me into a hug.

"Hello, Μ?να," I responded as I patted her on the back. "How have you been?"

"Lost in the wilderness without you," she said dramatically.

I sighed and signalled to the bartender. I was going to need a drink if I was going to put up with a whole evening of my mother. I ordered myself a glass of wine and settled in for the conversation I knew was about to come. "That was years ago, Μ?να."

"And if Hades hadn't kidnapped you..."

"How many times? He didn't kidnap me." I hated it when she did this. I might have ended things with Hades a couple of years ago, but I still loved him, and I didn't want to hear her talking badly about him. The bartender brought over a glass of wine. I picked it up with a grateful smile, half tempted to tell him to leave the bottle.

"You don't have to defend him any more," she pointed out. "Everyone knows what he did, and you're better off without him. He's a waste of space."

My fingers tightened around the stem of my glass. "He was still my husband," I responded through gritted teeth. Technically, he was still my husband even now. It had only been two years, and I couldn't bring myself to formalise our separation.

My mother sighed. "Fine, we should stop talking about him."

I took a sip of my wine and hoped she meant that. Then again, no evening with my mother would be complete without at least a handful of insults hurled towards Hades, almost all of them completely baseless.

"I was speaking with Dale the other day..."

"Who's Dale?" I cut in.

"He's my new gardener," she said. "A dryad from a good family."

I raised an eyebrow. "Please don't tell me you're running after teenagers again?"

She scoffed. "I'm not your father. He's in his forties."

"Somewhat better." I took another drink.

"Dale was telling me that his sister signed up for one of the services the Jinx Dating Agency hosts. Now which one was it?" She tapped her nails against the bar in an annoying rhythm that made me want to grab her hand to stop her, but I didn't. She hated it when I did that. "It was the matchmaking service, that's the one."

"That's interesting," I lied. I really didn't care what her gardener's sister was doing.

"They found her a match within a couple of months. Isn't that impressive?"

"Jinx is run by love gods," I pointed out. "Doesn't it kind of make sense that it worked?"

"I think you should sign up," my mother said, picking up her glass of white wine and taking a long sip.

"I don't want to sign up for Jinx."

"Persephone, beloved, you can't stay single forever."

"Why can't I?"

"Because you're Persephone. What would people say if Hades found someone before you?"

"I highly doubt Hades is looking for anyone." I couldn't imagine that Hades had given much thought to moving on, though maybe that was because I'd been struggling with that myself rather than anything to do with him.

"Didn't he find someone last time?" my mother asked.

My hand tightened around the stem of my wine glass. "We'd been separated for longer last time."

"Ah, but you know what men are like," she said. "Your father..."

"Hades is not Zeus," I replied through gritted teeth.

"They're brothers."

"They were turned immortal by the same person. That doesn't make them brothers."

"I don't know why it bothers you so much. You ended your marriage." Mother's expression made it clear what she thought about that. I was surprised it didn't come with an added well done, Persephone .

"I don't want to talk about Hades," I said firmly. Though in reality, I'd never wanted to talk about him with my mother. She wasn't his biggest fan and made sure that I knew about it at every opportunity, especially when it came to her claiming he wasn't good enough for me. I didn't really understand why she was so caught up on that when it was my choice who I ended up with and what I wanted from a partner.

Without meaning it to, my mind slipped back to Hades. It had been two years since I'd last seen him, and it was hard to remember the reasons I wanted to leave. Instead, what was left were the reasons I missed him and our life together. He was one of the most thoughtful people I'd ever met, always aware of the impact he was having on others. If anything, I was the one who had never been good enough for him with my ambition and never being fully happy with what I had.

I picked up my wine and took a deep drink, searching for a subject that would leave us on safer grounds. "How is work?" I asked as I set my glass back on the bar.

My mother sighed in the most dramatic way possible. "It would be much better if you visited the greenhouse," she responded. "You know the plants always respond well to you being around. Maybe you should move back in."

"I'm not going to move back in, Μ?να." No one would be able to pay me enough to inflict that sort of torture on myself. I loved my mother deeply, but the last thing I wanted was to live my life with her looking over my shoulder.

She sighed dramatically. "Ah, Persephone. What can I do to convince you?"

"There's nothing, Μ?να," I responded. "I like living on my own." The lie felt heavy on my tongue. I didn't like living alone, I was used to having someone else around. Both Hades and Cerberus had made my life so full in the best way. But that didn't mean I was going to move back in with my mother. Ever. At this point, the only person I'd be willing to live with was Hades, and I doubted he'd be interested considering I ended our marriage.

It was going to take a lot more wine if I had any chance of blocking my husband from my mind.