Tall, Dark, and Divine

by Jenna Bennett

  “That’s the long story.”

  “I have time,” Annie said. When he didn’t speak, she added, her voice soft, “Just tell me, Ross. I want to know. Please.”

  Right. He reached across the table, palm up. After a moment’s hesitation, she put her left hand in his.

  No ring. Good.

  “He was planning to propose,” Eros said. Her eyes widened. “He told me last night.”

  Her voice was faint. “Propose?”

  “I couldn’t let him, okay? I know you’ve always liked him, and now he’s crazy about you, too…but it isn’t real.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, it isn’t real?”

  “That’s where the invisible arrows come into it.”

  “The invisible arrows. Right.” But she let him keep her hand. He ran his thumb over her palm and felt her shiver, before looking up into her eyes. Putting everything he had, everything he felt, into his gaze.

  “This is going to sound a little bit crazy. But just bear with me. Please. I love you.”

  Her eyes widened. “You…what?”

  “I love you. I know it’s too soon, and I know I told you I wasn’t ready. We’ve only known each other a couple of days. But I love you. I couldn’t let you say yes to Harry.”

  For a moment or two it seemed as if she’d lost her ability to speak. Then— “So you love me. And that’s real. But Harry wanting to marry me isn’t?”

  “It’s the arrows,” Eros said.

  “The arrows.” She shook her head. “You’re going to have to explain this. In terms I can understand.”

  Easier said than done. Mortals these days weren’t prepared to hear that there were Greek gods wandering the earth.

  He’d better start with the basics. “You know me, right? You know I’m real. I’ve kissed you. We’ve made love.”

  She nodded, if a bit warily. Although her cheeks flushed.

  “No question at all that I’m here, and I’m real?”

  She shook her head.

  “And you’ve met Dionysus and Britomartis and Ariadne. And Carya and Iris. They’re real, too, right?”

  “Sure,” Annie said. “Seem to be.”

  “Did you ever hear the story of Theseus and the minotaur? The labyrinth? The ball of yarn?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then you know who Ariadne is. Brita is the Cretan goddess of hunting. Dion, of course, is the Greek god of wine. Silenus is his foster father. See, Hera is the jealous type, so after Zeus knocked Semele up, Hera had kind of a fit and tried to kill Dion, so Zeus gave him to the rain nymphs of Nysa to raise. He ended up with Len, since Zeus couldn’t take care of him himself.”

  She was staring at him with eyes so big that, for a second, he was afraid they’d come out of her head.

  He shook his head. “It’s not important right now. The important thing is that I love you. Do you believe that?”

  She nodded.

  “I thought you wanted Harry. So yesterday, when he came to pick up Brita for the date I’d promised him, I jabbed him in the ass with a golden arrow. That was the yelp you heard. Ariadne made sure you were first through the door and Harry took one look at you and fell like a ton of bricks. That’s what I meant when I said it wasn’t real.”

  He waited for her response. She nodded, her eyes still enormous. He had no idea how much of this she was processing, but at least she was still conscious and listening.

  “I didn’t realize how I was going to feel. I’d been telling myself I wasn’t ready to move on, and that it wouldn’t work between us. I fell in love with a mortal once before, and she left me.”

  “Mortal?” Annie squeaked.

  “Psyche. The most beautiful woman in the world.” And a royal pain in the ass.

  “You married Psyche?”

  He nodded.

  “So you’re…Eros?”

  Yes, indeed.

  “I feel faint,” Annie said.

  No doubt. “Have some champagne. It’ll help. Did you order food yet?” He looked around at the bustling dining room.

  Annie nodded, gulping champagne with one hand while holding onto his with the other, a bit like a lifeline. “I’m sure they’ll bring it soon.”

  Hopefully Harry had ordered something he’d like. He turned to Annie. “Don’t worry about all of this right now, okay? We’ll figure it out. The important thing is that I love you. And I want to be with you. You and me and George. If you’ll have us. Me.”

  She didn’t answer, and he watched her, sitting across the table from him, looking at him as if he’d suddenly grown an extra head. His heart sank. Maybe he should have pretended to be normal for a while longer, instead of shooting himself in the foot before she’d even said yes.

  But she deserved the truth before she made any decisions. Forever was a long time and she might not be up for it. She was a mortal. The idea of being married to him for the rest of eternity might strike her as overkill.

  He crossed his fingers in his lap and waited.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Part of her wanted to get up from the table and run screaming from the restaurant. Just get the hell out of there and damn the consequences. But of course she didn’t; you couldn’t behave that way in The Plaza Hotel.

  And anyway, the other part just wanted to sit there and watch Eros. Watch the train wreck. Even if she’d probably end up battered and bruised at the end of it.

  He was crazy. He had to be. Some kind of delusional schizophrenia, maybe. She’d heard there were people walking around thinking they were Napoleon or Jesus Christ. Eros thought he was…well, Eros. That he and his friends were the Greek gods of Olympus.

  And they were all going along with it. They’d all been here. Harry was probably in on the joke, too. He’d pretended to like her, and then he’d pretended to be struck by some invisible projectile. He’d pretended to faint.

  She wished she could believe Brita had only pretended to pick him up, but she knew what she’d seen. Everyone in the Palm Court had seen it. A slender young woman had picked up a full-grown man who outweighed her by at least fifty pounds and had walked out with him slung over her shoulder like he weighed nothing.

  “How did Brita do that?”

  Eros blinked, and she realized he’d been waiting for her to say something else. She couldn’t answer him, though. She had too many questions.

  “She’s Britomartis,” he said. “Cretan goddess of hunting. She’s stronger than she looks.”

  “Right.” She looked down at her silverware to avoid the expression in his eyes.

  “We’re all a little…” Eros hesitated. “More.”

  “More?”

  He shrugged. “Stronger. Faster. More resilient. Immortal.”

  Immortal. Right. She poked at the omelet. It looked delicious—smelled good, too—but the idea of putting anything in her mouth right now was unpleasant. Ross, meanwhile, was cutting into Harry’s French toast with every sign of enjoyment.

  It helped to think of him as Ross. Eros was…too fraught with complications.

  “So…how many of you are there? Running around New York?” Might as well discover the extent of his delusions right now.

  “A handful,” Ross said. “There’s me and the girls. You’ve met Dion and you know who Silenus is. In addition to us, there’s Adonis and Alastor and Thaumas. Morpheus drops by once in a while. So do a few of the others. And Zeus and Hera live in a row house on Ditmars Boulevard.”

  “Of course.” A bubble of slightly hysterical laughter rose in her chest, and she reached for her champagne. Zeus and Hera. Lived in a row house on Ditmars Boulevard.

  “I’m not sure what to say to make this easier for you,” Eros said.

  Annie shook her head. “You can’t make it easier. You think there are Greek gods and goddesses walking around New York. Running matchmaking agencies and bars and…and…”

  “P.I. firms,” Eros said.

  “P.I. firms?”

  “Alastor’s a private investiga
tor. Domestic cases, mostly. Cheating spouses. He’s the minor god of vengeance.”

  Right. “And I suppose Adonis is a male model?”

  “You’d think. But no, we have to keep a lower profile. It’s hard to be in the public eye when you never age. People start to wonder why.”

  “Of course.” Maybe if she played along with him, he wouldn’t suddenly turn on her like a rabid dog. Not that he seemed crazy, actually. He seemed perfectly sane. Just like he always had. “I suppose George Hamilton is one of you, too?”

  “I think George is probably a vampire,” Eros said. And laughed when he saw the expression on her face. “Relax. It was a joke.”

  “Oh.”

  “I really wish you wouldn’t worry so much about this. It isn’t important. Not right now. We can figure out the details later.”

  The details. Such as the fact that he thought he was the immortal Greek god of love.

  “The important thing is that I love you,” Eros said, his eyes terribly sincere. “I want to marry you. I couldn’t let you say yes to Harry. Eternity is too long to live with a broken heart.”

  “Smooth talker,” Annie said.

  He grinned, and his eyes lightened. “You do like me, don’t you? A little bit?”

  “I like you a lot.” Even if he was as mad as a hatter.

  “How about we make a deal? You ask me to do something. Something I wouldn’t be able to do if I were just a mortal. If I can do it, you’ll give me a chance.”

  “A chance to do what?”

  “To convince you that you need to marry me and not Harry,” he said. And added, pensively, “Not that Harry’s proposal is on the table anymore. He should be back to doting on Brita by now. If everything went according to plan, anyway.”

  “Brita agreed to that?” And what was she doing, talking as if he’d actually been able to do what he said he’d done?

  He smiled. “I think she missed him. He was driving her crazy, always mooning over her from afar, but when he stopped, I think she missed it. It was her idea to turn it back on herself.”

  “That was nice of her.” Even if it hadn’t happened that way. Couldn’t possibly have happened that way. “Remind me to thank her.”

  “She should be back at work tomorrow,” Eros said. “You can stop by and see her then.”

  Sure. Or she could stay far, far away and thus try to save herself. Already she could feel his insanity creeping into her own brain.

  The thing was, she wanted to believe him. If he was telling the truth—crazy though it seemed—he was sane. If he wasn’t…then she couldn’t marry him. And she really, really wanted to marry him.

  She believed he loved her. There was no mistaking the sincerity in his eyes. Nor the desperation and desolation she’d seen last night, when she’d told him she wanted to make a go of it with Harry. He loved her. And she loved him, too. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. Making love in the hallway and on the living room sofa and in bed. Rescuing stray dogs. Baking cookies that tasted of lemon and sugar and sunlight. But she could only have that if she believed that he was what he said he was. An immortal Greek god.

  “Is that why you taste like starlight and wind?”

  He blinked at her, startled, and Annie blushed. “The first time you kissed me. I thought you tasted like starlight and wind and…and other things.”

  He shrugged. “Probably. I’m a bit elemental. My parents were night and darkness.”

  He said it so matter of factly, she could almost believe it. “My parents are school teachers. They live in Ohio.”

  He smiled, and Annie added, “How old are you?”

  “A lot older than you. But my perception of time is different. A day doesn’t feel like very much.”

  “I’m noticing that, too,” Annie said, “the older I get. When I was a kid, a year felt like it was forever. Now it doesn’t.”

  “And you’re only twenty-eight. Imagine what it’ll be like after a few thousand years.”

  Imagine.

  “So what kind of superpowers do you have? What can you do that a human can’t?”

  “Pretty much the only thing I can do is make people fall in love,” Eros said. “That’s my gift and my job. And I need the bow and arrows for that.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I gave them to Dion. If he’s still outside, they’re there.”

  Annie nodded. “Let’s go.”

  “Really?” But he was already on his way up from the chair, French toast and champagne forgotten. He pulled a couple of bills out of his pocket and dropped them on the table—more than enough to cover the bill and tip.

  “Yes. I love you, too. And I want to believe you. If you can prove it to me, I’ll marry you.”

  He smiled. “Marry me, and I’ll prove it.”

  “How do I marry you?”

  “We go see Zeus,” Eros said.

  “In the row house on Ditmars Boulevard?”

  He nodded. “We bring a couple witnesses—Dion and Ari are outside—we tell him we want to get married, there’s a short ceremony, then we share a toast and it’s done.”

  “No church wedding? No county clerk?”

  “I don’t really exist,” Eros said calmly, putting a hand against her back to guide her across the lobby toward the outside, “so it’s difficult to do anything the normal way.”

  “You exist.” And he was quite solid, thank you very much.

  He grinned at her, as if he knew what she was thinking. Maybe he did. “You know what I mean. But let’s just worry about one thing at a time.” He stopped on the steps in front of The Plaza and looked around. “There’s Dion.”

  Annie followed the direction of his gaze and saw the bartender from Dionysus’s Bar—or the god himself, if Ross was to be believed—hanging out by a park bench on the other side of the street, by the entrance to Central Park. A woman in an oversized trench coat with big sunglasses obscuring half her face was sitting on the bench, and it took Annie a few moments to recognize Ari under the disguise.

  “I don’t see a bow and arrow,” she told Eros out of the corner of her mouth as they made their way across the street.

  “They’re there. Next to Ari on the bench.”

  Annie looked. There was nothing there.

  “Morning, sweet cheeks!”

  Dion greeted her with a wink as soon as they got close enough that he didn’t have to raise his voice. “Don’t you look delicious today?” That dark gaze slid over her from top to bottom with blatant appreciation.

  Eros growled. “Mine.”

  Dion’s lips quirked. “I guess you’ve decided who you’re having,” he told Annie, his eyes alight with amusement.

  “She’s not having Harry,” Eros informed him. “And she’s sure as Hades not having you.” He turned to the bench. “Whether she’ll have me remains to be seen.”

  He scooped something up from beside Ari. Something that wasn’t there. Insanity on his part or inability to see it on Annie’s?

  The truth was, she just wasn’t sure anymore.

  “Not sure you want him, huh?” Dion asked.

  “Not sure whether I belong in the loony bin,” Eros answered. “So we’ll see what I can do to convince her.” He glanced around. “Where’s Brita?”

  “She took Harry home,” Ari said. “We loaded them into a cab as soon as we got outside. He was still unconscious. She didn’t know where he lived, so she said she’d take him to her place.”

  “I’m not surprised. Not with what happened.” Although Eros didn’t look like he was paying a whole lot of attention. He was glancing around. Then he nudged her. “Okay, Annie. Pick someone.”

  “Pick someone?”

  “If I do it, you can say I planted him. If you do it, you can’t. So pick someone.”

  “Fine.” She looked around, too. “The short guy with the red hair and plaid jacket and the skateboard.”

  “And who do you want him to fall in love with?”

  Annie looked around again.
“The model type coming the other way.”

  Eros arched a brow. “Not very challenging. He’ll probably notice her anyway.”

  He had a point. “Turn it around, then. Make her fall in love with him instead.”

  “No problem.” He moved to cock an invisible bow, his eyes narrow and focused on the woman on the other side of the street, undulating her way down the sidewalk on four-inch heels. A second passed. Annie could see when Ross let go of the arrow—invisible or imaginary—by the way he moved.

  He lowered the bow. The invisible bow. Annie watched as, across the street, the young woman stopped as if struck, much the same way Brita had stopped earlier. Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed as her eyes lighted on the young man with the red hair. She watched him come closer, and when he was almost there, she said something to him. They were much too far away to hear what it was, but he heard her and stopped. And flushed, too, when he got a good look at the woman who had hailed him.

  Eros lifted the bow again.

  “What are you doing?” Annie asked.

  He glanced at her. “Making sure it’s mutual. It’s no good otherwise.”

  He let fly another invisible arrow. The young man jerked.

  All four of them watched the conversation taking place across the street. It didn’t last long. A few minutes, and then the short young man and tall young woman went their separate ways. But not before they’d exchanged phone numbers. As they walked away from each other, both of them turned and looked over their shoulders at least twice.

  And Eros turned and looked at Annie. She blinked up at him, too overwhelmed for the moment to be able to speak. Then— “You really did that?”

  “You watched me. But if you’re in doubt I can do it again.” He turned and lifted that invisible bow. And pointed it straight at Dionysus. Who took a step back and lifted his hands.

  “Hades, no. I’m much too young to settle down with just one woman.”

  Ari snorted but lifted her hands, too, when Eros turned the bow on her. “Not on your life. I don’t want to spend eternity in love with either one of you.”

  He turned to Annie, who told him, “I’m already in love with you. But feel free to shoot me if you think it would help.”