“Are you sure you don’t want to leave?” he asked as he stood before me.
Persephone nudged my side, smirked, and then strode over to Hermes, leaving Gavin and me alone. I smiled at Gavin.
“I didn’t mean to cause a fight,” I said. “I was halfway teasing him.”
“You’ll find it doesn’t take much to start a fight with us,” he said.
“It’s that time,” Hermes announced.
Gavin and I turned our attention to the awaiting sunrise, as did everyone else. Hermes looked at his watch and counted down the time.
“Three… Two…”
I had to blink. I thought perhaps it was a mirage, that the desert was playing a trick on me. But there, in the heat shimmer of the sun, rose an oasis.
An oasis of sprawling gardens and pools, of a palace and villas, seated a mile away in the middle of green grasses and trimmed hedges. My mouth nearly dropped at the scene.
“So dramatic,” Aphrodite muttered with a roll of her eyes. She pushed off the front of her car, her gaze wandering back to the expansive garden estate, and then she gave an upward nod to Ares. “Let’s go.”
Ares revved up his motorcycle, and as Gavin and I jumped into the Jeep again, the God of War led our brigade through the wrought-iron gates.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE - CHLOE
I DON’T KNOW what I had expected when we drove down the lush driveway and came upon a grand fountain with a statue of who I could only assume was Zeus in the middle. I could practically hear Aphrodite rolling her eyes at it, and the thought made me snicker.
“What?” Gavin asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just thinking about what your mother is more than likely saying about that statue.”
“She’ll probably knock it over by the end of the weekend,” he replied.
“What—no, she….” But my voice trailed at the look on his face. “Oh, you’re serious.”
“She might trash the entire house,” he said with a shrug. “It’s a favorite pastime.”
“Why, exactly, does she do this?” I asked.
“They have an ongoing feud.” He switched hands on the wheel. “One day they’re fine, the next they’re not. Rumors flew around once about them having an affair, but I doubt it. It’s honestly tiresome keeping up with it.”
I smiled sideways at him. “You know, you like to play like you’re always angry with your mother. But you love her. You love her schemes and her attitude and everything else that she is,” I teased him.
Gavin sighed. “It’s a hard relationship,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because she once used me as more of a henchman than her son,” he admitted. “I thought the world of her.”
“What changed?”
“Ah…you,” he answered, and I sank back into my seat. “When I married you, I was supposed to be getting rid of you. It was the first thing I did counter to what she asked, and it opened up a lot of old wounds. And, most recently, it’s been tough with her again because of something else she’s done.”
“What did she do?”
He looked at me for a long moment. “She erased you,” he finally said. “After you were stolen from me and I couldn’t find you, she erased you from memory so I wouldn’t be in pain.”
My ears began to ring. “She’s the reason I can’t remember you?”
“I don’t know about your memory,” he said. “Your lost memory is different. I think it has to do with the person who kidnapped you. But everyone else… yeah.”
