Page 31 of Winning Back Persephone

"It was a good event," he said.

"It was. Aphrodite did a good job."

"She did. Maybe I should hire her for my launch."

I stopped in my tracks. "Your launch?"

"Mmhm. Did I not tell you? I'm opening a club in the human realm."

"What? I've been begging you to do that for years." I started walking again, trying to process the revelation.

"And I was working on it," he said. "It just wasn't ready until now."

"Why didn't you tell me? When I left?"

"Would it have changed anything?" Hades asked. "I didn't want you to stay because of the club."

"And why didn't you tell me before now?"

"Because I didn't want you to come back for the club either," he said.

"Then why tell me now?"

"Haven't you already decided what you want?" he asked, looking at me.

"Yes."

"And are you going to tell me?"

"'I've been trying to find the right words," I murmured.

He stopped us walking and put his hand on my arm. The two of us were so close that it was impossible not to think about him. Not that I'd been doing much to avoid the thoughts anyway. "Try, Persephone," he whispered.

I took a deep breath. "I want you." The words were barely audible. I wetted my lips and tried again. "I want my husband back."

"You never lost me, Sephie." He stepped closer, lifting his hand to my face.

"I'm sorry." Tears welled at the corners of my eyes. "I was a fool."

"It was bound to happen at some point," he said. "You can't be the smartest woman in the room all of the time."

I laughed, but all it did was make the tears start to fall. "I'm so sorry, Hades. I don't know what I was thinking."

He pulled me into his arms and wrapped me up in a tight hug. I rested my head on his shoulder, the tears coming faster than I expected them to. I gripped the front of his coat, desperate to have him as close to me as possible. I didn't want to lose him, and I was aware that I'd risked that the moment I'd turned away from him and said I didn't want to continue our relationship further.

I pulled back, but only so that I could look into his eyes. "Hades, I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he said, brushing my hair out of my face. "You don't have to keep saying it."

"I do. I hurt you. I hurt me. I damaged us."

"It's just part of our story," he assured me. "What's two-and-a-half-thousand years without a hiccup or two?"

I laughed, but it came out garbled thanks to the crying. "It's hardly a hiccup. We both signed up for a dating agency."

"And the only date we went on was with each other."

"I suppose."

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