Persephone in Bloom by Kate Healey

Author:Kate Healey [Kate Healey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Karen Healey
Published: 2023-05-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Persephone wondered if it might be appropriate to take off her bra.

It would definitely be more comfortable. Hades had been sleeping for nearly an hour, the exhausted sleep of a man driven to his limits and finding safety at last. He was tucked up behind her, his long limbs tangled around hers, and his breath puffed gently against the back of her neck. It was a pleasantly frustrating sensation.

Hera had found her in the main restaurant, where Mr. Hermes had commandeered all the interns and gotten them setting up the space for the guest speakers, clearing the tables and turning the big room into a lecture theatre. Terry had unwisely revealed that they’d done lighting for college theater, and promptly been hauled over to the tech desk. Persephone had been setting out chairs when Hera stormed in and pointed at her.

“I’m stealing this one,” she’d told Mr. Hermes, in tones of such authority that no one had pointed out that Hera Kronion wasn’t the boss of anyone at Olympus.

Mr. Hermes had looked like he might have wanted to protest, but he’d taken a closer look at Hera and nodded, sending Persephone over with a jerk of his chin.

“What can I do for you?” Persephone asked, and then as she got closer, and got a good look at Hera’s face: “What’s wrong?” Surely Hera didn’t have any reason to look at her like that, with mingled sympathy and fury, as if she were breaking bad news about a terrible accident.

Persephone staggered between steps. What if there’d been a terrible accident?

“Hades is not hurt,” Hera said, and Persephone’s heart kicked painfully back into life. Hera read her look of relief as easily as she’d read the fear, and added, more subdued: “Not exactly hurt. But he is not well. Will you come?”

“Yes,” Persephone said, without thinking about how it would look to Mr. Hermes, or the other interns, or Hera herself. “Where is he?”

Hera led her back through the lobby and to the elevators. “You know Hades has a heights phobia?”

No beating around the bush here. “Yes.”

“Well.” Hera fidgeted with the button of her Versace coat, and Persephone realized that the woman was embarrassed. “My husband… chose to challenge that fear on the drive up.”

“He what?” Persephone demanded.

Hera’s eyes flashed. “I will be discussing that with him,” she said.

“That’s disgusting!”

“I don’t disagree,” Hera said, but there was a warning in her voice, a careful reminder of the boundaries between boss’s wife and… What did Hera think Persephone was, to Hades?

Persephone was abruptly aware that she was acting with a little more emotion than could be reasonably expected of a distant workmate or casual friend. She didn’t think she could stop. “How is Hades now?” she asked.

“He had a panic attack,” Hera said bluntly. “I imagine he’s still feeling the after-affects. I would have stayed with him, but I am not…” She let the words drift, obviously struggling to find the right phrase. “Comforting. It occurred to me that you might be.” She stepped out of the elevator and gestured towards the door.

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