Tall, Dark and Divine (16 page)

“Of course not.” The words threatened to get stuck in his throat, but he got them out.

“Great!” Harry turned back to Annie, beaming. “Let’s go!”

She hesitated. Looked at Eros. Looked at Brita. Looked at Ari, maybe hoping that Ari’s cool head might prevail. When Ari didn’t say anything, Annie looked at Eros again, with her heart in her eyes. “Ross?”

She didn’t want to go out with Harry. She wanted to go out with him. And for a second he thought about letting her. Fuck Harry and the golden arrow. He’d made a mistake.
Grab Annie and keep her.

But he couldn’t. He might want her, and she might want him, but in the long run, this was better. For both of them. She was mortal, he was a god. Their relationship wouldn’t last. She’d get older and he…wouldn’t. He’d been this way for millennia, and he’d always be this way. Immortal, unchanging. He could keep her for a few decades, maybe, and watch her grow old and then die, but that didn’t hold much appeal. And there was no alternative. He couldn’t crawl back to Zeus and ask for another mortal-to-immortal conversion just because his first love had left him. It had been difficult enough to convince the big guy the first time. Zeus had told him point-blank he was making a mistake, that she wouldn’t last, and he’d been right.

Annie was better off with Harry. They could grow old together. They could have children who grew up and grew old. They could have grandchildren who did the same. It was the way of the world. The mortal world. It was better that way. For everyone.

He forced a smiled. “It’s all right. Go with Harry.”

Annie looked at him long enough to make him squirm inside. And then she nodded and turned to Harry.

He grinned. “I have reservations at this great place. You’re gonna love it.”

He offered his arm, and Annie took it. They walked toward the door together, until Harry skipped—actually skipped—ahead to open it for her. Annie might be less than thrilled about going out with him, but he seemed almost delirious.

She passed through the door, out into the night, but not before she’d shot Eros a last glance over her shoulder. Then the door closed behind them both, and she was gone.

Silence reigned in the office after the door closed. It was Ariadne who broke it. “Are you all right?”

Eros looked at her. She was within her rights to tell him he was a stupid shithead who shouldn’t be allowed outside without a keeper, but she didn’t.

He nodded. “I’m fine.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire
.

“You did the right thing,” she said. “They’re mortals. They belong together.”

Thank you
. He knew that.

“She’ll grow to like him,” Brita said. “He may have been a jerk to her when they first met—”

Not to mention last night.

“—but he seemed really happy to be with her tonight. He’ll make her happy.”

He probably would. Even if Eros didn’t like the idea of that at all.

“Every woman wants to be adored,” Brita added. There was an undertone to her voice that made him wonder, but he was too wrapped up in his own thoughts to want to pursue it at the moment. “As long as he looks at her like she can do no wrong, she’ll be happy.”

“Sure.”

It was for the best. He knew it was. It just felt wrong.

“We should go out and get a drink,” Brita added. When he and Ari both looked at her, she continued. “To celebrate that we’re back in business.”

Right.

“You just want an excuse to go throw yourself at Dion,” Ari said, her voice tired. It was such a rare occurrence—Ariadne was usually so cool and crisp and businesslike—that both Eros and Brita looked at her with surprise. She avoided Brita’s eyes and faced Ross, petulant. “Well, she does.”

“So?” Brita said, tossing her mane of blond hair. “I’m single. He’s single. We’re both immortal. It could work.”

“If you don’t mind sharing him with half the women in New York.”

“She has a point,” Eros said. “Dion doesn’t have much staying power.”

Brita shrugged. “So are you guys coming or not?”

The goddess of the maze shook her head. “Not tonight. I’m not in the mood.”

“Boss?”

“I think I’ll pass, too,” Eros said.

Ari turned to him. “You should go.”

“I’d rather stay home.” And drown his sorrows in peace.

She sighed. “I know you. You’ll sit upstairs and stew, and come Monday, we’ll be back where we started. No, thanks. You’re going out tonight, if I have to drag you there myself. I’ll go if you’ll go.”

“I’m not going to make you do that. I’ll be fine at home.” He wanted to be home. Where no one counted the number of glasses of ambrosia he drank. Maybe he’d bring George upstairs with him for company. The dog was a lot less skittish now than he’d been yesterday.

“We’ll all go,” Brita said. “I need a drink. It’s not like I really wanted Harry—”

Eros turned to her, brows lifted and ambrosia forgotten temporarily.

“—but it’s a very strange feeling, you know, when a guy who’s been stumbling over his own feet every time he sees you suddenly looks at you like you’re something stuck to the bottom of his shoe.”

“It wasn’t that bad…,” Ari tried, and Brita swung on her.

“I love you, Ari, but you don’t know what it’s like, okay?”

Ariadne opened her mouth to answer, and Brita barreled right over anything Ari might have had to say. “Every time we go to Dionysus’s, I do my best to catch his attention, and all he does is stare at you. Now, I know Harry’s not Dion, and it’s not like I really want Harry. He’s nice enough, but he’s mortal, right? And mortals belong together. Annie’s welcome to him. I’m happy for her. But once in a while it’s nice to have a guy looking at you like that. Even if he’s a mortal CPA with glasses and a bad haircut.”

There was silence after Brita stopped speaking. Then Ari cleared her throat. “They all look at you like that.”

“No, they don’t,” Brita said stubbornly. “Harry was special.”

Riiight. Eros shook his head. “Let’s go get a drink. I think we could all use one.” He’d make sure Dion mixed his strong. And if anyone could come up with a lot of good reasons why Eros shouldn’t mourn the loss of a mortal girl—even one who tasted like sugar and vanilla—it was the god of debauchery. “Just let me go upstairs and get my jacket.”

“We’ll wait,” Ari said.

…

Annie glanced sideways at Harry. He was beaming at her.

Bizarre.

The whole thing was just too strange for words.

When they’d walked out of the matchmaking agency, there had been a cab waiting at the curb. Harry had opened the door for her, with what was almost a flourish, and held out his hand to help her in. Then he’d slid in next to her and told the cabbie to head for Manhattan, and what Annie knew was supposed to be the best French restaurant in the five boroughs. From what she had heard, it was hideously expensive and it was notoriously difficult to get reservations there. She could only imagine how hard it must have been to wrangle a table on a Saturday night.

He’d obviously gone all out for his date with Brita. Restaurant reservations, cab, suit and tie…

It was a nice suit, too. The kind of suit Ross might wear. He didn’t look as good as Ross in it—nobody looked as good—but he looked good enough. He’d even made an effort to tame his hair, albeit without meeting with a lot of success. It was thick and wavy and a sort of medium brown, not that different from her own, but at least he’d washed it and brushed it so it lay in shining waves on his head. He had a dimple, as it turned out. She’d never noticed. Probably because he’d never really smiled at her. And when he did smile, he was quite handsome. Not to mention that the admiring look in his eyes gave her a tiny little flutter under her breastbone. Not the kind of flutter she got when Ross looked at her with those dark eyes of his, but a pretty good flutter nonetheless.

It might be the only kind of flutter she’d get from here on out.

What on earth had happened at the office?

She’d been there to have dinner with Eros. Or so she’d thought. But Eros hadn’t seemed ready to go to dinner with her. Not unless he really had planned to dine in, with her as the main course.

And Harry had been there for dinner with Brita. She knew that. Brita knew it, too. So why had he suddenly taken one look at her—at Annie—and decided he wanted to have dinner with her instead?

The Harry she knew would never choose her over Brita.

So was this some sort of joke?

Or was it Eros’s doing, once again? He was the one who had talked Harry into asking her out yesterday, and it had been a miserable fiasco. Had he decided to make up for it by making Harry take her out tonight instead?

That yelp they’d heard just after Harry walked in…had that been Ross threatening the other man?

If so, he shouldn’t have bothered. It wasn’t like she really wanted to go out with Harry anymore. She didn’t need a makeup date. She’d gotten over his rejection in the bar Thursday night, or at least she would have, if she hadn’t had to keep seeing him. It would have been better for Ross to leave well enough alone, especially after he’d restored her confidence in his own special way. There was no part of her that wanted any part of Harry.

But maybe it was just Ross’s way of letting her know things were over between them. They’d had a one-night stand, and the next day he’d fixed her up with Harry, as sort of a consolation prize. Only that hadn’t worked out well, and she’d showed up on his doorstep. So he’d slept with her again—and why not, when she made herself so available?—and now he was back to trying to fix her up with Harry. Letting her down easy? Trying to get her interested in someone else so he’d have an easier time getting away from her?

Well hell, it wasn’t like she had any plans of pursuing him. The only reason she’d gone looking for him yesterday was to tell him off for Harry’s behavior and his part in their fiasco of a date. He was the one who had carried her upstairs and taken her shoes off and rubbed her feet and kissed her thighs.

And after this, he could forget about that ever happening again. She certainly wouldn’t be knocking on his door anytime soon.

And meanwhile, there was Harry. Beaming fatuously at her in the back of the cab. Dressed, pressed, and on their way to the most exclusive restaurant in New York.

It was like she was Annie in Wonderland, having just taken a tumble down the rabbit hole, to a place where everything was turned on its head.

Was he sincere, or was he playing with her? Was he afraid of what Ross might do to him if he hurt her feelings again? Or had he bolstered himself with a lot of Dutch courage before his date with Brita, and now he was drunk as a skunk and suddenly she looked a lot better to him?

He didn’t sound drunk, and she didn’t smell alcohol on his breath. He’d had no problem pronouncing the—French—name of the restaurant with what sounded like a passable accent. He was smiling at her, with admiration gleaming in his eyes behind the glasses. “You look beautiful, Annie.”

“Thank you,” Annie said.

“I’m so glad you agreed to go out with me again.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You’ll like tonight better than yesterday, I promise. I mean, I know you said you wanted to meet Fiona, and you suggested that we could take her to the dog park together sometime—”

Yes, she had, hadn’t she?
Idiot
.

“—but I shouldn’t have made that our first date.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “Although it’ll be a great story to tell our grandkids, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” Annie said faintly, as her head spun.

Chapter Nineteen

Dionysus’s Bar was hopping. Eros had thought things were noisy on Thursday, but they were nothing compared to what the place was like tonight.

Brita got right into the swing of things, of course; that seemed to be the goddess’s recipe for kicking the blues. She sashayed over to a couple of mortals playing pool and finagled her way into the next game. By now, they were probably both trying desperately to lose, just so they could get her in quicker. Meanwhile, Eros and Ariadne snagged a couple of stools at the bar and waited for Dion to notice them.

The god of wine and debauchery had found himself a woman to woo, and they watched, idly, as Dion smiled and flirted. Or at least Eros watched idly; Ari’s jaw was tight and her eyes were stormy.

The mortal was beautiful, but then Dion’s women always were. Tall and slim, with long legs, high heels, a short dress, and brown hair cascading over her shoulders. She looked a bit like Ari might, if the Cretan goddess of the labyrinth ever let her hair down and dressed like she was 25 instead of 2,500.

Eros tilted his head and thought back through the mists of time, brows furrowed. They’d known each other a long time, even if they hadn’t always been as close as they were now. After so many of them, the millennia sometimes blurred. But Ari used to be less uptight than she was now, didn’t she?

Granted, all the women looked loose in the old days. The tunics they all wore left very little to the imagination. The fabric was thin, almost transparent, and they didn’t always bother to wear a
strophion
underneath, either. Not to mention that the right side of the garment, from shoulder to ankle, was sometimes left open, baring soft skin and womanly curves.

Back then she hadn’t had a choice. It was what everyone wore, so she did, too. But surely he remembered, from some time in the not too distant past, an Ariadne who looked less severe than she did now? In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she’d walked around barefoot and braless holding placards saying Make Love Not War along with the rest of them, hadn’t she?

“What’s going on with you two?”

She glanced at him. “None of your business.”

“You remember who I am, don’t you?”

“The…” She hesitated and decided not to go there. “God of love. It’s still none of your business.”

“I can get him for you.” The arrows worked on immortals as well as mortals; no one knew that better than him. He wasn’t supposed to use them that way—that was one of the rules—but for Ari, he’d make an exception. And Dion had been screwing around even more than usual lately; someone should stop him.