“Fate is a person?”
“Three sisters—weaving goddesses who assign destinies at birth. Clotho is the spinner of life’s thread, the beginning. Lachesis weaves the destiny and Atropos cuts the thread at the time of death.”
“Lachesis is the middle, the years between?” Cordelia asked.
“Your fate and destiny had already been determined and it wouldn’t have mattered if your memory would have been taken away or not.”
“I thought Gaia made the determination with her vines.”
“Cordelia, they are all goddesses.”
She closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath. Damon knew that it was much to take in. Gods and goddesses were characters in books and had been dismissed as myths.
“I wish I had a better way to offer you proof but I do not.” If he could summon Poseidon and have him emerge from the sea before them, he would. But a Greek god would not appear for Damon, a mere mortal, to help him win his love.
His love.
Cordelia was his love, even if it took a flowering vine to set him free and accept what he’d been fighting since he met her.
“Why me?” she asked in a whisper.
“Why not you?” Damon returned.
She wantedto believe with all her heart that this was real. That Damon truly wanted her and that the vine, or the goddess, had chosen her for him, as if she were special. And as much as she dismissed her grandfather’s angry words, she’d lived with what she believed to be true for eleven years so it wasn’t easy to set them aside.
Damon looked down at her. “I didn’t need a vine to tell me what I already knew. The vine gave me permission.”
“I don’t understand.” Permission for what? To not wed a witch as he’d told her right before he kissed her.
“I knew almost instantly that you were to be mine even if I did not realize it at the time.”
Cordelia did trust him but wasn’t so certain now.
“When I was first introduced to you in Brighid’s shop, I wondered how I couldn’t have met you previously and that I would have certainly remembered someone as lovely as you.”
“Don’t.” She did not want him to say kind things to her, such as being lovely, because her grandfather said she wasn’t pretty.
“I only speak the truth, Cordelia.”
She prayed that he did.
“My first thought was that you were also petite but filled out your bodice quite nicely.”
“Damon!” she chastised as her face grew warm.
“You wanted honesty and that is what I’m giving you, no matter how much it may embarrass you because you’ve got to believe that you are meant for me and I am meant for you.”
She wanted to resist him, but already she was growing warm under the heat of his gaze.
“You didn’t want to accompany me to look for Ianthe, yet you did. I was fairly certain that you didn’t even like me and I found you quite refreshing after the misses that I’d met in London.”
“I’m certain they all loved you.” She grinned up at him, but it was tight and challenging.
“Oh, they loved the idea of being a viscountess and future marchioness. I’m really not certain what any of them truly thought of me.”
Her smile slipped. That was rather disheartening, but she’d seen it happen over and over. “I’m surprised you trust any female.”
He laughed. “I don’t, but I trusted you. I don’t know why because as a rule, I’ve always avoided misses as they were traps that led to matrimony, yet I found myself noting that you were prettier than most with your golden hair and perfectly plump and kissable lips. I even surprised myself because in addition to avoiding misses, I had certainly never considered kissing one, especially upon meeting them.”
