The Playboy God (Gods of Olympus Book 7) Page 9

  I look up to see Hector shuffling into the living room. He’s wearing a robe that is loosely tied around his middle, although it doesn’t cover up his bare chest or tighty whities.

  He lets out a groan as he picks up the folded newspaper from his chair. “Gonna do some crosswords before I go to bed.” He holds up the paper for evidence.

  “No worries,” I say, lifting a hand.

  “Dad!” I hear Max hiss from the hallway. “We have company, get some clothes on!” She appears and takes her father by the arm.

  “I was just grabbing my puzzle, Max,” he protests, but there’s no conviction in his voice. He sounds like a scolded child that knows he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to do.

  I get the feeling that she spends a lot of time herding her family around.

  I suppress a smile as she comes back into the living room, looking as flustered as I’ve ever seen her.

  “Sorry,” she says with a sigh.

  “For what?”

  “You weren’t supposed to see all of this.” She indicates the house with a sweep of her hand. “I just…” Her voice trails off and she sighs again, combing her hand through her hair. “Today was such a bust.”

  She’s beating herself up for stuff beyond her control, and all I want to do is take away her embarrassment.

  “I wouldn’t say so,” I say honestly. “We showed up at the gala—”

  “Yeah, and left it early.”

  “—you looked beautiful—”

  She blushes, stunned to silence, and I keep trudging ahead.

  “—and I got to meet your son and charming father.”

  She snorts. “Charming is not the word I’d use to describe Dad, but…”

  “Everything is charming, Max,” I tell her, giving her a pointed look. “I understand now.”

  She grimaces and puts her head in her hands. “I hope you didn’t take what my dad said to you to heart.”

  I grin. “The part about me being an asshole boss? Keeping you from your son?”

  She groans.

  “I wish I knew, Max,” I tell her. I reach out and put my hand on her knee. She looks down at it like it’s going to bite her, but I don’t move it. “I would have helped out sooner.”

  She clears her throat, meeting my gaze. “You are helping, Damien.”

  We look into each other’s eyes for several heartbeats, and I’m aware of our proximity to each other. I could reach out and kiss her, but there are no cameras here to capture that moment, so I don’t need to play up our relationship for the media.

  But I want to kiss her.

  Shit.

  She sits back, shifting her leg, and my hand falls from her knee. “Gotham was born with cerebral palsy,” she says at length, her gaze getting a faraway look in them. “He was premature, and they thought he wouldn’t make it. But he’s a fighter.” She smiles softly. “He’s a good kid.”

  “I can tell.”

  “He’s actually really fortunate,” she says. “A lot of kids with cerebral palsy have learning difficulties, but most of his challenges are physical. He has to have help walking, and his motor skills need work. And the seizures.” She sighs. “He gets one every so often. Dad knows not to take him to the hospital unless they’re bad.”

  “From what I can tell, today’s was bad,” I say gently. “It’s fine.”

  She nods. “Again, that’s why I didn’t want you coming over here. Dad had his stroke ten years ago and tries his best, but there’s a lot that I can’t help with.” She sighs and shakes her head. “I wanted to protect Gotham and Dad from the public life.” She pauses, considering her next words. “Do you want to know why I agreed to be your fake fiancée?”

  “Why?”

  It takes a little longer for her to answer, but she finally does. “This is my parents’ old house. When I—when I left Gotham’s father, there was nowhere else for us to go. Turns out, Dad hadn’t paid their property taxes in years, and when Mom died… Well, there’s a lot of back taxes. And there are structural repairs that need to be done—”

  “You should have told me,” I tell her again, not unkindly.

  She gives me a hard look. “Why?”

  “Because I could have done something about it.” What, I don’t know. Even if it were making her a partner earlier, I would have done so. I know that the money I’m giving her for our agreement is helping, but I could have done so much more.

  She shakes her head. “I don’t want your pity.”

  I stare at her, aghast. “It’s not pity, Max. It’s kindness.”

  She swallows and licks her lips before she gives a dark chuckle. “Kindness?”

  She looks pained at the thought. There’s something else she’s not telling me.

  “If I don’t know, I can’t help,” I tell her. “And I want to help.”

  “Why?” she asks, her bottom lip trembling.

  “Because…” Now it’s my turn for my voice to trail off as I reflect on what I should say. Instead, I just stare at her. My gaze trails to her full lips, which still have hints from the rouge lipstick she was wearing earlier. We stay like this, too far apart to be lovers but too close to be coworkers.

  So many lines have been crossed, but learning about her like this, I want to keep learning more. To get under her skin and help her shed all her layers and just be the real Max.

  “Damien?” she asks breathlessly.

  “Yes?”

  She pulls back, looking even more vulnerable. “It’s time for you to go home.”

  Not “I think it’s time” or “You should probably go home.”’ She’s telling me to leave, and I feel the sting in my chest at her words.

  “Okay,” I say, even though it pains me.

  That releases me from her spell and Max immediately pops to her feet and goes into the kitchen to grab the phone to call me an Uber. I released my limo a long time ago, so I’m on my own to head back into the city.

  I sit back, feeling that sense of rejection festering in my chest. I clench my jaw, fighting every urge I have to follow her.

  “Sorry,” I murmur. I don’t know what I’m sorry for, not exactly. Only that I wish I could fix whatever is happening between us.

  12

  I’ll be in late. Need to make sure that Gotham is alright before work. Don’t wait for me in the morning.

  I stop in the doorway of my apartment, frowning down at Max’s text on my phone. I tell myself that I’m not disappointed.

  I have no reason to doubt her motives for not coming to collect me tomorrow like she always does. After all, Gotham does need his mother.

  It’s not because she’s avoiding me.

  It’s not because she doesn’t want to be alone with me.

  It’s just because she’s doing what she does best—being Max and taking care of business. That’s what she always does, and it’s what I can always depend on her to do. And not because she’s afraid of whatever’s happening between us.

  I’m afraid of it, too. Terrified. Because all I can think about is how much nicer my apartment would feel with her in it. She lights up the room wherever she is, even in the mornings when I grumble at her for waking me up.

  I want her to be the first thing I see in the morning.

  “Fuck.” I squeeze my eyes shut and rub them. I’ve just had a long day, I tell myself. The Met Gala, then going to the hospital, meeting her family. Seeing her interact with her son and her father.

  Seeing that I’m not a part of her inner circle.

  She’s a woman in her early thirties, a divorcée, a hard-as-nails personal-assistant-turned-partner, damn intelligent, and holds me accountable for everything I do. She’s not like the Zaras or the Nadyas or the Beccas or any number of women I’ve shown the barest amount of interest in.

  She’s a one-in-a-million kind of woman. Actually, in the thousands of years of my existence, I’ve never met anyone like her.

  I open up the liquor cabinet and pour myself another scotch. “Sorry, Dionysus,” I mutte
r to the god of wine, raising my glass to the air. I seem to be drinking a lot of scotch lately, but there are just some occasions that call for it.

  I take my drink with me to my chair, noticing how uncomfortable it is to sit down in. I sigh and lean back, closing my eyes again, and resting.

  I inspect my scotch before taking a sip and chuckle to myself.

  There’s going to be fallout from tonight, and not just from learning more about Max than she wanted me to. I’m sure someone noticed that we left the gala early and that Max looked upset. I was speaking truthfully that it would be best if I came along with her—at least it would seem like we reconciled.

  The truth about us going to the hospital for Gotham would help ease the headlines, but I wouldn’t do that to her. I wouldn’t break my promise and expose her family to the world of glitz and glam and scrutiny.

  Whatever happens, happens.

  And poor Steven is going to have to deal with that headache.

  “Better him than me.” Even though it’s my reputation on the line.

  I’ll just have to figure it out tomorrow. For now, scotch is my only friend.

  And love is my worst enemy.

  “Isn’t that ironic?” I murmur aloud with a smirk. “That love will be the undoing of the god of love?”

  Light streams in from the window, and I blink a few times, confused as to why the sun seems so high and why I fell asleep in my chair. Isn’t it Tuesday? Did we have the day off from work?

  Where is Max with her sardonic attitude and a cup of coffee?

  Everything from the day before hits me like an arrow up the ass.

  “Shit.”

  I jerk forward and dart my gaze around, looking for my phone. I remember through the thick fog of my hangover that I had it at the door to my apartment, then got myself a drink…

  I shuffle over to the wet bar—definitely drank too much scotch last night—and see my phone on the counter. Dead.

  No wonder my alarm didn’t go off. And without Max coming here to wake me up, I must have overslept.

  I muss my hair as I glance at the clock on the kitchen stove. Ten in the morning.

  “Shit.”

  I’m twenty minutes late for work. Never mind that I’ve overslept and am nowhere near ready. And I have no idea what appointments I’ve missed because my phone is dead. I plug it into the wall and quickly turn it on. Without waiting for it to power up fully, I run to my bathroom and take a shower in record time. I don’t even bother to dry off before wrapping a white towel around my hips and padding back out to my phone, meaning to check it.

  Then my front door opens, and Max stands there with a shocked expression on her face. Her eyes go immediately to my toweled waist, then up my abs to my face as her cheeks turn redder and redder.

  Her eyes narrow, and something like hurt flashes in them.

  “I see now why you’re late to work,” she says in a cold voice.

  I blink, glance down at my towel, and realize where her thoughts must be. “It’s not what it looks like. I just had a little too much to drink and spent the night in my chair.” I gesture behind me to make my point. “And I apparently can’t function without you.”

  I wish I hadn’t been so truthful in that last statement.

  “Trust me,” I add, to appeal to her better senses.

  “So Nadya isn’t here?” she asks.

  I make a face of disgust. “Nadya? You mean that angry woman I woke up in bed with? Why the hell would she be here?”

  She shakes her head and gives a short laugh. “You really did just wake up, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I say in a wry tone gesturing to my mostly naked body. “Why?”

  She regards me for a long moment before nodding toward my phone. “Check the news.”

  I’m almost afraid as I pick up my phone, unlock it and then thumb over to the gossip sites.

  CUPID BREAKS PARTNER’S HEART, the headline says, accompanied by a picture of Max and me waiting for the limo outside the museum. She looks clearly distressed, and the framing of the photo seems to have me far away from her.

  “Slow news day?” I ask with a fake smile.

  She sighs, exasperated. “It was the Met Gala, Damien. It was supposed to be a big deal, regardless of how it went.”

  Yes, but this is all being blown way out of context. Even still… “No wardrobe malfunctions on the red carpet this year?”

  She shakes her head.

  “No other, bigger celebrities had a worse night? Nothing else happened?”

  She shakes her head after every question, and I groan. Trust the entire world to have a good day while Max and I were under the microscope. One misstep, which isn’t even a misstep, and it’s all taken out of context.

  “And that’s not all,” she adds. “Check out TMZ.”

  With a sick feeling in my stomach, I type in the web address, and there it is.

  WHY IS SHE SAD? IS CUPID BACK TOGETHER WITH FORMER LOVER?

  There aren’t any accompanying pictures, other than a terrible shot of the outside of my apartment building from some paparazzi asshole. “What the hell?” I ask, scrolling through it.

  And I see why Max thought I had spent the night with Nadya. There’s an exclusive with her, where she’s “revealing” that I’m still seeing her while playing Max for a fool. The worst part is, since I did sleep with her, she’s able to speak to certain things about my apartment and Maxine herself. She says that she won’t be a witness for Elena Stamos’s lawsuit, as she and I are getting serious.

  I snort. “What the actual fuck?”

  Max nods. “That’s what I said,” she admits. “Actual words, too.”

  I look at her, feeling helpless. “Max, I promise, I’m not seeing that crazy bitch.”

  Her lips press together. “When you didn’t show up on time, and I came here to see you like I always do, I thought… I thought…”

  I cross my living room and cup her cheek in my hand. She doesn’t shy away from my touch, only looks up at me with those huge green eyes that are a combination of relieved, distressed, and something else that takes me by surprise.

  Desire. That’s what I see swirling around too.

  “Hey,” I whisper to her. “I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t jeopardize everything by doing something so stupid.”

  She licks her lips, and my gaze trails down to look at how full they are. I remember what it’s been like to kiss her over the past few weeks. Each of those was for show, but this…I could kiss her in private.

  And figure out what to do about us from there.

  She swallows and steps out from my fingertips. “Well, I’m glad you’re not that stupid.”

  I smirk. “I’m going to sue Nadya’s ass for libel and slander.”

  I may not be the god of war, but holy shit, I can play the god of wrath for a bit while I smite her from existence. Zeus has doomed people to Tartarus for less.

  She sighs. “You could, but if the damage is done—”

  “We will recover from this, Max,” I promise her. “I’m not going to lose my business. You will have a job. You have a son to take care of.”

  Not to mention that if my matchmaking services fail and I’m out of the love business, that could really hurt love all over the world. But a mortal wouldn’t worry about things like that. A mortal wouldn’t tell her those kinds of things.

  So I keep my mouth shut.

  “Thank you,” she says, closing her eyes. “That’s why I came over when you didn’t show up to work this morning. Steven called. He’s on his way to the office.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” I assure her. “One little hiccup isn’t going to undo everything that we’ve worked for.”

  “That’s a pretty damn big hiccup.”

  I shrug. “Sure keeps things interesting.”

  She nods toward my room. “Go get dressed.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I know that she hates when I call her that.

  I leave the door to my bedroom open so that I can
talk to her while I get dressed.

  “Sorry I overslept,” I call out as I slip on a pair of boxer briefs. I grab a suit from its hanger in the closet and start putting each piece on.

  “Sorry I wasn’t here this morning,” she counters from the living room.

  I chuckle. “You have to take care of what’s important. How is Gotham doing?” I ask, trying to smooth over today’s bad start.

  “He’s much better, thank you.” A pause. “He woke up asking if you were still there.”

  “He seems like a good kid.”

  “The best,” she says in that way mothers do when talking about their children. Like there’s no one better in their eyes, which is the way it should be. I can tell that Max is in a constant state of worry over him, and looking back, I’m a fool for not realizing it sooner.

  But he is her son. And the most important person in her life.

  I finish getting dressed and head out to the living room once again to see her eating some wasabi peas while flicking through some gossip mags featuring us.

  “I see you found my snack drawer,” I tell her as I slip my phone into my pocket.

  “I stock your snack drawer,” she retorts without looking up. “Therefore, I can have whatever snacks I want.”

  And she’s right, so I don’t have any room to protest.

  She turns a page and pauses at a picture of us at dinner from a few nights ago. It was a more casual place, so we’re both dressed smartly, but not in an overly sophisticated way. It was probably the most relaxed we’ve been around each other.

  “We look pretty happy here,” she admits softly.

  “We do. And that’s why we will turn those headlines around.”

  She looks at the picture for a moment longer before slamming it shut and looking back at me. Her eyes widen, and I’m not sure what she sees in my face, but her cheeks redden again as our gazes meet. I don’t look any different than I have previously, so I don’t know why she looks so startled, but I hold out the crook of my elbow for her.

  She gives me a dubious look before slipping her arm through mine.

  “Come on,” I say, opening the door. “Let’s show them that those headlines are wrong and that we’re two people madly in love.”