It would be so much easier if I could tell the truth, but if I share what’s really going on, she’ll worry. More, I am very careful to hide how much I go without to ensure Alexandra has everything she needs. She has enough hurdles after what our parents did. The last thing I want to do is add to her burden. She’d start making her own sacrifices to help me, and that I can’t allow.
If she knows I agreed to Zeus’s bargain to help her, she’ll feel bad and tell me I don’t need to do it. No, better to keep up the lie Apollo and I are about to spin to the whole of the city.
I’ll come clean at the end, when I can explain why it was all worth it.
I take a deep breath. “Yeah, about that.”
Her eyes go wide. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not joking.” My skin heats. “I wanted to tell you first. You know how this city is. We’re going to be photographed and they’re going to say terrible things about me. Just, uh, heads up.”
Her smile fades. “I wish it wasn’t like that. You’re not our parents. You’d think after twelve years, they’d have realized it.”
“They don’t care, Alex. Our parents dying wasn’t enough. They need someone to punish and we’re still here.” Not that we have a choice. I don’t know if our parents would have tried to leave the city after failing in their plan. They never got the chance. They died the same night they attempted to enact the assassination clause.
Leaving us to pick up the pieces. “They’ll keep punishing us as long as we’re here.”
“I’m sorry.” She reaches across the table and takes my hand. “You shouldn’t have them putting a damper on a really great thing. I’m happy for you, Cass. He seems like a really good guy.”
I swallow past the sudden lump in my throat. I hate lying to my sister, but it’s for the best. “He is.”
The entire walk back to the office, I wonder if I’ve done the right thing in not telling Alexandra the truth. I’ve been her guardian for nearly a third of my life; at this point, keeping the less savory details of my life from her is second nature.
I’ve done the right thing. I’m sure of it. She’ll be happy when I explain the situation fully and have a solution to the problems that have plagued us for twelve years. A true escape.
In the end, pretending to date Apollo in order to investigate Minos is a small price to pay.
Being back at my desk feels particularly surreal. Nothing’s changed and yet everything’s changed. I don’t know how to explain it. Apollo is still my boss, at least until Zeus’s payment clears my account. That should be where it ends, but I can’t help obsessing over how we’re supposed to play pretend for all of Olympus. Not just in carefully constructed public dates. At a house party. The intimacy that will be required leaves me breathless and a little sick to my stomach.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
I glance up to find Apollo standing in the doorway to his office, looking adorably ruffled and mildly uncomfortable. “Cassandra.” He clears his throat. “We have less than a week until the party begins. We should, ah, make an appearance this weekend.” He’s still not quite meeting my gaze. “I’ve taken the liberty of booking us dinner at the Dryad.”
Of course he has.
It’s where he takes all his first dates, so I should have considered the possibility that this fake relationship would be expected to follow the same route. There’s just one problem.
The Dryad is one of the most elite restaurants in the entire upper city. There’s a wait list for the wait list. The fact that he’s able to get a reservation so quickly is a minor miracle, but it doesn’t change the fact that there’s a firm dress code for the place and I don’t have a single piece of clothing that fits it.
I’ve spent five years painstakingly building up a capsule wardrobe that won’t embarrass me while working for Apollo. My job puts me in contact with a number of the Thirteen and various families within power, and they might loathe me on principle, might make snide comments about my body just within hearing range, but they cannot fault my style. It’s become a point of pride for me.
Shame heats my skin, and the fact that I feel shame for something so far beyond my control stokes my ever-present anger to the surface. “Yeah, that’s not going to work for me.”
Surprise lights his dark eyes. “It won’t?”
If he was anyone else, I’d cut him off at the knees, but this is Apollo and not even I am heartless enough to go there. I look away, all too aware that my pale skin must be an unsightly crimson. “I don’t have anything to match the dress code.”
“Oh. That’s all?”
I whip back around to face him. “Excuse me? What the fuck do you mean, that’s all? If I show up in one of the dresses I already own, I’ll get turned away and you’ll be laughed out of the building. How does that help anyone? Maybe you have a humiliation kink, but I don’t.”
“Kink shaming, Cassandra? Really?”
My skin flushes hotter, and I can’t tell if it’s embarrassment or me dying a small death at the word kink on Apollo’s tongue. “What? No. That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.” He considers me. “You’ve agreed to this plan.”
The abrupt change of course pulls me up short. “Uh, yes?”
“So you agree that my taking any measures to ensure the success of the plan is reasonable and not charity?”
I immediately see where he’s headed and glare. “That’s logical, but I don’t like it.”
“I know.” His lips curve, his smile making my heart beat erratically. “You’ll be paid for overtime, of course, but I have a call to make.”
“But—” It’s too late. He steps into his office and closes the door firmly behind him.
I glance at the clock. It’s already three. I don’t know what resources he’s going to pull in to outfit me in a new wardrobe in twenty-four hours, but that’s obviously his plan. I swallow past the pride threatening to choke me. He’s right. This is to further the plan, not because it’s charity. Come to think of it, Zeus made an offhand comment about my wardrobe during that last meeting, but I’d been too flustered to think much about it.
It doesn’t matter. I know what Olympus will think when they see me at Apollo’s side in clothing that’s blatantly new. They’ll call me a gold digger and whisper that I’m sleeping my way to the top to reclaim the power my parents lost.
It’s not the truth, but Olympus never cared about the truth. Not when a juicy story is dangled in their faces. Not when a convenient lie covers up an ugly reality.
It’s fine. I knew this was coming. It’s why I warned Alexandra earlier.
I press my hands to my desk and focus on breathing through my anger. It doesn’t matter what those piranhas of the upper city think. This relationship with Apollo isn’t real and it’s only temporary. I’ve dealt with the nasty comments and sidelong looks for twelve years. I can do a few weeks more.
At the end of this, Alexandra and I get out.
I can bear anything to reach that conclusion. As long as I don’t try to follow in my parents’ footsteps, the worst the Olympian assholes will launch at me are words. I’m not so thin-skinned to let that deter me from my end goal. Zeus’s money will get us far, and I won’t do anything to give him cause to say I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain.