Page 224

“Don’t Aphrodite me! You knew I was broken and you took advantage of me.”

RJ lunged on top of him.

My mom screamed as RJ flung punch after punch.

“I really don’t want to hit your brother, Aphrodite!” Adonis called over to me.

Last time this happened, I’d wanted to help. This time I didn’t. My friends were just having my back. The way I’d thought Adonis did.

Liam pulled on the back of RJ’s t-shirt. “He’s not worth it,” he said calmly.

I’d never heard anything more true in my life.

RJ sighed and got to his feet. “Get the hell out of my house,” he said to Adonis.

Adonis sighed as he brushed off his tux. “Would everyone just give me a second to explain?” He slowly stood up and wiped the blood off the side of his face. “I’m sorry about how this started.” His green eyes locked on mine. “But I’m here with you right now. It’s you and me. I can’t take back the earlier stuff, but it doesn’t matter. It led us here. And I love you.”

“It matters to me!”

He closed the distance between us and reached out to wipe my tears away, but I swatted his hand.

“I can’t even look at you,” I said.

“But it was the same,” he whispered. “I liked your mom and you liked Hephaestus. It’s why we bonded so quickly.”

“It’s not the same.” We’d already been over this. “Hephaestus wasn’t your dad. And...his name isn’t Hephaestus! You’re Hephaestus.”

Adonis shook his head. “Don’t call me that.”

“You’re the mistake,” I said.

“Aphrodite...”

“Stop it!” I screamed. “Just stop with your manipulative bullshit. You like my mom. Well, sucks to be you. Because she loves my dad and he’s the best man I know. He’s a million times better than you. Because he’d never hurt me.”

“Aphrodite...”

“I’m not a goddess. I’m a broken mess!” Again. He’d broken me again. “Which you knew. You picked me as an easy target.”

“That’s not how it was,” Adonis said.

“Then how was it?!”

He opened his mouth and closed it again.

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

“Baby girl, allow me to intervene for a moment,” my dad said. He grabbed Adonis by the back of his neck.

I expected my mom to tell my dad to stop.

I also expected my dad to walk Adonis to the door.

But neither of those things happened.

It looked like my mom wanted Adonis dead.

And my dad walked him over to the corner of the room. My dad kept his hand on the back of Adonis’ neck as he touched the corner of a painting on the wall.