I am not a good cook, as is evidenced by my attempt to make breakfast for everyone the next morning.

I could blame it on not getting any sleep last night, because I just lay awake to spend every possible moment with Max in my arms. I didn’t want to miss a moment of being with her, because with a life as long as mine, a decade with her would feel like a blink.

But, then again, I’ve never had the need to cook as a god. I either ate ambrosia and drank nectar up on Olympus or went without. And living as a mortal, I’ve always had my food prepared for me, either at restaurants or catered by professional chefs.

So when the smell of burning eggs hits my nose, I know that something’s wrong. And then the hashbrowns turn to hashblacks in the pan. And the oil catches fire, setting off the alarm in the house. I spend a full twenty seconds in a panic trying to find an extinguisher to put out the blaze.

So much for the surprise breakfast.

Luckily, Max is prepared for everything, and I find it underneath the sink. I spray the white foam over the pan, ruining everything I’ve tried to cook.

“Dammit,” I mutter, turning on the vent for the smoking mess. The alarm is bleeping like some infernal cricket from Hades. “By Hestia, this should be easier than it is.”

I flip a kitchen towel at the smoke, coughing as I do so.

Blissfully, the alarm stops, leaving my ears ringing in the sudden silence.

“What the hell are you doing?” Max asks from the hallway, a look of horror on her face. She looks wide awake from the alarm, but her hair is tousled and she’s wearing a plush, cotton rob. “And why are you wearing my apron?”

Suddenly, I feel embarrassed and incompetent in front of her, the exact opposite of what I wanted. I want to impress her, not wake her up in a fright.

“Cooking you breakfast.” I look down at the flowery apron that I’m wearing. “And I thought the apron was a requirement.” That’s what they do on television at least. Everyone wears an apron on the cooking shows that I’ve managed to catch snippets of.

Not that I have a lot of time to watch television.

Max sighs, then shakes her head. “Take that off and go sit over there.” She points to the table. “You’re not cooking, you’re trying to burn down the house.”

I want to assure her that I know what I’m doing, but I see the smile tugging at her lips. She’s amused. And maybe that’s enough.

I untie the apron and hand it to her, which she just loops through the handle of the oven, not even wearing the thing. At my questioning look, she waves me away again. “Sit down. You made a huge mess.”

I know I did. I cracked an egg and spilled it all over the place, and bits of food are cooked to the bottom of the pans and the stove.

A huge failure.

In defeat, I sit down at the table and watch as Max moves about the kitchen, cleaning up the mess and then starting breakfast from scratch. I watch the robe tighten around her breasts and pay particular attention to how light she is on her feet. There’s a confident grace to her.

We make small talk, peppering it with playful banter. We’re easy around each other, even after baring ourselves last night. She’s still the same Max she always was, if not a little more forgiving.

I guess that’s the difference between a boyfriend and your boss.

Am I her boyfriend? Or fake fiancée still? That line is blurring even further, and I don’t know where it stops and ends. Or how to even broach that subject with her.

I’m the god of love, dammit. I should know this shit.

“Mommy?” Gotham says from the doorway, rubbing his eyes underneath his glasses. “What was that noise?” Then he looks over at me and grins. “Morning, Mr. Arrows!”

“Hey, buddy. Sorry about the fire alarm earlier.”

“Mr. Arrows was trying to burn down the house.” Max gives me a pointed look.

Gotham giggles. “So he was cooking like Grampa?”

“Worse,” Max whispers with a wink.

He looks back at me with wide eyes. The only thing I can do is smile back. “Thankfully, your mom saved the day.”

Max gives a snort as she turns back to the stove, cracking an egg over the lip of the pan. “Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes. Are you ready for school?”

Gotham grins. “Yep!” With a stiff, awkward gait, he comes over to sit next to me at the table. He’s wearing his leg braces but is without his crutches. He takes a seat and puts away the homework papers we did last night. Seeing him again this morning, I’m happy that I helped.

“What the hell was that?” Hector joins us in the kitchen. He’s still wearing his threadbare robe, and I get way too much of an eyeful of him again. He glares at me. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Having breakfast,” Max says sharply, giving her father a look that says to not ask too much in front of her son. “And that was just the fire alarm.”

“It’s enough to wake the dead,” Hector mutters. “And I should know because I’m the closest to death here.”

Actually, I’ve been to the Underworld and know that there’s nothing there that could be worse than that fire alarm, but I don’t mention it. It would make a strange breakfast topic.

Hector grabs a chair in a huff and peppers Gotham with questions about how he slept and what he plans on doing at school and more. The kid seems to be used to these kinds of mornings and obliges his grandfather.

For a moment, I have a vision of this being my mornings, albeit with a more successful attempt at breakfast. I can imagine waking up with Max in my arms, sharing the start of the day with this little family and living a different life than what I had imagined life as a mortal should be.

The mental image is so strong, I nearly ignore my phone going off.

Nearly.

I take it out and enter my PIN. There are a few voicemails, but what sticks out to me is three emails. Thumbing through them, I see that they’re contact requests from people who want to hire my services. I will myself to look into their backgrounds, tapping into my god powers to look at their love lines.

These three—a movie star, a fashion designer, and a photographer— are people that I can set up with their soulmates to inspire more people to find love. I’ve always found that it’s so interesting how mortals work and how their lives are intertwined with each other. In my mind’s eye, I can see the connections that could be made. The people who meet at their weddings. The teenaged girl who looks at Instagram pics of her movie star crush in love and vows not to settle.

“Well, I’ll be,” I murmur, speaking up for the first time in a while. It seems that my being in a good mental place has removed a block from people wanting to find love.

“What?” Max glances back at me. She flips something that looks like a pancake.

I shift and put my phone away. “Work stuff. Don’t worry about it.”

A smile appears at the corners of her lips, and she gives me a hooded look. “Good stuff, it sounds like.”

The doorbell rings, cutting through the conversation and the general mood of the kitchen. Max whips her head toward the sound, and I can see her pale in response.

Something’s wrong.

I get to my feet.

“No, just stay here,” she says, waving me to sit down. “Please, Damien. Dad? Can you make sure breakfast doesn’t get burned?”

“Mommy?” Gotham asks sharply as Hector switches places with Max.

“Stay here, Gotham.” She glances at me, and there’s restlessness swirling in those brilliant green eyes. “You too, Damien. I’ll handle this.”

I’ll handle this. What needs to be handled at eight in the morning?

I frown and follow a beat after her. Hector casts me a wary glance but doesn’t say anything. “Okay, Gotham,” he says a little too loudly, “here’s your breakfast.”

Something’s wrong.

I pause, just far enough away from the door to see Max’s back as she talks to someone. From her rigid stance with her arms across her chest, she’s clearly unhappy, talking to whoever’s addressing her.

And it’s like she’s trying to bar their way in.

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “You know you’re not supposed to be here.”

“I just want to see my son,” a voice slurs on the other end.

A chill runs through my veins. So this is Logan, Max’s ex and Gotham’s father. Due to Max asking me to keep her privacy, I haven’t investigated her love life beyond what she told me yesterday. But I realize that I should have done it a long time ago.

Privacy be damned.

The hair on the back of my neck pricks up from danger.

“I will call the cops,” Max threatens, taking a step back, so I can see her silhouetted by the morning sun.

“You bitch,” the man says. I get a glimpse of him, a beanie over a grayish pallor, dark eyes and a nose that has been broken at least once. “Trying to keep him from me?”

“What’s going on?” I ask, finally stepping in.

Max whirls at me, and her eyes flash in terror. No, in warning. The man leans his head in the doorway, not—I notice—taking a step across the threshold, but enough to get a good glimpse of me.

“Who are you?” he sneers.

“I could ask the same of you,” I say, crossing my arms. Even though I know exactly who he is. And I can dive even further into his past to see that he hasn’t had a past full of love. His father was abusive to his mother. They split when he was little, and she loved the bottle more than her son.

This man—Logan—hasn’t had a lot of good examples in his life. I’d almost pity him, except I can see where his love line diverges sharply from Max’s. He got abusive, falling into the same cycle that his family did.

Thank fuck Max had the presence of mind not to stay with him.

“I’m Maxine’s husband,” Logan says lazily.

“Ex-husband,” Max hisses.

Logan curls his lip at her. “Ex-husband. And for good reason. Maxine is a slut, and it appears Maxine has whored herself out to even you.”

Max flinches at the accusation, and I can see the pain in her eyes. This isn’t the first time he’s accused her of this. I can see that now. She’s dealt with his jealousy their entire relationship. I think of Gotham and how sweet he is.

How can he be related to this angry man in front of me? The difference is night and day.

“I think you should leave,” I hiss. “Max asked you once already.”

“Damien,” Max breathes, putting a hand up to stop me.

Logan raises his gaze and lets out a low whistle. “Damien? So you’re Damien Eros, Max’s boss and now the man she’s slutting around with?”

I turn my lips up into a fake smile. “Pleased to meet you. Now go.”

Logan narrows his eyes, feigning to leave, but then lunges at me. It happens in slow motion, his fist sailing toward my face. It catches me off guard enough to where I can’t stop it, not without tapping into my powers and exposing who I truly am.

Max steps in. She deftly catches his hand and spins it around behind his back. He lets out a strangled cry, and she applies pressure to his arm.

I can see why she takes self-defense classes now.

“Leave,” she growls in his ear. “Before you upset my son.”

And she pushes him out the door. He stumbles once, trips, then catches himself. He straightens up, brushing his sleeves as if to be free of her. “You’d better watch yourself,” he says, pointing a finger. It takes me a moment to realize that he’s threatening me.

“I’ll remember to do that,” I tell him.

Max slams the door shut. She leans against it, panting. For a moment, I see the scared single mother who has seen and witnessed way too much in her lifetime. Her shoulders heave in silent sobs, and she combs her fingers through her hair.

Logan’s visit has shaken her to her core.

Gods, I’m such an ass for not seeing it before. And I’m an even a bigger ass for not protecting her from it. I could have saved her from this horrible relationship. Protected her heart from a lifetime of fear.

That’s the thing with mortal lives, though. As gods and goddesses, we have agendas that are wider and more vast than even we give ourselves credit for. I may not have consciously set up Max with Logan all those years ago—but their fates were entwined together before that. If Max hadn’t met Logan, she wouldn’t have had Gotham.

The threads of fate are so hard to follow sometimes. But at this moment, I want to take back these interactions so I can give her peace of mind.

But I can’t.

“Max…”

She cries as I wrap my arms around her. And we stay like that for a long time.