Accidentally Aphrodite (19 page)

“Duh. Especially if it’s some awesome Greek god.”

“If only my blood were that pure. My father was a poor peasant my mother fell in love with for about twenty-two seconds because a rival of hers had her eye on him. Then she dumped him. This was long before birth control was invented. He was a total mortal, but a great, honest, hardworking guy. Taught me to love my mom for who she was instead of offering her my love as ransom if she’d just change her wicked ways. But it was a long road getting there. Which was how I inherited babysitting the apple to begin with. From her anger when I wouldn’t produce grandchildren with just anyone because she said I should.”

Quinn’s eyes flew wide open in surprise. “So you’re half mortal?”

“Technically speaking, yep.”

“So you sort of know my struggle with a strong, willful mother.”

“Sort of,” he responded. “My mother and I butted heads for many centuries over her poor behavior. She was a vengeful, exceptionally vain woman. Not in the violent, I’ll-rip-your-limbs-off way, but in a spiteful, I’ll-steal-your-man, have-your-luscious-hair-shaved-off-your-head-and-make-sure-it-never-grows-back kind of way. My father’s the one who taught me patience and the value of kindness.”

How bizarre to hear these insider stories after spending so much of her life reading about the gods. “You say your mother
was
vengeful and vain. She’s not anymore?”

“Oh, she’s still plenty vain, and we tease her incessantly about it by giving her gilded hand mirrors and wrinkle cream for Christmas. But she’s mellowed over time. It’s not that she wasn’t a decent enough parent to me, because believe it or not, she was. Always around, always there when you needed her. But she’s had some moments we’ve argued over. My father taught me to stand my ground if I believed I was right—and I did. Not always without detriment to my person,” he said on a chuckle.

“So when she wanted you to marry and have children, she got angry with you and saddled you with the apple out of spite.”

“She thought I was too much like her. Too busy playing the field, irresponsible, etcetera, and the apple was her lesson to me. And I let her
think
I was too busy playing the field.”

Wait. What? “
Let
her think you were bed-hopping?”

“Yep. I worked hard at creating that reputation, too. A well-cultivated plan, if I do say so myself. I used plenty of my mother’s tricks. I made up rumors, was seen in all the right places. I wasn’t going to end up with the wrong person because of my mother’s whim. I’d rather end up with the apple forever than be mated to the wrong person. I didn’t do it out of spite. I did it out of a sense of integrity. What would my father’s legacy mean if I wasn’t true not just to myself, but the person I chose to spend the rest of my immortality with?”

Her mouth fell open.

He traced a finger over the outline of her lips, making her fight a shiver. “Your mouth is open.”

“That’s me and my astonishment. Give me a minute and it’ll close on its own.”

Khristos laughed, his minty breath fanning her face. “I sense you have a million questions, grasshopper.”

Yeah, like who knew this man she’d totally believed had chosen the bed sport as his life’s mission was so honorable? “Maybe more like a million and two—”

The sound of knuckles against the door made them both jump apart.

“Dinner, lovebirds! Knock off the spit-swap in there!” Nina called from behind the door.

Quinn cleared her throat and slipped under his arm, reaching for the door. “We’d better get out there before my mother finds out you’re not gay and makes it her mission in life to tack your manhood to her wall—but we’re not done here, Khristos with a K!”

She scooted out the door and around the corner to find her mother and everyone gathered at the table. Steaming bowls of food lined the center, just like the first night she’d come home after her initial bout with matchmaking.

Seeing all these people crammed into her apartment did exactly what it had the first night she’d witnessed it.

It made her smile. Filled her with warmth and friendship.

Until her mother just couldn’t let well enough alone.

As Archibald prepared to slice the roast—a roast surrounded by fat red new potatoes, roasted carrots so orange they glistened under the glow of the candles; a roast that looked as though it had been pulled from the pages of a cooking magazine—he struggled with Quinn’s one and only knife. A dull one that should have been sharpened long ago.

“So much for letting it
sit
,” her mother said with a sneer of ugly glee.

Nina nudged Helen with a roll of her eyes. “Aw, c’mon, Mini-Mom. Didn’t we just talk about this? Put your napkin in your lap, sit quietly, and behave.”

Helen shrugged, tugging on the ends of her shortly bobbed hair. “I’m just making mention, men know nothing…”

Her mother’s voice trailed off then, becoming a muted babble of sound. A sound that Quinn could no longer bear—and that’s when something inside her snapped.

The break was almost physical, cracking in her ears when she popped up out of her chair and pointed at her mother.
“Get out!”

There was a hushed silence that followed, painful and without even one gasp.

Helen looked up at her. “Excuse me, young lady?”

Quinn pushed her chair out and grabbed the back of her mother’s, dragging it from the table. “I said get out!
Get out now
. Take your anger and your man-hate and your fury-filled rants about anything and everything you touch and quit shitting all over my life!”

Nina was the first to rise, putting a hand on Quinn’s shoulder and squeezing so hard, she almost buckled. “Kiddo, chill. Think about this.”

But Quinn brushed Nina’s hand from her shoulder, her own shaking. “No! No more thinking, Nina! No more endless, ungrateful, angry, hateful words! These people are here to help me, Mom.
Me,
during one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through. But you wouldn’t know that because you didn’t even ask me how I was. Not from the moment you put your foot over the threshold of my home. They put their families, their children, their lives on hold just to help
me
, and I will not have you taking unfair potshots at them because
you
hate your life and men and an endless assortment of things I can’t even keep track of anymore. This is my home. Mine, and I don’t want it filled with your vitriol! Now,
get—out
!” she roared, stomping toward the door and opening it with a harsh yank.

For the first time in Helen Morris’s life, she didn’t say anything. She gathered her purse and her coat, thin-lipped and a face full of fury, and leave she did.

To the stunned surprise of everyone in the room.

Chapter 11

Q
uinn gasped for breath as she hung on to the doorknob and slammed the door behind her mother’s retreating form.

She closed her eyes, letting what she’d just done wash over her in wave after wave of sadness.

Khristos approached her first, his tall frame blocking everyone else out. He brushed the hair from her eyes.

But she shook her head, reaching for her own coat on the rack by the door, tears swelling in her eyes, her throat threatening to close up. “Don’t. I just can’t right now. I need…time. Just a little
. Please
.”

Nina dug Quinn’s phone out of her purse and put it in her hand as Marty gently wrapped a scarf around her neck and Wanda tucked her gloves in the pocket of her jacket. “Call. Call if you need me—or us,” Nina said. “We’re never far behind.”

She took one last look at Khristos before she ran up the stairs and broke into a light jog, ignoring her still sore ankle, ignoring the people she almost crashed into, ignoring everything but the need to flee her mother’s oppressive hatred.

As her lungs began to burn, and her foot began to throb, she slowed down near one of her favorite parks where a swing set sat, abandoned in light of the freezing weather and hour of the day.

A sob finally escaped her lips when she sat on the swing—one of the deepest sorrows she’d ever experienced. Her mother was toxic, unable to climb out of her pit of anguish mired in hatred, but Quinn’s heart was breaking for her.

Though the theme in their lives had almost always been a paranoia-filled rant of get-them-before-they-get-you, there had been good times. Few and far between, but still good.

But tonight…tonight when she was so happy about the matches she’d made, when she wanted to share that joy with someone—with anyone—she’d wished more than ever she could share it with her mother.

To hear her dig at the OOPS clan was the very last straw.

Leaning against the chain holding the swing, she let the years of frustration and fighting happen. Let them swell up inside, rising and falling with each memory that took her further and further away from her mother.

And she cried, tears dripping down her cheeks to splash on the hard dirt at her feet, her face raw from the salty wetness pelted by the cold wind, her heart one big ache.

She didn’t care if crying made her weak. She had to let this relationship with her mother go, this soul-eating, agonizing tug-of-war go, or end up swallowed by the toxic waste, bobbing along until another hit came her way.

But she was damn well going to mourn it the way it deserved before she did.

Her sobs wrenched from her chest, a physical stab to her flesh with each gasp for air until hands, firm and strong, wrapped around her waist and pulled her from the swing.

Scooping her up, Khristos carried her to the park bench, tucking her to him and cradling her close as he sat down.

He set his chin on top of her head, now curled into his neck, and rocked her, a soothing lull of slow, rhythmic ease. His free hand cupped her face, letting her bury her chin in his shoulder.

She didn’t know how long they sat that way or when her tears began to subside, but as the heartache of so many years full of anguish began to lessen, she realized something.

This was what she wanted in a man. A man who would silently hold her in the stormy sea of torment. A man who would provide safe harbor without condemnation or judgment.

“I kicked my mother out of my house,” she finally said, her throat hoarse and raw.

“You sure did.”

“I was awful.”

He stroked her hair and continued to rock. “Nah. This has been coming for a long time. With the added pressure of being Aphrodite, you were bound to blow. I won’t say I don’t wish the two of you had found a better way to work this out, but it’s a wakeup call for you both.”

“Says the man whose mother tied him to an apple for eternity.”

Khristos chuckled. “Says the man who willingly guards it in order to stick to his guns for eternity. What you did tonight was stick to your guns, Quinn. Was it harsh and heated? Yep. But there has to come a time in your life when you stand up for what you want and let go of what’s hurting you. You want to live a life full of love and happiness, and your mother only brings her worst to the table. It’s hard to hold your head up above the water when someone’s always dunking it back under. But you did.”

She shuddered against him. Oh, she did all right. She really did. “I don’t know what happened. I just lost it completely. Archibald had made such a beautiful meal and to have her pick it apart…one more hateful criticism and I think I would have lost my mind.”

“And now you have to mend it.”

She sat up and looked him in the eye. “Are you kidding me? My mother’s never going to let that go—not ever. In her mind, I was disrespectful and rude and that won’t go without some serious begging and scraping. I can’t beg her to forgive me for telling her the truth, and I can’t accept the way she behaves anymore. It hurts.”

Khristos cupped her cheek, wiping the remaining tears from her face while she fought not to curl into the warmth of his palm. “Will you come somewhere with me? There’s something I need to show you.”

She slid off his lap more for her own self-preservation than her desire to go anywhere but straight to bed and bury herself under the covers. “Sure,” she murmured.

Darnell popped out from behind an oak tree and smiled, his eyes sad. He held open his arms to her and she walked right into them without hesitation. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m on bad-guy watch and hug patrol,” he said on a chuckle, giving her a tight, warm squeeze. “So you ready, Miss Quinn?”

She took a step back from his comforting embrace. “For?”

“Hold my hand,” he said. “You, too, big guy.”

In seconds, they were on a quiet sidewalk beneath a streetlamp.

Her eyes went wide. “Did we just…?” Had he just…No. She couldn’t say it. It was too surreal.

Darnell grinned and snapped his fingers, the flash of his rings gleaming. “Poof. Just like that. I’ll be across the street if ya need me, Boss.” Hands in his pockets, the demon strolled off to a small square across the street with the wink of his eye.

Khristos pulled her to him and pointed. “Look over there, Quinn. Right inside that big picture window.”

She peered in the direction of his finger and saw her mother.

Helen sat with Maude, one of her oldest friends, at a small table inside a charming café with red tablecloths and candles encased in enormous black lanterns. The glow made her face look softer, kinder, her eyes less like laser beams of death.

Maude was a nice woman she’d only met from time to time on her rare visits to Jersey. She’d been surprised by their friendship, due to Maude’s easygoing nature. Maude was cookies and milk and her hair all done up in a soft, graying bun at the back of her head. Soft-spoken, gentle, easy to talk to. All the things her mother wasn’t.

But seeing her mother looking across the table at Maude, with an expression she never though Helen capable of, dredged up residual hurt for Quinn.

She thought she was done after throwing her mother out of her apartment, but that helpless, angry thread she’d clung to when she’d screamed at her mother just wouldn’t let her go.

Quinn wanted to rush in and demand she take back all the horrible words she’d flung at these people who were so giving, who’d stuck out this Aphrodite thing with her, because her mother was looking at Maude in a way she’d never looked at Quinn. And it hurt.