Worth It - Lisa Oliver Page 0,33

have children. Hera is the matriarch of the Greek gods. She has children too. But Hera and I never slept together then and we never will.”

“I read that your marriage to Hera was the first ceremony of it’s kind held on Olympus.” Paulie pushed his plate away. It was mostly empty. “That your wedding night lasted three hundred years and you had three children together.”

“There were a lot of parties on Olympus and not even I can keep it up for three hundred years,” Zeus joked, but Paulie wasn’t smiling. “The Greek gods are my children, in that I am the father of the gods, and Hera is the mother. That’s all there is to it. Here’s a thought. Why would the Fates, in all their wisdom and their ability to see the big picture, give you to me as a mate, if I was already committed to someone else? You do trust the Fates’ decisions, don’t you?”

Paulie looked up and Zeus was struck by the sadness in his eyes. “I find it hard to believe they gave me a mate at all. Do you know who my father was? Because my mom made a living out of sleeping around, never committing, and having dozens of children that she never wanted. When I read about you, it seemed you were the same. Is my father one of your sons?”

“No,” Zeus said quickly, “and the reason I can tell you that for all certainty is because if you came through my line, then I’d have known the moment you were born. And I’m sorry for the way your mother is, but only because it upsets you. Your mother has her reasons for doing things, just as we all do. I’m not saying she was fair on you, clearly she wasn’t, but there’ll have been a reason for it. Tiger shifters are generally solitary, aren’t they?”

“Yes.” Paulie sighed. “My mom didn’t like any of us kids once we started walking. I don’t know why she had so many.”

“Well, she had you, and I’ll be forever thankful for that.” Zeus took a bite of his lasagna. He adored pasta, especially with cheese. He saw Paulie looking around, and remembered he’d forgotten wine. A bottle and two glasses appeared on the table.

Paulie frowned and Zeus thought for a moment he’d refuse it, but then his mate picked up the bottle, pouring two half glasses, before taking one for himself.

“Can I just recap a minute?” Paulie asked, and then continued anyway. “So, you are married to Hera but only technically. You’ve had numerous affairs with different women, because that’s how things were back then, and you also have a lot of children, but no direct biological ones?”

Zeus scratched the back of his head. “There will be some biological children around, Athena was one of them. When you’ve lived as long as I have, it’s hard to say how many. I haven’t raised any children.”

Paulie nodded. “All those kids would be older than me anyway by heaps.” He took a gulp of wine and then another one. “So is the story about Ganymede true?”

Double damn. Zeus put down his fork.

Chapter Eleven

What are you doing? Why can’t you keep your big mouth shut? Paulie knew he’d hit on a nerve the moment Ganymede’s name was mentioned. Zeus’s face closed off – it was like he was wearing a mask, and he stopped eating. Paulie’s innards were a mass of sexual anticipation, anxiety in being in the presence of such an important being, amazement at all that Zeus could do with a thought and a wave, and need… the sheer need of his tiger to be close to the god was overwhelming.

But he couldn’t go lightly on Zeus. Yes, they were already mates, something Paulie would carry guilt about for a long time. In his mind, Zeus’s comment about not wanting a mate at all was more likely truth than not, and after the rejection from his mother combined with an absent father, he was struggling to accept Zeus’s mindset about casual relationships and fatherhood. It was so far from Paulie’s personal value system, it wasn’t funny.

And now it seemed the situation with Ganymede wasn’t casual.

Zeus finally spoke, his voice low. “You have to know I am not in the custom of explaining myself to anyone. However, in this one instance, because we have a bond, I will. Ganymede was the most beautiful mortal I’d ever seen at the time. I wanted him. I carried him off. I