“I’m not arguing that.” The way she says it makes me think someone argued it at some point, but she continues before I have a chance to question her further. “But there are plenty of people who already think I’m sleeping with you so you’ll pay my bills, so having you move me somewhere up-city would make that unbearable.”
I understand what she’s saying. I do. But I can’t help arguing as I wrestle her second suitcase into the trunk. “You don’t care what anyone in Olympus thinks of you. Why would you deprive yourself of a safe place to live just because people would talk? They already talk.”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
I slam the trunk closed and circle around to hold the door for her. She looks lovely today, wearing a sundress with a floral pattern on it. I’ve never been so attracted to flowers in my life.
Cassandra slips into the car and sighs. “Gotta love air-conditioning. It’s hotter than Hades outside.”
“Hades isn’t that hot.” I’m a liar. He’s ridiculously sexy in a broodish sort of way, and he only seems to have gotten more so now that he’s happily married. Every time he looks at his wife, he practically lights up the room, which only increases his overall attractiveness. Not that he’s aware of it.
“Yes, he is, but that’s not what I meant and you know it.”
I do know it. I’m also not going to let her distract me from my earlier question. “Explain what you mean. What don’t I understand?”
Cassandra leans back against the seat. “You’re not an asshole.”
I blink. “Thanks?”
“It’s a compliment.” She sounds mildly furious. “If you were anyone else, I’d happily take you for everything you had, but you’re the reason I’m able to put Alexandra through school right now. Asking for more is just ridiculous.”
I try to parse through all that. The logic is a strange sort of twisted, but she’s right. It is a compliment. Still, there’s something I can’t leave alone. I stifle the urge to take her hand—there’s no one here to watch us—and settle back against the seat. It will take just under two hours to reach Minos’s country home. We have time. “Cassandra.”
“Apollo.” She mimics my tone. “You’re about to say something unreasonably logical, and it’s going to piss me off.”
“Without a doubt.” I spare a smile. “You’re one of the smartest people I know. I value your input. I’m not bringing you to this party because you’re a beautiful distraction. You see things I don’t. It’s why I pay you so much, and it’s why I’d happily pay you more. If the only criteria for this task were a pretty face and gorgeous body, there are plenty of others to choose from. I need your keen mind at my side.”
She looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. “I don’t know how to deal with what you just said, so I’m going to ignore it.”
“Cassandra—”
She holds up a hand. “We only have so much time before we’re at Minos’s place. I’m assuming we won’t easily be able to have frank conversations on the property?”
“No.” I shake my head slowly. She’s right that we need to tie up any loose ends before we get there, but I can’t shake the feeling that she just changed the subject because she isn’t comfortable with the compliment. That doesn’t make any sense, though. Cassandra is one of the most confident people I know. Why would she be uncomfortable with my honest appreciation?
It takes more effort than it should to focus properly. “We have to assume he’s bugged the place, both with audio and potentially video.”
She narrows her eyes. “He’ll expect you to sweep the room, at least, and remove anything you find.”
“Yes.” I am Olympus’s spymaster. Minos is canny enough to know that, and he’ll expect me to take precautions. That’s the true rub. He knows I’m coming to this party to find information and yet he still invited me. It’s a dare. “I have a solution to the cameras. It’s blunt, and normally I’d just play along and pretend I didn’t realize they were there, but I won’t let anything that happens at this party harm you.”
Cassandra waves that away. “My reputation has been in tatters since before you met me. Besides, this is a fake relationship, so it’s not as if we’re in danger of having him film and leak a sex tape. If it serves your purpose to keep the cameras in place, don’t let me be the reason you don’t.”
Sex tape.
An image slams into my head, too quick to resist. Me on my back, holding my phone. Cassandra astride me and…
I abruptly stare out the window. The city has given way to rolling countryside. I focus on the trees, counting them until I have control of my body’s response. When I finally turn back, she’s looking at me strangely again.
“I won’t let any harm come to you. The cameras go.” The statement comes out too harsh, too bold.
“Okay. I trust you.” Her easy belief in me is staggering, but she continues before I can fully process. “I don’t suppose you have blueprints of the house?”
“No.” The admission grates. “It used to belong to Hermes.” Hermes is one of the few members of the Thirteen that I have next to no information on. She took the title about a year after me. The Hermes title is transferred by virtue of stealing an unstealable object or acquiring a piece of information about one of the Thirteen that no one else knows. This Hermes did both.
She appeared out of nowhere. No past, no active connections to any of the legacy families, no motive that I can see. She stood before the rest of us and recited things about the others that not even I knew while holding an heirloom vase from my family’s vault. No one contested the truth of those facts, and she was instated as Hermes immediately.
Since then, she’s been an agent of chaos, but she seems to genuinely want to protect Olympus. I wouldn’t call her an ally, but she’s not an enemy.
I think.
Either way, despite her apparent lack of boundaries and deep love of breaking and entering, Hermes is intensely private when it comes to her own home. Frankly, I’m shocked she sold this place to Minos. The country might not suit her, but she’s owned the house since she took over the title.
“Well, shit.” Cassandra sighs. “Then it’s bound to be full of surprises. Hermes’s sense of humor is too twisted not to have secret passageways and the like. It would appeal to her.”
I can’t argue that, though the familiar way she speaks of Hermes has my curiosity stirring. “Most likely.”
She hesitates. “I’m still surprised you didn’t manage to get the blueprints. The house didn’t spring out of nothing. Someone built it. If you can’t get to it through permits, applying pressure to one of the workers is the next best thing.”
I love that she already made that logical jump. I shake my head. “I tried. She didn’t use any of the known contractors in the upper city.”
“She went to the lower city.”
I smile reluctantly. “That’s my theory. And they have no love for me as a member of the Thirteen, so it’s a dead end.” Not to mention Hades wouldn’t have thanked me for trespassing in his domain. There are circumstances when it would behoove me to test him, but not over something as mundane as this. It aggravates my curiosity to no end that I don’t know what Hermes did to the building after she acquired it, but ultimately it’s a country house that I would never set foot in.