Page 17 of The Gods Forbid

That stopped me in my fucking tracks. “What?”

Persy was standing on the front step now, framed by even more flowers and vines. It looked like Demeter threw up on her house, it was covered in so many plants. Her fingers were running over a few leaves on the post next to her. “Thankfully, one of the last things Demeter did before choosing to end her line was to charm the house so the plants stay alive. It would be too much for me to handle,” Persy said.

Could she read my fucking thoughts?

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said, voice thin. She had a habit of that.

“Oh,” Persy said, standing up straight and blinking. “Sorry.” Wait. Did she think I was chastising her? Against my better judgment, I opened my mouth to say—

“Yes, this is my house,” Persy said, moving to the door. “And yours too, for the next five months.”

“No.” There was no fucking way I was living with her.

Persy smiled despite the bite in my tone. “You don’t have much of a choice, I’m afraid. I don’t want to make any of the other residents uncomfortable by having a god living in their quarters and you do have to live here for six months. So, this is the best solution. Don’t worry. I have a spare bedroom. No one has to sleep on a couch or anything.”

“Is that what you think my objection is?” I asked, deciding to just voice my thoughts instead of leaving them as internal quips. “That I’d be sleeping on a fucking couch?”

Persy shrugged one of her shoulders, momentarily drawing my attention to her collarbones. “That doesn’t sound very comfortable, especially not for an extended period of time.” She really needed to stop reminding me how long this sentence was. Five. Months. And under the same roof as her.

“The answer is still no.” This was not fucking happening. How did she not understand how insane this was.

Persy smiled, soft and a touch too close to pitying. “Like I said, you don’t have much of a choice.”

I breathed in. Then clenched my jaw. Then curled my hand into a fist. None of that seemed to do anything but make me want to snap her gorgeous little neck for coming up with this.

Clearly, her brother wasn’t the mastermind concocting all the ways to torture me until I caved and appointed an heir.

She was.

And I was two seconds away from caving just so I didn’t have to live under her roof.

“Well,” Persy said, taking my silence as concession. “Follow me.”

It took a full ten seconds for me to make my feet move and follow her over the threshold of her home. And when I did, I was immediately assaulted by a home that looked exactly like her.

Everything was bright and soft, bathed in warm neutrals but still rich with color that looked natural and cohesive. The house wasn’t large—a problem in and of itself. There was a small living room off to the left, mainly taken up by a large couch and plush chairs.

Fuck, if she had friends over I’d bury myself alive.

That room fed directly into the kitchen, where there was a small table and chairs made of the same rich wood. I glanced quickly over the kitchen, forcing myself not to pay too much attention.

Kitchens told you too much about someone. I didn’t give a damn whether Persy cooked or not. What she kept well stocked. How she took her coffee or tea.

None of that mattered.

“Right,” Persy said, her voice bright with excitement. “As you can see this is the living room and kitchen.” There was sun streaming through the windows, illuminating her figure perfectly as she moved around her space. She trailed her fingers along the coral marble on her kitchen island and I forced my eyes back up to her face.

It was no lesser evil.

“You’re welcome to anything in the kitchen,” she said, her voice picking up in the way that I learned meant she was about to talk without caring whether or not I was listening to her. I leaned against the door frame, crossing my arms over my chest and preparing to follow her words. “Do you cook?” I made no move to answer. “I think you cook. You look like the sort.”

I would not ask what she meant by that. “How can someone look like they cook?”

Dammit.

Persy gave me a slow, observant once over that made me clench my jaw so hard I thought I was going to crack a tooth. “You have strong hands and arms. And if you love painting, it makes sense that you would enjoy cooking, too. It’s an art form, really. I’m hopeless at it, so if you can cook, that would be great. But Kostas preps some stuff for me, so I’m sure he can for you, too.”

I’d stopped listening after she told me I had strong hands and arms. I did cook, in fact. And I would be now, if not to just to shove those hands and arms right in her face. It was nothing less than what she deserved. “I cook.”