Accidentally Aphrodite - Dakota Cassidy Page 0,33

say this feeling I’m supposed to get needs some honing. All I could hear was two heartbeats, and the crashing of them in my ears was so loud, I just figured…” She shrugged, still horrified by her near mishap.

Khristos grabbed her hand again and chuckled as he led her back to Nina and Ingrid. “You know when we really need to worry?”

She blanched. “When?”

“When you mistake some indigestion for true love. That’s always an epic disaster.”

As their hands swung between them, and they crested the small hill to see Nina and Ingrid chatting with Cupid, Quinn barked a laugh, her head falling back on her shoulders. “Note to self, no spicy food until my craft is perfected.”

Khristos chuckled, too, the vibration of it settling in her ears, warm and easy.

And that was just a little nice.

Chapter 7

“Are you ready, Quinn?”

Content from one of the best meals she’d had in a long time, Quinn nodded and hid a burp. Though the warmth of the beef stew Darnell the demon had made had since dissipated in her stomach, the sentiment behind it hadn’t.

When they’d arrive back at her house, it was full of people. A man named Archibald, dressed formally in a black suit, silver vest, white shirt and ascot, had waved them to a long table wedged into her tiny living room that had magically appeared in her absence.

On it were bowls and spoons, and napkins folded into small swans. Archibald had apologized for the lack of proper cutlery, but he’d made the trip all the way in from Staten Island at Wanda’s request and decided a more formal place setting would only deter him from his duties—which was to ease Quinn’s load.

He’d greeted her with the same kind of warmth Wanda and Marty had, whisking her off to a place at the table, where he’d poured her a glass of wine and said, “Do rest, Miss Quinn. Goddess work is hard work. Matchmaking must be fraught with pitfalls sure to test the merits of one’s heart, and surely you’re exhausted from your first day out? Now, we’ve taken care of everything. Supper simmers as I speak, and your sheets are freshly laundered and pressed, awaiting your weary head at days end. I’ve watered and fed Buffy and Spike, whom, if I do say so myself, are a delightful couple, even though guilt burdens my heart, as I was Team Angel. And please, don’t trouble yourself until you’ve settled into your new role in life. I’m at your service for as long as needed.”

And then he was off, calling to Darnell—who was in the kitchen making fresh bread—to ensure he’d taken butter out of the fridge so that it would soften enough to spread in time for dinner.

“Quinn?” Khristos interrupted the pleasure brought by the memory of all these strange new people, sitting at a table she didn’t own, all eating together. They’d laughed and chatted and passed bowl after bowl of food, all while she’d watched in silence.

Yet, secretly, she reveled in their friendships and wondered why she’d spent so much of her time with her nose in a book instead of forging friendships of her own.

Because books never left you. That’s why. It was as plain as the nose on her face she had hang-ups where relationships were concerned. Fictitious families never let you down—all you had to do was turn the page for the happily ever after. In the end, the heroine never fell in love with the wrong hero the way Quinn had done repeatedly like some broken record.

Rather than create real-life connections with real-world struggles, she stuck her nose in a book and ignored everything else to the point of isolating herself with her ridiculous expectations.

It wasn’t absurd to think Igor should have been faithful. It was ridiculous to have turned him into something in her mind he absolutely wasn’t interested in being. Hindsight, and the past few days had taught her that.

But she was done with that. Everything she did from here on out was going to be steeped in realism so real, they’d dub her the realest Aphrodite ever.

Khristos grabbed her hand from across the table of the diner they sat in and squeezed it. “You in there?”

Her eyes were heavy now, but she’d had that feeling again shortly after they’d eaten, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t indigestion. That feeling had led them here, to a diner, where, with Khristos’s guidance, she’d pinpointed the difference between an urgent need to match and