Fantasy Lover(39)

Grace looked up and caught Julian's tortured gaze. "Julian, my name is Grace Alexander."





Chapter 7




Julian stared at Grace, his mind whirling as her words rang in his head.

Could it be? Dare he believe it?

Dare he even hope after all this time…

"Your surname is Alexander?" he repeated in disbelief.

"Yes," she said, a slow, encouraging smile breaking across her face.

Cupid looked sharply at him. "Have you two made friendly with the privates yet?"

"No," Julian said. "We haven't." And to think he had been angry over that.

Grace had saved him from making the third biggest mistake of his life. At that moment, he could have kissed her.

A smile split Cupid's face. "Well, I'll be damned. Or you'll be undamned, I should say. I never knew a woman who could be around you more than ten minutes who didn't drop her-"

"Cupid," Julian snapped, cutting him off before he gave a lengthy discourse on the number of women Julian had slept with. "Do you have anything else informative to say?"

"Just this. Mom's curse-breaker is contingent on Priapus's not finding out. If he does, he could circumvent the whole thing with one of his nasty whammies."

Julian clenched his fists as he remembered quite clearly some of his half-brother's more evil actions.

For some reason he'd never fully understood, Priapus had hated him since the moment of his birth. And over the years, Priapus had given sibling rivalry a whole new meaning.

Julian took a sip of his drink. "He won't find out unless you tell him."

"Don't look at me," Cupid said. "I don't run with his crowd. You have me confused with cousin Dion. And on that note, I need to go meet up with my boys. We plan to do a major tribute to old Bacchus later tonight." Cupid held his hand out, palm upward. "My bow, if you please."

Careful lest it prick him, Julian fished it out of his pocket and returned to him.

It was then he caught a rare, honest look of affection from his older brother. "I'll be around if you need me. Just call my name-the one not Cupid. And please lay off the 'worthless bastard' stuff. Sheez." He raked him with a smirk. "I should have known it was you."

Julian said nothing as he remembered what had happened the last time he took his brother up on that offer.

Cupid scooted out of the booth, looked at Grace and Selena, then smiled at Julian. "Good luck with earning your freedom. May the strength of Ares and wisdom of Athena see you through."

"And may Hades roast your hoary soul."

Cupid laughed. "Too late. He did that in the third century and it wasn't so bad. Later, little brother."

Julian didn't speak as Cupid made his way out of the restaurant like an almost normal human being.

The waitress brought their food to them.

Julian picked at the strange meat on bread, but he didn't feel like eating it. He'd lost his appetite.

Grace poured something red to cover the meat, then placed the bread together and took a bite while Selena ate a salad drenched with white sauce.

Looking up, Grace caught Julian's frown as he watched her eat. His face even more troubled than before, he had a hardness to his jaw that said he was clenching his teeth. "What's the matter?" she asked.

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Are you really willing to do what Eros said?"

Grace set her burger down and wiped her mouth with her napkin. In truth, she didn't like the thought of Julian using her body to gain his freedom. A one-night stand with no commitments, no promises.

Julian would be gone as soon as he finished with her. She had no doubt about that.

Why would a man like him ever want to stay with her when he could have any woman on the planet eating out of his hand?

Still, she couldn't condemn him to live out eternity in a book. Not when she could free him.

"Tell me something," she said quietly. "I want to know the whole story of how you got into that book. And what happened to your wife."

She wouldn't have thought it possible, but his jaw got even tenser. He was trying to hide again.

But Grace refused to let him run. It was time he understood exactly why the thought of sleeping with him bothered her. "Julian, you're asking a lot of me. I haven't had much experience with men in social situations."

He frowned. "You are a virgin?"

"I wish," she breathed.

Julian saw the pain in her eyes as she whispered the words. She dropped her shamed gaze to the floor.

No, his mind roared. Surely she hadn't been through what he suspected. As the very idea went through his mind, an unexpected rage coiled through him. "Were you raped?"

"No," she whispered. "Not… exactly."

His confusion dispelled his anger. "Then what?"