"It's never a good idea to leave a man hungry. You are playing a dangerous game, Gianna."

Eros frowned at his own warning, watching Gia staring out of the window as the helicopter made its descend. It was as dangerous for him as it was for her. Playing with humans at such a personal level had never ended well for either side. And he was dangerously hungry, ravenous, actually, for many things. To sleep with her, yes—that much he wasn't going to deny it—but also to know more of this woman who could surprise him at every turn, to figure her out, to understand, to see if he could win her heart, but most of all—at least for the time being—to meet this man who had left her for another. Maybe also to meet the woman he had left her for.

Hell, his immortal life hadn't been this exciting since, well, Troy. Now, Troy was something. Heroes dropped like flies everywhere, drama exploded in Olympus, goddesses fought amongst themselves worse than an end-of-season shoes sale, and panicking humans, of course, proceeded to do the only thing they never failed to do which was to point fingers and try to kill each other as much as possible to stop the killing (logic was never their strong points). Troy was Entertainment with a capital E, and it hadn't needed dragons or half-frozen zombies to accomplish, mind you, nor had it featured some crippled, procrastinating, sleep-walking characters with daydreams so uninteresting it nearly made a god die of boredom (an accomplishment, that).

Now that he thought of it, that shit got started pretty much because his mother would rather tear down an entire city than lose a bet.

Not too different, actually, regarding this situation with Gia.

He shuddered at that.

Outside, Carl's countryside estate came into view. Gia kept her eyes out the window, her red lips pressed into a thin line as the garden party appeared down below. Thousands of lights had been strung up above what seemed to be twenty tables covered in black and white linens arranged neatly under the stars. It was pretty extravagant, he had to admit, but the closer the chopper was to landing, the more Gianna's expression resembled his mother's when someone asked her if she'd gained weight, and when that happened you could bet on some cataclysmic shit to go down soon after.

The chopper landed and Gia stepped out onto the helipad, looking like Maleficent in a red dress out to stab somebody in her ex-boyfriend obscenely large backyard with her stilettos, twice. She paused and stretched out her left arm at him with the fluidity of a feline, demanding a place to rest her five-carat-diamond-enhanced hand on from her plus one. Eros obliged, of course. You didn't turn down an opportunity to escort a hot woman in red into a party whether you're a god or a man, and also whether or not she was planning a double homicide.

The woman strode toward the main event on her four-inch heels with the speed of a level 3 treadmill setting and the determination of a pissed off supervillain. Judging from the way the staffs greeted her, no invitation was needed (or nobody wanted to be the martyr and risked asking). She must have come here a lot in the past with Carl, which explained the frown when she saw the estate from the air. It stung, he supposed.

But a woman like Gianna Moretti could sting a lot worse, as was proven to him as soon as they walked into the party and all eyes turned toward their direction, staring, only for once in his life, not at him.

"Tell me something, Gia," he asked, looking around at the guests and their outfits, and then at her in-your-face red dress. "Did you know this was going to be a black and white ball?"

She jutted out her chin, appeared to regard the question as utter nonsense, and replied with the haughtiness befitting a queen regent whose husband just died from an unexplainable cause. "Of course, I did."

He thought so. "And you're wearing red on purpose."

"Of course, I am." What kind of question was that? She thought in earnest.

"To what end?" He was genuinely curious now, actually.

She made a face of utter disgust and disbelief, as if she had been a goddess and he had just cursed a her in her own temple. "That Barbie doll bimbo stole my boyfriend and you think I'm going to let her dictate what I wear to this wretched party that should have never happened, so she can have a perfect wedding memory where everyone caters to her needs and makes her the little star of this rotten, shameless show despite how much it stinks? Not gonna happen while I'm alive."

Put that way, she might have had a valid point, or she simply had the ability to make her chosen point valid. He could imagine his mother coming to the same conclusion actually, and for a moment he wondered if they'd become best friends or try to stranger each other within 3.5 seconds if they ever meet. Still. "You're a bitch, you know that?"

"Says the man who were supposed to be seducing me." She frowned. She looked gorgeous when she frowned.

"I'm trying to win your heart, darling, not just get into your pants." He wanted that too, but that wasn't the end goal now, was it?

She hoisted a shapely brow. "And only one of those requires being nice to me, really?"

"Technically, yes," he said, guiding her along the buffet table. "Traditionally, no. I could, if you want, go all traditional and tell you how pretty you look, how I like you better without makeup, how I love to watch you eat and wouldn't mind you blowing up into a whale two years later, that I don't drink, smoke, do drugs, fuck random women, say no to an orgy, swear, or act like a two-year-old when I'm drunk, which would only insult your intelligence and disappoint you three months down the line when you figure out it was all a bunch of bullshit, after which time we will then resolve our disappointments with each other and see if there's anything that resembles love in it. And since I only have three months—oh, here, take one—" He picked up a flute of champagne and gave it to her, before getting himself another. "I'm going to skip the pretentious crap and go straight to being me. So this is who I am, Gia. The whole package. And I'll tell you what I think of you." He sipped the champagne. It wasn't a very good one. "I think you're an entitled, opinionated, angry bitch with balls the size of Apollo's which happens to be fascinating to me. As for the way you look," he paused, glanced down at his throbbing erection to make a point, "it's pretty self-explanatory, I should think."

For the very first time, Gia's mouth dropped open as she stared at him, wide-eyed. "You think I have balls the size of Apollo's? Really?"

Eros blinked. The flute in his hand hung in midair. "For the love of Zeus and his bastards, Gianna. All that speech and that's the only thing you picked up?" It was the only thing she'd picked up. He'd just read her mind.

"Well, it's the best damn compliment I've ever had," she said, matching her words to the exact ones in her thoughts. "Minus the self-explanatory erection. Do something about that, will you? It's pretty embarrassing."

"Embarrassing?" Now, she was being ridiculous. "It's a compliment to you as a woman. You should be proud."

"I should be proud?" What kind of fucked up logic is that?

"It means you're a hot woman who's won a handsome man that can easily get it up. How is that a fucked up logic?"

"For the love of Zeus and his bastards, Eros," she made a show of mimicking him, complete with the face and the accent. It was actually quite adorable. "Have you no shame at all?"

"For being sexually attracted to you? Of course not. You in that dress, Gianna? If I didn't have a hard on it would mean there's something seriously wrong with you or with me, and I assure you, there's nothing wrong with either of us," he told her. "Back in those days, it was viewed as a sign of masculinity even."

"Eros, this is the twenty-first century."

"Humanity deteriorates, I know." At a faster rate too, these days.

She stared at him for a time, her mind went completely blank, and then she started to laugh, really laugh for the first time that evening. The harsh lines of her face softened when she did that, and he could swear there was a miniature-sized him fluttering in his stomach, complete with the bow and arrow, mind you.

"You're impossible," she said, managing somehow to manufacture a frown in the middle of a laugh.

"Of course, I am." He shrugged. "And you're here to crash a wedding."

"An engagement party," she corrected.

"Meaning you wouldn't crash it if it were?"

"I..." She began to protest in earnest, had a mid-sentence revelation, deflated, and admitted, "...would." She sighed. He's right. "You're right."

It brought a smile to his lips, one he could hardly contain. The thing with Gia was that he really didn't have to read her thoughts. She spoke her mind most of the time, sometimes even spoke without thinking. It took someone who truly didn't give a damn about what people thought of them to be that honest, someone bold enough to admit so easily when they were wrong. Not easy to find in the realm of mortals, or even among the gods actually. He liked that about her. The miniature-sized him liked her too, judging from its activities in his stomach.

She was looking at the creme brûlée trying to decide if the calories were worth it when he saw Carl walking toward her. Carl Stevens, current CEO of Stevens and Sons Holdings was a man in his late twenties, moderately tall, moderately handsome, and moderately built. Moderate was the word to describe everything about him, yes. From what he'd heard of Gia's rant, he had expected the man to be somewhat vile in the flesh, but had that been the case, it didn't show. From the appearance, Carl Stevens seemed mild and composed in a nice guy sort of way.

Carl came to a stop behind her, leaned forward to speak over her shoulder but at an acceptable distance. "It's worth it, Gia," he said, a gentle smile playing about his lips. "There's real vanilla in there, I made sure of it. I know you love those."

Gianna stiffened like a deer in the headlights at the voice. The hand on Eros' arm squeezed tight around it for a moment before she turned around to look at her ex-boyfriend, then gave him a practiced smile of confidence that didn't quite make par. For Eros, the fact that Carl could read her that well without his godly power pissed him off a little.

Pretentious, presumptuous pig, Gia swore in her thoughts, and then admitted to it that, yes, she did have a weakness for Creme Brûlée made with real vanilla. "How nice of you to remember." She smiled thinly and then tugged at Eros' arm to bring him forward. "I don't believe you've met—"

"Eros Riley," Carl finished the sentence with a polite smile, holding out his hand for a shake. "I've been reading a lot about you lately. That move into telecommunication was ingenious. A pleasure to meet the man in the flesh."

Eros took the offered hand, admired the firm grip and the sincere compliment. Those words had been genuine, having had a peek into the man's mind just now. Interesting. "Pleasure's all mine." He gave Carl his most devastatingly handsome smile, for Gia's sake, also for fun, wondering what the reaction would be.

It didn't touch him, really. The man was even complimenting him in his mind. His manner was also spotless, to the point of making Gia seem crude in comparison. This isn't, Eros thought, an easy man to play with or to manipulate into throwing fits of rage or jealousy. How very exciting.

"I didn't know you were a fan of Eros," Gia said with a sweet smile dripping with enough toxicity to kill an entire colony of bullet ants. She then proceeded to relocate her hand from the arm she had been holding to Eros' back, and began drawing large circles on it with her fingers to make sure the action would be noticed.

To Eros' surprise, Carl, in his attempt to appear composed, smiled at the gesture but didn't manage to hide the hurt that came through in his rather ordinary brown eyes. "I had no idea you knew him, Gia," he said and again she stiffened at her name from his lips. There was intimacy in the way he'd said it, enough stories in the tone he'd used to make anyone who hear it uncomfortable. "I would have invited you to dinner a long time ago," he added, turning back to Eros. "In fact, would you like to join us at our table? Olivia would be thrilled to meet you, I think."

It was difficult to tell which you he was referring to, and he had to wonder if that was a jab at Gia (his thoughts didn't reveal it). A bold move in any case, Eros gave him that, and one that Gianna, for all the cursing she had been firing non-stop in her mind, decided to take as a challenge. She leaned on him, pressing the side of her breast and her hip against Eros' as she took up the offer. "We'll be there," she said, smiling.

Inside, she was crying, or bleeding, or both. He could feel it through their contact.

There was definitely more to this than he had originally thought, Eros realized. The pain was real enough, and for the both of them, as a matter of fact. He had made the presumption that the man who'd left her was nothing but a tick jumping from one dog to another. A poor presumption, now that he thought of it, having known to a certain point what she was made of. Gianna Moretti was not a woman upon whom any blood-sucking organism would survive. She was too smart, too experienced, too secure to be in love with a man who didn't love her back or didn't treat her fairly. There had obviously been something real between the two of them.

And for the polite and mild response Carl was pulling, one important thing had certainly not escaped Eros' notice.

He was still in love with her.

Eros smiled widely at that, picked up a ramekin of creme brûlée and handed it to Gianna. "Eat your carbs and sugars, sweetheart, because you're gonna need it. I'll help you burn that off tonight if I can't burn it all off at Dear Carl's table."

Now, let's go have some fun, shall we?

***