How odd. One wasn’t supposed to physically feel it. Or feel it on any level, for that matter.
It took everything I had in me to rein that part of me in. It was like he needed to know what was in her heart. For some reason it was of the utmost importance to him. Which made it feel consequential to me.
She rubbed her chest.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I turned and walked us back, careful when stepping over the tree.
Demi looked anywhere but at me, and she fidgeted in my arms, refusing to be comfortable in them.
I appreciated it—her discomfort, her refusal to settle—as I tried not to focus on how good she felt in my arms. Or how wrong it was for her to be there.
She was a cast member.
A thorn in my side.
But being this close to her had me seeing the rose more than feeling the prick. And what a rose she was. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen one so lovely. Or so guarded. But the longer I held her, the more I wondered—were the thorns her defense mechanism? And what had made her feel like she needed them?
After several minutes in silence pondering this, I couldn’t help but ask, “Why have you always hated me?”
She slowly turned her head, an unexpected sheen misting her eyes. “You were supposed to be different.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just what I said.”
“Well, you were supposed to be different too.” That sounded triter and more immature than I’d meant for it to, but something about what she’d said sounded like an accusation. One I didn’t feel I deserved. Yet it bothered me more than I wanted to admit. How was I supposed to be different? Who did she think I was supposed to be?
“Believe me, I know,” she whispered.
Her contrition caught me off guard. There was no pretense in her voice. No deflection. Just a quiet raw devastation.
And suddenly, I wasn’t sure who had been more wrong about whom all these years.
Chapter XII
Demi
Isatontheporch, soaking in the midday sun while Cassie was doing her first interview with Roman and getting a style consult. If only I could be a fly on the wall. But I was sure I would hear all about it tonight.
Meanwhile, I was having a mini crisis.
Not only was my great-grandfather throwing lightning bolts at me like confetti on this forsaken quest, but he’d also decided to toss Roman into my path and make the man be nice to me. Zeus had obviously undone Cassie’s charms where Roman was concerned, and he’d kept Lady Goldy from warding him off.
Why?
So I could lament how attractive Roman was up close. How the gold flecks in his eyes looked like little rays of sunshine. If that wasn’t unsettling enough. The divine half of me was losing her mind over him. Seriously, she was a fan of his chiseled chest and jaw. Don’t even get her going on that painted on perfectly sculpted beard of his.
If her fangirling weren’t enough, every touch from him made my heart ache as if it remembered that once upon a time it used to be alive. It was almost as if my heart was angryat me for locking it. Like it wanted to connect with the Cupid part of Roman. And that part of him was persistent, like it had a personal vendetta to settle with me. He was banging on my heart’s door so hard that it physically hurt.
On one hand, it gave me some hope that my heart wasn’t dead and that if true love came knocking, it would unlock. But the divine in me was rooting for Roman to turn that key. It was like she was egging on his divine side in a game she refused to lose. Obviously, it was a fruitless endeavor. But I worried she was going to keep getting him to try.
It didn’t help that I could read Roman’s heart. He liked the makeover. A lot. Physically, he was totally attracted to me. But he didn’t like that he was. The contradiction pulsed through him—desire tangled in confusion and maybe even some resentment.
I resented him too. Resented that he was acting more like how I’d thought he would back when we were younger. Although that was probably all Zeus’s doing. Yet, I saw the boy I used to watch from my balcony laughing on the beach and politely carrying and setting up beach umbrellas for strangers. Once I’d even seen him risk his life to save a drowning child who had gotten swept out by the ocean current. For a split second in his arms that morning, I’d seen the boy who I’d thought—who I’d hoped—would see the real me . . . instead of what I’d become on the outside.
