Page 5 of Winning Back Persephone (Jinx Paranormal Dating Agency #9)

PERSEPHONE

The taxi pulled up outside the restaurant, and I almost told them to carry on and take me home. My heart was racing faster than I thought possible. But it would be rude of me to stand up the person waiting for me to join them for dinner.

Instead of running away, I tapped my card to the driver's payment machine and got out of the car. My dress fluttered against my legs as I strode up to the entrance, and I felt better now I had the reminder that I was wearing a dress that I knew made me look great and my favourite pair of heels that never made my feet ache. I looked good, and I knew I was a catch. That meant this date would go just fine.

The question was really whether I was emotionally ready for the stranger waiting for me inside. I swallowed my nerves and held my head up high as I stepped into the restaurant. Even without knowing anything about it, I could tell that it was an exclusive place, likely with a fancy menu. At least that was a nice change from the ready meals I had at home. They were good quality ones, but they were still nothing compared to properly cooked food. Maybe that was motivation to date all on its own.

I approached the stand where a man in a neat suit was waiting and smiled. "Hi, I'm Persephone. I'm here for a date set up by Jinx."

"Of course, ma'am," the man responded. "If you'd like to follow me, I can take you to your table." He gestured for me to follow him into a spacious dining room and towards a table by the window with candles flickering around it and a rose in the centre.

He directed me to my seat and promised to have someone over to take our order shortly.

A man was already waiting there and rose to his feet.

I stopped in my tracks as soon as I met his gaze. "Hades?" There was no stilling the racing of my heart.

"Sephie?"

My heart fluttered at the sound of the name on his lips. No one called me that except for him, and it tore straight through me as a reminder of what we used to be to one another. "What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I'm waiting for a date."

I frowned. " I'm here for a date. Jinx set me up on one."

He raised an eyebrow. "You would think they knew better than to give us both dates at the same time and place."

"I think it's more likely we're on the same date."

"Ah."

Neither of us moved, and more importantly, neither of us suggested the sensible thing of turning around and going home, leaving the ill-advised date well alone.

"I heard they have excellent stuffed peppers here," he said. "If you wanted to have them. I know how much you love them."

"They're my favourite," I agreed. "Perhaps dinner wouldn't be the worst thing." Especially as I didn't have to cook it myself, which was always part of my challenge.

Hades smiled. Not a forced one either, but a genuine smile that he only ever gave to me. "After you." He gestured to the chair across from him.

I swallowed hard and took a seat. Without really thinking about it, I reached out to touch the rose in the middle of the table. It immediately perked up at my touch even if it was cut.

Hades watched me with a strange expression on his face.

"What?" I asked.

"I'd just forgotten what it was like to go out for dinner with you."

I raised an eyebrow. "I find that unlikely. It's only been two years."

"It's felt like longer."

I swallowed hard and tried not to shuffle uncomfortably on my chair. "It has." I managed to avoid thinking too much about my discomfort by focusing on the menu, finding the stuffed peppers Hades had mentioned easily enough, and they did sound delicious. A small part of me wanted to choose something different just so that I could prove he didn't know everything about me, but I knew that was foolish. There was no reason to deny myself something I was going to enjoy just because my former husband knew that I liked it.

"I'm guessing that you're going to get the risotto?" I asked him.

"I was considering it," he agreed. "I haven't made one in a while."

"What's a while?"

"About two years, give or take. It's not the same to make it for myself."

"Oh." I looked down at my place setting and tried not to think too much about how things had changed. Even thinking about it made me want to tell him that we'd made a mistake, even if things weren't.

The waiter returned, giving me a chance to properly compose myself.

"So, how are things at the club?" I asked, hoping that would be a safe subject.

"Good," he said. "Poseidon has hired it for a Saturday night in about six months."

"A Saturday night? What could he possibly want it for?"

Hades shrugged. "He wouldn't tell me."

"And you let him have it anyway?" I would have asked a few more questions before agreeing to that, but I knew Hades was more willing to try things out without thinking them all the way through.

"I made him pay double what the club normally earns on a Saturday night," Hades responded.

"That's something, I guess." I still wouldn't have hired it to him without more information, but the club wasn't my business any more, it was Hades', and I had to remember that.

"How are things going with your new business?" Hades asked.

"Well. We've got a big launch coming up just in time for Christmas."

"You don't celebrate Christmas."

"True, but lots of people who might want to buy the handbags do. We might not follow the same customs as humans do now, but we have to follow their marketing highs and lows. You know that."

"It hasn't really been an issue. The Underworld is in the god realm, there's no real need to follow the human calendar."

"It would be different if you had a club in the human realm too." I grimaced as the words left my mouth. We'd talked about this so many times, and I knew how he felt about it. Hades was never going to open a club in the human world, he wasn't interested in expanding, something that had come between us more than once.

"True." He nodded and picked up his wine, swirling it around and smelling it before he drank. "So, a new launch sounds good. No doubt you'll have another million euro business on your hands before you know it."

"You know me, Hades, I don't rest when it comes to business."

"No, you don't. Though it would be remiss of me not to remind you to have fun sometimes."

"I like working."

He gave me a look that I understood but pretended not to. No doubt he was remembering all of the times he had to remind me to take a break and that work could wait until the morning. Whenever he'd done that, it had turned out to be fun, mostly because I got to spend the time with him.

"Maybe we should talk about something else," I murmured.

"All right." He paused for a moment, studying me intently with his dark eyes. "How are you finding Jinx?"

I stared at him in a little bit of shock. "Our dating lives are hardly a better subject than the reason we ended things."

He shrugged. "The only other thing I could think of was asking how your mother is, but that didn't seem any better."

I snorted. "She's as insufferable as you can imagine her being. She wants me to move back in."

"You're not living with Demeter?" There was a hint of surprise on his face.

"What? No, of course not."

"I just thought you would. When we took a break last time, that's where you went."

"That was over two thousand years ago," I reminded him. "I'm not about to be the two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old goddess who lives with her mother. Could you imagine?" A shudder ran through me even as I thought about it.

"She'd probably put a curfew on you and ban you from travelling to the god realm."

Without meaning to, I laughed. "And that would probably just be punishment for me lying to her about the fact I could only stay in the human world with her for half the year because of some pomegranate seeds. I still can't believe how long she was fooled by that one."

He chuckled. "Or by the fact you snuck back to the god realm every chance you got during the time you were supposed to be in the human world."

"You're a far better cook than my mother, and your bed was much more inviting. Wait, that's not what I meant."

"I know what you meant, Sephie," he said softly.

"It's just that it was more comfortable," I said quickly, though I didn't think he bought the lie. It was definitely because he was also there. It wasn't even about sex, though that had been good, it was having the warmth of his arms around me and the sound of his breathing lulling me into sleep.

Things I still missed.

Our food arrived, breaking through the tension building between us. I should have walked away when I realised I'd been sent on a date with Hades. I wasn't even sure how it had happened, there were supposed to be checks in place that meant this kind of thing could be avoided.

At least I enjoyed his company, and this wasn't a situation where we were exes who couldn't stand one another.

Though I had to wonder what it meant that Hades was my best match, considering all the resources and love gods that Jinx had at its disposal.