Page 12 of Hades and Persephone: Keeper of Sins

“What work is that, specifically?” I need to know what it is she won’t do, so that I might offer her something she will do.Anything to keep her.

“Working in a club.” She cringes. “This isn’t my scene. Like I said, I came for the art.”

I want to tell her that I have more art. Hundreds of unseen paintings. I want to lure her away from this friend—from her life. I force what I hope is an easy smile as I slip the hands that itch to steal her away into my pockets. “Well, lucky for me, I’m not looking for someone for the club.”

She releases the lip she’s been biting. “You’re not?”

My blood is a typhoon whirling inside my body. “No.”

“What are you looking for?”

Whatever keeps you as close to me as possible.I say smoothly, “A personal assistant.”

Chapter

Seven

Persephone

The universeclearly has a sense of humor, and I’m the obvious butt of the joke.

I don’t know what possessed me to agree to meet the man for an interview to a job I have no business entertaining taking. My work experience includes growing plants, arranging bouquets, and punching orders into a tablet connected to a register. Oh, and if pressed, I can bump along in a tractor.

It absolutely does not include the experience one would need to work as the personal assistant to a man such as Hades Pluton. A man who inherited millions and transformed it to billions. A complex man whomostly keeps to himself. Rumored to be tortured, arrogant, distantly cold, and sometimes cruel. Not unlike the God of ancient myth, his namesake.

Of course, I’dGoogledhim deep into the night while Willa snored in the bed next to mine.

Now, I’m sleep-deprived on my day off from digging, and I’m about to sit for an interview with a man named Hades. Hence being the butt of a universal joke.Because what are the odds?

The walk from the house I’m currently staying in with some of the other students of the program, to the Tower of Pluto takes longer than I’d like. For the first time since meeting her, I wish I was Claire. With her private apartment in the city and car paid for by wealthy and supportive parents to get her where she needs to be, her life in comparison to mine feels pretty cushy. If I had my own place—or at the very least, my own room, I might get a full night’s sleep.

Really, as much as I like Willa, it would be nice if I didn’t have to listen to her snore. Also, if I get this job, it would be nice to live a little closer to the Tower.

We’d taken a taxi the night before, and it’s not like I haven’t walked by the club before in my explorations. But walking in this heat while panicking isn’t fun, even though I’d thought I could use the exercise to burn off a layer of nerves.

All I’ve really done is sweat through my clothes.

This is a waste of time. The man isnotgoing to hire me.

I really don’t know what I’m thinking. Hell, what hadhebeen thinking, offering me the interview?

I’d told him I was insane. That I heard a voice in my mind and followed it to another country, for goodness’ sake. And he thought, hey, let’s hire the wack job to manage my personal affairs.Honestly!

Maybe he’s the crazy one. The loopy-loo. One straw short of total insanity.

I mean, he’d have to be to hire a self-confessed crazy girl, right?

As instructed, I enter through the main doors of the Tower, where a gigantic man with bulging muscles peeking out from short sleeves gives me a curious once-over. He’s sitting at a table close to the door, and I get the sense his purpose there had been to wait for me.

That sense is confirmed when he rises from his seat to lumber to the door, flipping a heavy bolt. He turns to me. “Persephone?”

I point to the door. “I think you should have asked me thatbeforeyou locked me inside.”

He smirks, a wide and confident grin. “Hades is waiting for you. Leuce will take you to him.” He gestures behind me, and only then do I hear the clicking of heels on marble.

I turn to find the woman from outside the club walking toward me. Again, she’s in a bright white outfit. But unlike last night, she’s showing more skin today in a white pantsuit and a sheer white camisole.

Again, I’m hit by her beauty. Next to her, sweaty like I am, I feel notably inferior.

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