Page 48 of Sweet Obsession

His eyes are filled with devastating understanding. “You did what you had to do to survive.”

I want to jerk away, but within the confines of the front seat, there’s nowhere to go. So I do the only thing I know how. I lash out, aiming to make it hurt. “Oh, please. I might have been a poor little rich boy whose daddy didn’t love him, but I never went without. I was never hungry or without shelter. What I did had nothing to do withsurvival.”

“Didn’t it?” Poseidon brushes his thumb beneath my eye and I’m horrified to realize a tear has slipped free. Where did that even come from? I don’t have an answer by the time he keeps speaking. “How old were you the first time?”

“I don’t see how that matters.”

“Indulge me.” It’s no less a command for being softly spoken.

I swallow hard. “Sixteen, but it’s not what you think.”

He nods, his amber eyes completely free of the judgment I expect. People have bargained their bodies since the beginning of time, for safety, for money, for food. I did it for secrets I didn’t even need. It’s not as if they paved the way to power. The most use I’ll get from them now is saving the lives of strangers who wouldn’t piss on me if I were on fire.

Apparently there’s no way but forward. I curse myself for the awful feeling in my stomach that I can’t quite dispel. “Look, no one made me do anything. Maybe at first I was looking for love in all the wrong places, but I figured out the game pretty quick. I alwaysplanned on getting out, Poseidon, but I didn’t want to do it withhisresources.”

He strokes my face again and leans forward to press a kiss to my forehead. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t. Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Act like I’m someone to be pitied. I made my choices, and they’re going to save this fucking city. I don’t need this weird song and dance of comfort.” When he leans back, I expect him to be shut down. Or be angry. Or be anything but still brimming with that deep understanding. “Stop it,” I whisper. “Stop being nice to me.”

“I don’t know how to be anything else.”

That’s what I’m afraid of.

When the threat Circe represents ends, so does Olympus’s need for me—and by extension, Poseidon’s need to keep me captive. If I evenamcaptive anymore. I don’t think I can exactly waltz out of here and go wherever I want, but I’m hardly being kept under lock and key.

I know better than to hope. Allowing hope means setting myself up for devastation. I sit back and close my eyes. “I promised my sister I’d meet her in Brazil. I try really hard not to lie to her because I lie to everyone else. Something—someone—has to be sacred.”

He shifts, but he doesn’t touch me again. Anyone else would start driving again to allow this uncomfortable conversation to fade away. He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t; he’s Poseidon, and Poseidon has never done anything that I expect him to.

Finally, he says, “Why Brazil?”

“It’s on Ariadne’s list of places she wants to visit, experiencesshe wants to have.” It’s like the strength goes out of my body when I talk about my sister. Or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve never talked about her toanyone. My past lovers were essentially marks—the goal to get information, rather than give it. If I made small talk or told them things, those topics were easy and safe and didn’t matter. They couldn’t be used to hurt me. Not like the sister I love.

Poseidon doesn’t say anything for so long, I finally give in to curiosity and open my eyes to find him watching me the same way I imagine someone would watch a feral animal they were trying to coax close enough to aid.

He catches me looking at him and smiles a little bashfully, color splashing his cheeks. “I’d like to hear about her if you’re willing to tell me.”

I try to analyze the request from different angles, to see how it could hurt me—could hurther—but more than anything, Idowant to talk about her. With him, specifically.

I wrap my arms around myself and huddle into the jacket he gave me without hesitation when he realized I was cold. It wasn’t a move with the intention of getting something in return. He saw my need and he met it with no expectations.

This offer to talk about Ari is the same.

I take a deep breath. “My sister is the one with dreams. Ever since we were kids, she had her eyes on the horizon, on all the places the world has to offer. All she ever wanted to do was travel and inhale every experience. She’s always been fearless like that. It didn’t matter that it was unlikely to ever happen, that our father intended to marry her off to the first strategic match he could find. Shehoped.” I chuckle hoarsely. “Now look at her, sailing off withher pet monster to do exactly what she always wanted.” She’ll accomplish it, too. I have no doubts about that. She’s already managed the impossibility of freedom, so what are the little details like money and papers?

“Brazil?” Poseidon prompts gently.

“Carnaval.” My heart aches like it’s rotting in my chest. Because this is just another promise I’m going to fail to keep. “It happens in February every year, a massive party and explosion of joy and color and music. Right up Ari’s alley. But it’s one of the places on her list that has a specific set of dates. Easier to find each other, I guess.” Though that’s not the full truth. If I escaped Olympus, I have my sister’s phone number. She and the Minotaur have no reason to think anyone would bother tracking it, so she’ll keep it in the hope that one day it’ll ring and be me on the other end.

I hate that I won’t get to experience freedom with her, that I won’t be at her side as she visits all the places on the endless itineraries she created over the years. Sometimes when we were young, we would play pretend about the adventures we’d have in Egypt or Korea or New Zealand—endless places to visit and things to experience.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

I turn to him in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

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