Page 91 of For the Love of the Gods

“He does it again and it will be reality.”

“I’m sure you’d get away with it,” I muttered under my breath. Because ifI’ddone it, I’d incite a mob in the middle of the restaurant.

“What was that?” Dominic asked, giving me his ear.

I took a sip of wine instead of answering.

Silence, heavy and thick, fell over the table. There were questions, casual conversations I could start, but I honestly didn’t know if that was okay.

“We can’t sit in silence the whole dinner,” Dominic said, leaning back in his chair, looking at me like I’d been presented to him.

“What do you want to do, talk like normal people?”

“We’re gods, not normal people.” Dominic stared at me. Through me. Then spoke pointedly. “Tell me something no one else knows.”

My lips cracked into a helpless smile, drawing Dominic’s attention. “You and my secrets.”

“Come on,” he goaded, eyes still on my mouth. “Tell me.”

I paused. The trust, the willingness to answer him honestly took me off guard. But it didn’tfeelwrong.

“I’ll make you tell me,” Dominic said at my silence, the threat throaty and dark.

“And there’s the threat.” We couldn’t go a full conversation without one.

“Glad you see it like that.” Dominic leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “I know how to torture the information out of you now. Actually, don’t answer. I want a reason to do it.”

Oh. I swallowed on reflex, my throat feeling dry. I reached for my wine, taking a long enough pull to drain half my glass. As I set it back down on the table, Dominic chuckled. I really needed to stop giving him information about myself if he was only going to use it against me.

But now I was considering giving him another piece.

I twisted his ring around a few times, then, “I like the beach.”

Dominic frowned. “Sweetheart, I knew that. Try again.”

I laughed, earning a prideful jolt in Dominic’s expression.

The look in his eyes unlocked my filter because I said, “I’m mad at Daphne,” before I could stop the words.

Dominic sat up straighter at the vulnerability of my answer. “Because she left Lukas?”

I shook my head. “Because she didn’t tell me. She was—is—my best friend. I wouldn’t have told him where she went. Even if he tried to force it out of me. Sheknewthat and still…she just left.”

Dominic nodded with understanding. My stomach pinched with the realization that he’d actually listened to me. Such a basic requirement of a conversation and yet when he did it, it felt honoring. “She didn’t trust you.”

“Mhm,” I hummed in agreement. I dropped my gaze to the napkin crossed over my lap. I adjusted it. “I’d trusted her with so much and the thought that she didn’t feel like she could trust me back…”

“Hurt,” Dominic supplied.

“Like a bitch,” I said, lips turning into a pitying smile.

“You know,” Dominic said. Carefully, like he was testing out responding genuinely instead of with a sarcastic quip. “People do stupid shit when they are scared. React the wrong way out of fear.”

“You think she was scared?” I knew she had reasons to be. A tall, heavily muscled, sea-controlling reason to be. But I wanted to hear what Dominic thought.

“She was staring down a wedding and the responsibility of half a realm. Makes sense.”

“Seventeen years is a long engagement,” I joked. Daphne learned of her betrothal when she was six. “Enough to plot an escape plan.”

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