Published 2015
Published by Dakota Cassidy. Copyright © 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Dakota Cassidy.
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Manufactured in the USA
Author Note
For anyone new to The Accidentals, I’ve included a link to Interview With An Accidental, a free, quick (mostly painless), interview-style introduction to the women who are the heart and soul of this nine-book series originally published traditionally. If you’re a repeat offender (YAY to repeat offending, you rebels!), skip right to chapter one!
Blurb
"Sweet Baby Jesus in booty shorts! Thank you, Dakota Cassidy. I'd read the damn phone book if you wrote it!" New York Times bestselling author, Robyn Peterman.
Dakota Cassidy, USA Today bestselling author of The Accidental Dragon, brings you a laugh-out-loud romantic comedy Accidentally Aphrodite, Book 10 in the Accidentally Paranormal series. Get swept away to Greece in this international romp where you'll meet a few Gods and Goddesses, and fall in love with Quinn Morris as she transforms from a heartbroken mess to the goddess of love.
Mythology buff Quinn Morris has always wanted to visit Greece, where her inner hardcore romantic envisioned proposing to her boyfriend. And she's finally here—with her friend Ingrid. She might not have found love at the Parthenon, thanks to her cheating ex, but she has found big boobies…and swirly purple eyes…and sparkling skin. Oh, and Greek hottie Khristos, who claims to be descended from a goddess and swears Quinn's the new Aphrodite.
With help from Khristos, and support from Ingrid's employers—Nina, Wanda, and Marty—Quinn has to learn all the tricks of the matchmaking trade, STAT, lest she has her new friend Cupid sticking arrows in all the wrong places. All while dealing with her man-hating mother, guarding her own heart from Khristos, and protecting herself from an invisible foe who might want to snatch Quinn's newfound powers from her—dead or alive.
Author Message
Darling readers,
I’ll confess straight up, I’ve stuck my nose deep into the mythology surrounding Aphrodite and her legend. Then I tweaked, dabbled, distorted, and overall gave it a good shaking up. So please understand, while I mostly adhere to Aphrodite’s basic story, I did put my own spin on her for my own selfish modern-day purposes. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed splashing around in the pool of Greek mythology!
Dedication
First, enormous, humble thanks to Katie Wood, who’s been my cover artist from the very start of this series, and was willing to jump off the cliff with me when I went indie. She’s amazing, kind, insanely talented, and she really listens to how I see my characters. I’m awed you were willing to partner back up with me—humbled by the beauty of my book covers brought to life!
And to my editor Kelli Collins, here we go, kiddo! Welcome to the wonderful world of all the crazy antics constantly zipping around in my brain. You are a goddess among mere mortals for sinking your teeth into this project, and I love you madly for your never-ending support and your dedication to coming as close to editor perfection as any one human can get.
To my BFF Renee George, who helps me plot, hears me whine, loves me anyway. I love you. Always-always.
To my sister from another mister, Robyn Peterman, who just wouldn’t take no for an answer when I doubted rebooting this series on my own. Love you, Pooks. Cassman 4-ever!
Finally, this edition is for all you amazing fans who’ve stuck around for nine (nine!) books, and to my amazing Glam Fam at Team Tiara, for all the laughter on my Facebook and Twitter pages, the emails, The Walking Dead and GoT conversations, the sharing, the absolute delight I experience when you taunt me with the color yellow—number ten’s for you!
Dakota XXOO
Chapter 1
“Jesus in a flippin’ muumuu, Quinn! What the hell happened?”
Quinn Morris’s stunned eyes flew to her college study partner and much younger friend Ingrid Lawson’s face, crimson from the heat of the Grecian day.
Hysteria threatened to take over, forcing Quinn to put a hand to her chest to catch her breath before mumbling, “Something?”
Quinn winced when Ingrid lifted a finger and pointed it directly at her. The digit trembled a little as it silently circled Quinn’s chest area. Her mouth opened then snapped shut, as though she couldn’t quite put into words what she was seeing.
Quinn nodded in agreement because, yeah. Holy, holy shit! Plucking at the front of her billowy white blouse, the one she’d specifically picked for this trip because it looked like it was straight off the back of some eighteenth-century poet, she looked down into it.
Then she gazed upon her nearly shredded bra, and gasped. The sound of her shock echoed off the Parthenon columns and reverberated in her ears.
Then she looked once more and gulped.
Oh dear.
Ingrid fisted her hands and brought them to her forehead, shaking her head as though she were trying to shake off some terrible memory.
Which was odd…
When she looked back up at Quinn, her eyes, hidden beneath the dark gothic makeup she favored, bulged from her head. Her words burst out of her mouth like a ball from a cannon. “OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod! Boobs! Big, big boobies!” she shrieked, her multicolored Mohawk bending in the humid breeze.
Quinn nodded numbly, a hot wind swishing her flirty skirt around her ankles. “So, so big…”
Ingrid clutched the straps on her backpack, her voice shaky. “How did this happen?”
“Um, I don’t exactly know. But I can tell you one thing for sure. They’re no longer the size of crab apples. In fact, they’re a lot more like Shawna Sutter’s cantaloupes now, don’t you think?”
Even in her horror, Ingrid managed to scrunch her face up in distaste. “Don’t even mention that woman’s name at a time like this. No one, and I mean no one, wants to be like Shawna Sutter or her stupid cantaloupes!”
Quinn shrugged a little, because even in their shared horror, the truth was the truth. “But you have to admit, she has really nice cantaloupes. Igor seems to think so anyway.”
Igor—her cheating, lying, bottom-feeding almost-fiancé, and the very reason she was here on her dream trip to Greece with Ingrid instead of him—now belonged to Shawna “Cantaloupes” Sutter. Lock, stock, and brainless banter.
“Igor is a bag of dicks!” Ingrid yelped. “Forget about him and that stupid, vapid, silicone-sporting Shawna and explain why you’re literally sparkling like a bunch of rhinestones on some cheap, homemade beauty-contestant dress?”
Quinn’s eyes flew to her hands and forearms, but she paused. “Do you think it looks cheap? As sparkling goes, I think it’s sort of glowy and ethereal.”
Sort of.
Ingrid scoffed her impatience, letting her hands slap her thighs. “Is that really the point here, Quinn?”
She took another deep breath, inhaling the hot air and realizing, no, that wasn’t the point at all. She backtracked in her mind, trying to remember how this had all gone down. “Remember that little old lady on the tour bus on the way here?”
Ingrid nodded and wrinkled her nose. “The one who smelled like a goat?”
“Uh-huh. But it’s not her fault. She raises th
em to sell their milk. A girl’s gotta make a living. Anyway, did you hear the story she told me about there being a golden apple etched in one of the Parthenon’s columns?”
Ingrid’s breathing hitched, her lower lip, glossed to the max, curled inward. “Was that before or after the anus-head called you to ask where his nostril clippers were? I can’t even believe the size of that dick’s clangers.”
Enormous. Igor’s clangers were enormous. So was his anus-head. “I know, right? Especially seeing as he was doing it from between the very sheets we used our Bed Bath & Beyond fifty-percent off coupon for.”
Ingrid’s eyes narrowed, the crinkle of her leather, spike-studded vest crackling when she threw her arms up in the air. “Did he actually tell you he was in bed with that cantalouped trollop?”
Quinn shook her head, letting her straw bag fall to the ground. Suddenly, everything felt very heavy. “Not exactly. I heard Shawna in the background, attempting to pronounce the color fuchsia from the package. I know the word was on the package of sheets because it’s hard to find sheets in fuchsia. Or fuck-see-a, as per Shawna’s interpretation. Igor, in all his kindly professor-ness, helped her sound it out.”
Ingrid’s eyes grew glittery with outrage. “Ohhh, I told you when you packed all the things you had in his apartment you should have taken the sheets, Quinn. I don’t care if the fifty-percent off coupon came from a sale circular addressed to him. He deserves sheets made out of burlap—not Egyptian cotton.”
Quinn’s arms sagged forward a little, but only a little, because it was hard to relax them with her huge new knockers in the way. “You’re absolutely right. I was just trying to be fair, but my regret is real.”
Ingrid peered at her, rolling her hand for her to continue. “So the old lady on the tour bus. Before or after Igor called?”
Grabbing the length of her long braid, Quinn wound it around a finger and tried to remember. “I think it was after. It had to be after, because then she heard you give me hell for even answering the phone, knowing he was on the other end of the line. So of course, she heard my pathetic story about how I’d saved a lifetime for this trip and thought Igor should be the one to take it with me because…well, you know the rest…”
The rest being Quinn’s intention to propose to Igor in the place she considered one of the most romantic on earth.
Ingrid’s head fell back on her shoulders, her pale throat exposed to the glaring ball of buttery Grecian sun. “Oh, you did not fall for that story she fed you, did you? She must’ve heard you going on about how Igor was a total jerk, and how you’d had it with romance and love for good.”
“Well, I have,” she defended. She had, too. All her life, her mother had told her to knock off the daydreaming about her Prince Charming and find a man who was real—if she had to find one at all.
If real meant finding a man who scratched his love sac and burped while watching the Playboy Channel, she’d rather keep daydreaming about her Mr. Darcy.
Until her ugly breakup with Igor, that is. Since the night she’d found out he’d been sleeping with a leggy redheaded waitress who worked at the Spotted Pig, two doors down from the bookstore where she worked, she’d thrown in the towel.
Ingrid’s ringed fingers flashed in the sun in protest. “Stop. Even with everything that’s gone down with that cheating slug, you still listened to that crazy woman on the bus. Which means you, in all your unicorns and cinnamon sticks, could manage to find romance at the urologist’s. You’re a diehard, Quinn. Your soul-mate take on life alone could feed a buffet of the love-starved. It’ll come back. Right now, you’re just butthurt. That aside, she was probably just trying to make you feel better. And you, an expert on all things Greek and mythological, fell for it? I don’t get it.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. She had fallen for it. Which meant her romantic bone still needed work if she was going to be more of a realist about love. “To be fair, it was a really compelling story.”
She loved a good story. Almost any story, in fact. As long as it was about love—tragic, happy, or anything in between. Until she’d decided no more romance. She’d promised herself from here on out it was sci-fi and cookbooks only.
“Quinn Morris, you know the ins and outs of Greece and all its rich history almost better than you know your own home country. You did not believe her, did you?”
Quinn crossed her arms over her chest in exasperation. Well, she almost crossed them. Her big, big balloons really prevented a lot of extracurricular activity. “Blame, blame, blame. How could I not investigate what she told us, Ingrid? I mean, you have to admit, even you were a little curious about a mysterious golden apple no one’s ever heard about. It was pretty spectacular. How could I not at least take a peek? Seriously, I actually thought she’d probably go home and wet clear through her Depends laughing after feeding me such gibberish, but…”
Ingrid’s eyes rolled upward. “You did it anyway. Now, if you tell me that you actually confessed your heartbreak to a damn produce item in some marble column like she told you to do because she claims the gods can hear your love woes, I’m going to deflate your new cans one at a time. Ping-ping,” she said, making a gun with her forefinger and thumb
Quinn gave her a sheepish look. “But I did find the column with the apple. It looked just like it had been stamped there. So I thought, what the heck? Who better than Aphrodite’s shoulder to cry on, right? Goddess of Love, blah, blah, blah. And before you say another word—I was just talking out my grief over my breakup, Ingrid. You know, kind of like one big, ugly purge, never really-really expecting anything to come of it, and then…”
“And then?” she asked in that tone she used when she became irritated with Quinn, who was usually much more cautious and less impulsive.
Except today, of course. Today she’d thrown caution to the wind like she was pitching for the Yankees.
The hot breeze whipped at Quinn’s flowing skirt, tugging at her sunhat with the silky pink tulle streams of ribbon tied around the brim—another piece of her “must haves” wardrobe for this trip. Because it was romantic and frilly and she loved both of those things.
“Quinn?”
She gave Ingrid another embarrassed glance, her mouth dry. “And then I said something about Igor being a wolf in sheep’s clothing and how he was going to regret his infidelity so hard. And I swear to you on my beloved copy of Keats, I heard a deep rumble of laughter.”
Ingrid’s eyes grew suspicious, flying upward and then to the surrounding landscape, brilliant and white under the glare of the sun, clearly looking to see if anyone else was around.
Wait—why isn’t anyone else around? How could the Parthenon be so deserted when it was one of the biggest tourist attractions in Greece…?
“Get to the big, big boobies, Quinn,” she ordered, pulling her phone from her backpack.
To not go all the way with this was just putting off the inevitable. “So then the wind picked up with a huge gust of hot air, all while I was going on and on about Igor being a cheat, and how ridiculous that must sound to someone like Aphrodite and a bunch of gods who aren’t exactly opposed to a good genital jamboree. And…”
“And?”
Quinn swallowed hard, her gulp loud and thick. “And then there was this weird, soothing vibration coming from the ground that rumbled my feet. It spread up my legs and worked its way all along my rib cage. It was incredibly peaceful…er, at first. But then the pillar shook with a god-awful heave, splitting the marble and shooting chips of rock at me in every direction—and it fell! I swear! It fell right out of the column. Just splat, hit me on the head and rolled right to my feet.”
“The apple?” Ingrid squeaked.
“Yes! It was as if the column had given birth to it. I swear I’m telling the truth, Ingrid, because look!” She dug around in her straw bag and retrieved the apple, holding it up as it gleamed, gold and perfect in the sun.
Ingrid’s breath shuddered in and out, her voice skipping when she spoke. “This mad
e your boobs bigger? An item from the produce section?”
Quinn whirled in a circle, letting her arms flap open wide. “I don’t know, Ingrid! I just know the second it fell from the column, my boobs inflated at least two cup sizes. How, I ask you, does Shawna even breathe with these things?”
Ingrid held up a hand and took a long breath, her eyes again scanning the area surrounding the Parthenon. “First, put that thing down.”
Quinn obliged, setting the apple at her feet—feet she could no longer see past her poofy chest.
“Don’t touch it again. Now, I’m calling Nina. She’ll know what to do. So let’s just stay calm and breathe.”
Fear sped up Quinn’s spine as a mental picture of Nina Statleon formed. A brooding, hoodie-wearing, angry, foul-mouthed woman who was nuts with a capital Crazypants. And though absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous sans makeup and all manner of finery, she was, oddly, very, very pale.
Nina, along with Marty Flaherty and Wanda Jefferson, were Ingrid’s bosses at the office she worked in while studying to become a vet tech. The basement office in Manhattan Ingrid never allowed Quinn anywhere near when they had study dates. Which now, come to think of it, was pretty strange.
Nina evoked fear in her belly after their last encounter, when the woman had discovered what Igor had done and how Quinn had considered not taking this trip to Greece. Nina had been full of all kinds of opinions about it. They’d been littered with colorful language and sometimes even threatening stances and the words “limp” and “dick”.
She was the one who’d suggested Ingrid come with Quinn in Igor’s stead, to keep Quinn from throwing herself off the top of Mt. Olympus.
Which was a hasty assessment of her mental state, if you asked her. Okay, so she’d cried. She’d cried a lot that night she and Igor broke up and Nina happened to witness it. Cried so much, Nina had offered to chew her way through Igor’s chest and eat his heart for her.
Accidentally Aphrodite (Accidentally Paranormal Novel Book 10) Page 1