Page 56 of Ungodly Rich

Though Aphrodite suspected he broke his word on occasion. There was no chance it would still be raining at Ares and Julia’s engagement party that Friday.

A party that was still happening, despite Aphrodite’s attempts to scare Julia off.

She headed toward the front staircase, only to pause at the door to Eros’s room. Voices sounded inside: the low rumble of Hephaestus’s murmur, followed by Eros’s childish giggle.

She hesitated a beat before pushing open the door.

The nursery had always been Aphrodite’s favorite room of theMayfair house. Its walls were covered in a whimsical William Morris print—real nineteenth-century wallpaper, not the new patterns they were churning out now, but an old one of tigers gamboling through trees. Scattered throughout the room were a painted train set, an old-fashioned rocking horse, and a massive stuffed giraffe, the kind that you would find on the display floor at Fortnum & Mason.

Eros sat at the child-sized table. Hephaestus sprawled next to him, his legs stretched out on the carpet, a bowl of vanilla ice cream in one hand. “This is our secret, okay, Eros?” Hephaestus said softly. “Don’t tell Grannie Hera. She never let me have sugar before bedtime.”

“What about Mommy?” Aphrodite asked. “Can I be in on the secret, too?”

Hephaestus looked up, his startled expression giving way to a sheepish grin. “You caught me red-handed. Eros wouldn’t go to sleep, so I thought…”

“Thought you would bribe him with sugar?” she teased.

“Daddy!” Eros reached a hand across the table, gesturing for more ice cream.

Aphrodite couldn’t help but smile. “Looks like you’ve made him an addict.”

Hephaestus held the spoon toward their toddler’s mouth. “If sugar is his weakness, then so be it. There are worse things to want. Things you can’t be certain you will ever get.”

Aphrodite wasn’t sure what to make of that. It was oddly personal and yearning. It made her wonder.

To her own surprise, she sank onto the carpet next to them, not caring that her dress would wrinkle. “Come on, then. Share the love.”

Hephaestus smiled. He might not have been handsome in the traditional sense, but when he looked like this, glowing with joy, he was handsome in a different way. Solid, steady. Kind.

“My pleasure,” he said huskily, and scooped another bite of ice cream.

Aphrodite’s breath caught as Hephaestus placed the spoon in her mouth, his eyes on her lips. The room was suddenly quiet.

Then a clatter rose from the ceiling. Aphrodite looked up and sawthat Eros’s Hot Wheels cars were flying, whirling through the air on a race course visible only to him.

“He’s levitating things now?” she asked, and her husband shrugged. The gods’ powers were always erratic, especially so when those gods were mere children.

“He was making Thalia cry earlier. I took over his bedtime when I found her sobbing and told her to take the rest of the night off.”

Oh no. “What did Eros do to make her cry? Did he hurt her?” Aphrodite asked.

“No, I mean exactly what I said—he made her cry. He was sitting in her lap facing her, a hand on either side of her face, while she wept. She said he had tugged into her heart and called out the tears.”

Hephaestus refrained from pointing out that this was the other side of the coin from what Aphrodite did: playing on people’s emotions, making them feel, or desire, what she wanted them to. He was her son, after all.

She looked up again at the flying cars. Eros’s little brow was furrowed in concentration as he guided them on their path, utterly absorbed in his imagination. Just like his father.

“I wonder what he’ll be the god of,” she mused.

“Mischief,” Hephaestus offered.

Aphrodite laughed. “I was thinking more like flying cars, once the mortals invent them, but I like your suggestion better.”

Unconsciously, she had leaned closer to Hephaestus, her shoulder nudging against his. He shifted as if adjusting his legs on the carpet, but the movement brought his head closer to hers. She felt a sudden urge to draw his mouth onto the curve of her neck, to feel his lips on her skin.

“Aphrodite,” he growled, and she thought he must feel it too—this sudden, intense pull between them. Then he let out a breath. “I have some news. I’m heading to Paris tomorrow to help with a crisis in the French office.”

“For how long?” Aphrodite did her best to sound surprised.