Page 25 of Matchmaking With Cupid

She looked at me with surprise on her face. "Hi." She leaned in to kiss my cheek.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I might have come to spy on the date. I figured that if this was going to happen, then we could at least get some useful information out of it. Are you doing the same?"

"I was coming to explain the situation to Hades," I admitted. "And hope that it didn't go too badly."

"It's a shame Hades has already met me," she said.

"Oh?"

"Well, if he hadn't, then we could have pretended the system had matched him up with me instead of Persephone."

A weird feeling twisted within me at the suggestion, and I found I didn't like it at all.

She put her hand on my arm. "I'd have made sure the date went badly. Well, not too badly. You know what I mean."

I chuckled. "It's not a terrible plan."

"I could message one of my friends, I'm sure they'd do it for us. For a free meal."

"It's probably too late for that," I admitted. "But we should maybe have tried that first." Or gone to Aine and told her about the situation. Though I was still hoping to head it off before it came to that. A simple explanation to Hades and Persephone should sort things out, though I wasn't about to explain to them exactly why it happened, that was between me and Eloise.

"I think you might be too late for intervention though." She looked past me to the dining area.

I followed her gaze, freezing in place when I noticed Hades in conversation with a dark-haired woman who I recognised immediately.

It was far too late to head off any Hades and Persephone drama, they were both already here and knew about one another.

"What do we do now?" Eloise asked.

I grimaced. "Good question."

"We could get dinner," she suggested. "We're already here, and if we're in the same dining room then we can keep an eye on them better. If anything goes wrong, that means we'll be ahead of it."

"Are you just saying that because you want to eat here?"

"Oh, definitely. This place is expensive, and I'd rather eat on Jinx's dime than my own," she joked. "And what else are we going to do?"

"Fair point." And it would be nice to get to eat with her, even if it was technically for work. I put a hand on Eloise's lower back and headed over to the podium where the Maitre d' was waiting poised to assist us. "Table for two, please."

"Of course, sir." He gestured for us to follow him.

"Should I be worried that we're just allowed to walk in?" Eloise whispered to me.

I laughed. "Jinx sets up dates here all the time, they know who I am."

"Oh. I hadn't realised that would be the case."

"Perks of the job. I can get us into almost every upscale restaurant in town," I admitted.

"Almost?"

"I'm not really welcome at Il Cavalluccio Marino."

"Greek-Roman rivalry?" she guessed.

"How did you know?"

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