“She’s fine.”
His clipped tone gives him away. I frown at him. “Is it you don’t like her? Or that you’re quietly furious that she’s dodged any of your attempts to get more information on her?”
Apollo shoots me a sharp look. “I don’t like mysteries.”
I bet. “Has she broken into your house?”
His jaw goes tight. “Several times. I still can’t figure out how she gets in.”
That must irritate him to no end. He really does hate mysteries. Without thinking, I pat his chest. “Poor Apollo. That must bother you so much.”
He glances down to where my fingers still rest lightly against his chest. When he speaks again, his voice has deepened. “I’ll get over it.”
“Welcome!”
I drop my hand guiltily and spin to face the woman approaching us. She’s about my age, I think. About my size, too, and wearing a perfectly tailored blouse and shorts. She moves with an easy grace that reeks of some kind of expensive finishing school; no one moves like they’re floating naturally.
The woman must be Minos’s daughter, but she doesn’t look like him at all aside from her coloring. Her light-brown skin is an identical tone, though her hair is a deep black and falls in a straight line past her shoulders.
She smiles at us, the expression lighting up her dark eyes. Being on the receiving end of that smile makes my spine straighten despite myself. I don’t have a type. I’m not one to narrow my options, even if I don’t date much as a general rule. But this woman ispretty. Very, very pretty.
I can’t help glancing at Apollo to see his reaction. Apparently he had the same idea because our gazes meet fleetingly before we turn back to her. He steps forward and offers a hand. “I’m Apollo. This is my girlfriend, Cassandra.”
“I know.” Her smile widens. She looks sohappy. Surely she’s faking it, but I don’t detect a hint of artifice in her. “I’m Ariadne. My brother, Icarus, and I are seeing to the sleeping arrangements. We have your room ready.”
He has his children doing the initial entertaining. It’s not shocking. After the encounter with Theseus in Apollo’s office and watching the Minotaur during the competition for Ares, I don’t expect either of them excel at playing nice. Not like Ariadne apparently does. I can’t help wondering if Icarus takes after his sister or his foster brothers.
Apollo smiles down at her. “That sounds wonderful.”
She turns and leads us through the front doors into an echoing entranceway. It looks like something out of a movie with two staircases circling the space opposite the front door to meet overhead. I knew Hermes had a sense of the theatrical, but this looks like a cross between a Gothic mansion and some hideously expensive southern manor.
Ariadne heads up the stairs, leaving us to trail behind. The archway at the top of the stairs flows into a wide hallway. She motions at the doors studding the walls all the way down. “These are converted rooms. They’re essentially sitting rooms and will be open to whoever wants to use them throughout the day.”
I raise my brows. “How many people are coming to this party that you need half a dozen sitting rooms?”
She tucks her hair behind her ears. “They were, ah, used for a different kind of entertaining purpose by the last owner, and my father decided sitting rooms were a more appropriate conversion.”
A different kind of entertainment.
I look at the doors with new interest. Hermes’s sexual tastes are just as eclectic as her fashion. She’s kinky as fuck and a regular in the lower city where it’s rumored that Hades has an honest-to-gods sex club, though she never took me there when we were dating, understandable considering Hades was supposed to be a myth at that point. Another of the secrets she kept close to her chest.
Still…Six rooms?
“I see,” Apollo says faintly. I can’t tell if he’s actually surprised or scandalized or if this is information he already had filed away in that impressive brain of his.
“Dinner will be at seven tonight. Papa has a party game planned afterward.” Ariadne shoots us a sweet smile. “There’s an agenda in your room with details for the week. Dinner and lunch have scheduled times, but please feel free to have breakfast sent to your room. If you prefer to dine downstairs, there will be a small buffet available.”
I make a show of looking around as we reach a T in the hallway and take a right. “I don’t suppose there’s a map with that agenda.”
“No need.” Another sweet smile. Is this woman for real? “Just follow this hallway back to the entranceway, go downstairs, and everything is a straight shot to the main area downstairs.”
A straight shot doesn’t sound veryHermes. This house holds some tricks up its sleeve. I’m sure of it. The only question is whether Minos and his people know it or if Hermes kept those secrets to herself. I’d bet good money on the latter.
Ariadne opens a door halfway down the hall. “This is your room. Please make yourself comfortable and feel free to explore before dinner if you’re so inclined. The gardens are particularly lovely.”
I step inside first. I’m vaguely aware of Apollo following me into the room and shutting the door behind him, but the only thing I can focus on is the oversize bed. I had foolishly thought this might be a full suite, but while there’s a bathroom through the open door visible from my position, the only other furniture in the room is an antique-looking dresser and a pair of matching nightstands on either side of the bed.
Fuck.