For once, he doesn’t make me wait. “I trust Hercules arrived promptly.”
“Hades, what are you doing?” I take in Hercules for the first time since he’s walked into my office. He looks like a different person this morning. I don’t know if it’s the expensive clothes that appear tailored to him or that he’s just more at ease in his own skin than he was the first night I met him. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Hades’s endgame is what matters.
And I don’t know what it is.
He lets the silence spin out until my heart is beating too hard and I’m ready to scream my frustration down the line. Finally, he says, “Tink’s contract is almost finished.”
“Yes, it is. And she’s considering staying on afterward.”
“She won’t.” He says it with such confidence, I almost believe him.
Almost. “Funny, but that’s not what she told me yesterday. Do you know something I don’t?”
“I know a lot of things you don’t. However, this is just a feeling.”
Just a feeling. Right. I strive for patience, not to let my frustration show. “I don’t deal in feelings, Hades. I deal in facts. Until Tink tells me otherwise, I’m going to operate like she’s not leaving, which means I don’t need to fill the position of her replacement.” More silence, an invitation for me to back down. I won’t. Most of the time, I will submit to his pleasure. Not in this. Not right now. “Just tell me why,” I whisper.
“He’s a gift, love.”
He’d said something to the same effect the night he sent me to fuck Hercules. I frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Report to me once you’re finished with him today.”
Click.
I take the phone away from my ear and stare at it. He just… He just hung up on me. I carefully set it back in its cradle and take an equally careful breath. This isn’t Hercules’s fault, but it feels like it’s his fault. If he’d just shown a little more restraint, just asked me what I wanted, then we wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with. “Apparently I don’t have a choice.” I don’t realize I’ve spoken aloud until he answers.
“I’m sorry.”
I glare. I want to shake him until something akin to sense blossoms in that pretty head of his. “It’s not your fault this time. You’re just a tool, Hercules, and a blunt one at that.”
He blinks and then bursts out laughing. “Wow, Meg, tell me how you really feel.” Just like that, some of the tension eases in him and he slouches back in his seat. “You didn’t have a problem with me last night.”
Of all the— “That was different and you know it. A scene is its own little world.”
He shrugs. “I won’t pretend I’m an expert in what a scene entails, but we have a connection. You can’t fake that.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I can, in fact, fake that. I close my eyes and strive for control. Cutting him down might feel good for a moment, but it’s like kicking a puppy. Unnecessarily cruel. He made a mistake in bargaining his life way. That’s punishment enough without me verbally stabbing him every time he brushes against one of my many emotional wounds. “Just because we have a connection doesn’t mean I want you underfoot.”
“I won’t be a burden.”
I open my eyes. “Before you were a waiter, what was your job?” If Hades is determined to have him here, I suppose I should treat this as professionally as possible. As if I wasn’t coming on his tongue a few short hours ago.
He looks away, a faint blush coloring his cheeks. “I, ah, didn’t work. After I graduated college two years ago, I took a year off and then I was supposed to start in my father’s business, but life got in the way.”
Life got in the way. Likely the same life that resulted in him ending up in Carver City. I want to judge him for his life of privilege, to cut him down out of spite because I’m hurting, but he’s trying. I can try, too. “Okay.”
Hercules looks back at me, all youthful promise and hope. “I’m a fast learner.”
I raise my eyebrows. “I suppose we’ll see, won’t we?” There’s no point in fighting this. I might as well put him to work. I brace myself. “Okay, first things first. Work is work and fucking is fucking. When you’re on the clock, especially during office work, I need you focused on paperwork instead of pussy.”
He grins. “You mean you don’t want me to climb under your desk and eat you out for hours?”
My body flashes hot, and I give myself a full three seconds to enjoy the fantasy. Despite my best intentions, I find myself returning his grin. “Maybe later we can play that out.”
“All work and no play.” His blue eyes shine with mirth. “You know what they say about that.”
“That is why it’s called work, Hercules.” Though now that we’re talking about it, it’s sounding like one hell of an idea. I shouldn’t start breaking rules the second I lay them out. I really shouldn’t.
Before I can walk back on my declaration of keeping work and fucking separate, he says, “Hades told me I’m not allowed to fuck you so I suppose I’ll have to follow at least some of the rules.”
I blink. “What?”
“I spoke with him this morning. He was pretty damn clear that my cock isn’t allowed anywhere near your pussy until he gives permission.” He shrugs. “Though he left the rest of it up for interpretation.”
I may have had the same order from Hades, but the idea of them negotiating what Hercules can and can’t do with me has fury fanning deep inside my chest. All my amusement, all my desire, turns to ash inside me in the wake of it. I want to hurt them both, to do something to make them reevaluate how easily they trade me as a favor between them. It doesn’t matter what Hades has said about us seducing Hercules together; in light of his actions, it couldn’t be clearer that he means to seduce the man himself, using me as a tool when it suits him.
I’ve played the part of tool before. I have no interest in playing it again. Hades must know that. Surely he hasn’t forgotten so much in his quest for his endgame. Surely…
But I can’t be certain. Not anymore.
I sit back. “Why you, Hercules? That’s what I don’t get. He’s had people who have caught his eye over the years, but nothing like this. I just don’t understand.”
He opens his mouth, but seems to reconsider his next words. “Why don’t you ask him?”
“As if it were that simple.” I give him a mirthless smile. “He won’t tell me.”
“Are you sure?”
Just like that, I realize the truth. Hercules knows exactly why Hades picked him out of the crowd. Hercules knows and I do not. I absently rub my chest, grinding away at the ache there. No reason to feel this hurt. It isn’t as if being shut out by Hades is a new development. I should be used to it by now. I just assumed he wasn’t willing to open up to anyone, so it didn’t sting so badly that he wouldn’t open up to me. Apparently it isn’t the truth.
“Meg?” From the worried tone in his voice, Hercules has said my name more than once.