“Ungh.” I grimace and rub at my eyes. “Fuck. Fucking Tartarus.”

Sunlight streams into my eyes and my hangover reared its ugly head. Here’s the thing about Greek gods—give us enough alcohol, and we’ll suffer just like any mortal on earth. Damn Dionysus and his wine-making. I must have had a shit ton to drink last night.

“Max. Maxine, where are you?”

All I want is my personal assistant’s steady, sarcastic attitude to smack me in line. And a hot cup of coffee. I need to get a start on making this already-shitty day better.

“That’s not my name.”

I freeze.

I don’t recognize the sensuous voice purring in my ear or her arms tightening around my bare chest, and my eyes snap open. I’m lying in my bed with my plush sheets pulled up to my collarbone, and there’s a dark-haired woman curled up against me.

Dark-haired.

Not the leggy blond that I had gone to dinner with last night. Which means that somewhere in between Zenkichi and my penthouse apartment, I ended up going to bed with a woman that I don’t remember meeting.

And, I don’t know her name.

I glance down at the woman. There’s jealousy in her eyes at me saying Max’s name, but she trails her long fingers down my chest. She’s pretty and elegant—I can see why my inebriated self would have been drawn to her. Her eyebrows are perfectly arched, her lips full and supple, her breasts pert and perky against my skin.

My cock immediately hardens in response.

I swallow back the lump in my throat and think of a satyr’s hairy ass. Instant cold shower moment. I feel repulsed enough to cut through my hangover and kick her out.

“Morning,” I say timidly. “I guess I’ll call you a limo home, Miss—?”

Nothing like an unwanted visitor in my bed to turn me into an articulate asshole. And it doesn’t escape her, because her gaze hardens in an instant and those sensuous lips twist into a frown.

I’m really not winning any points with her this morning, am I?

“You don’t remember me, do you?” Her tone is flat and matter-of-fact.

I suck in a breath, ready to lie and tell her that I do remember and that the night before was fun. But then I realize that I don’t give a shit—not really—and I can’t be asked to pretend.

“No.” I laugh despite myself. “One too many drinks, I think.”

She doesn’t look amused.

Fuck, I’m the god of love, and I’m failing miserably at diffusing this situation. I call upon my powers to charm her into forgetting her irritation with me and get her out the door. I’ve done this before.

And…nothing happens.

I guess I have enough self-loathing to mask any coherent thought. Maybe she should see the asshole that I truly am.

She sits up, and I get a peek at those perfect, round breasts. Shit, why don’t I remember her name? Why can’t I make this better with my powers?

“Damien Eros,” she chides softly, shaking her head. She gives me a sidelong glance. “Damien, Damien, Damien. And you consider yourself a matchmaker.” At least she knows who I am. “You may be okay in bed—”

“Wait, I was just okay in bed?”

She snickers at my offense. “But you’re terrible at anything related to love.”

It’s just sex, why is she talking about love after only one night? And why is she acting so familiar with me?

Anger clenches in my gut, and I sit up. I’m the god of love for fuck’s sake. I know everything there is to know about love. She can’t make those assumptions. She doesn’t know that love is like spring—everything blooms with promise and beauty, but then it fades and turns brittle like autumn leaves before it finally withers and dies. I’ve been around long enough to know that my gifts as a god are the most fickle of powers.

Love is temporary.

There is no such thing as soulmates.

True love is a lie.

So, we all might as well say fuck it and just have fun.

I’m about to open my mouth to tell her to leave when the door to my bedroom opens, and Max is standing there with a cardboard tray of three to-go cups of coffee, one for me, one for my date, and one for her. She takes in the scene with a dismissive frown, and she cocks a hip in clear annoyance.

“So, she’s not a leggy blond,” she mutters under her breath.

The other woman narrows her eyes at Max. “Not a—” She looks back at me in horror. “You just surround yourself with women, don’t you, Damien? Yet, you don’t respect them at all.”

I narrow my eyes in response. I respect women the same amount as I do all mortals—I’m a little offended, actually.

I swing my feet to the side of the bed and grab my robe. Max has been through this routine enough and knows when to avert her eyes as I stand and tie the robe around me. “Maxine will call you a ride home.”

The woman glances between us and gives a sharp laugh. “You’re kicking me out?”

Max thrusts a cup of coffee in her hands with a forced smile. “Just count your blessings that you don’t have to deal with this asshole every day of your life. And you even get coffee as my condolences.”

Her voice is dripping with sarcasm as she pulls out her phone to call a ride.

Really, that’s no way for a personal assistant to speak to her employer. Still, when Max gives me a pointed look that dares me to argue with her, I hold my tongue. Hell, if she can get this angry woman to leave my room, then I’ll give her diamonds or a free trip to Disneyland.

I don’t know which one she’d like more, to be honest. Really, I think it would depend on Max’s mood that day—she’s a prickly one.

The dark-haired woman glares back at me. “You’ll regret this, Damien Eros. Just wait until—”

“If you don’t leave this room right now,” Max says quietly, but there’s enough vehemence there to cut the woman’s rant off, “I will give you a ticket for the subway instead of a limo, and you don’t look like someone who has ridden the subways recently. Should I show you that video of Pizza Rat to reacquaint you with what you’ll find? He’s kind of cute, and I think you’ll find plenty of other rats like him down there.”

She holds up her phone threateningly, and I can see that she has already pulled the video up on Youtube. The woman pales at the thought of riding the subway. I’m not that familiar with the subway system—being a god, I never had to deal with the trappings of what mortals deal with, and I know that millions of people ride subways every day—but I can tell that she can’t handle the thought of subways and rats.

The woman wraps the sheets around her body, grabs her clothes, and heads to my master bathroom to change. “Some matchmaker you are,” she snarls at me. “Bastard.”

The door slams so hard, the hinges rattle, and Max winces.

I sigh and comb a hand through my hair. “Thank you for dealing with her for me, Max.”

She whirls on me, fire in her eyes. It takes me by surprise, and I blink at her.

“You need to get your fucking life in order, Damien,” she says through gritted teeth. I open my mouth to answer, but she keeps going, steamrolling over me in the process. “Be a gentleman, for fuck’s sake. It’s not that hard to do. How are you supposed to be some romantic love guru if you treat everyone like shit?”

I don’t have an answer. I just stare at her wide-mouthed, shocked.

Because she’s right. In my depressed state and self-loathing for anything related to love, I have been treating everyone like shit.

We’re standing so close together, if Max weren’t pissed, we’d be at an intimate distance. But there’s nothing intimate about the anger in her frown. I swallow back the lump in my throat, trying to quell an unfamiliar sensation in my chest.

A weirdness that wasn’t there before.

“I’m sorry, Max.”

She looks like she wants to say something else, but she draws back and shakes her head. “I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” she says. “Then again, I’m not sure who you need to apologize to, only that you need to get your shit together. You’re so fucking hard to work for sometimes.”

I grin. “And maybe you should fix your attitude. You do work for me, after all.”

She turns around to make a retort but stops when she sees the grin on my face. She gnaws at her bottom lip before nodding. “Get some clothes on. You have a lot of meetings today, and you’re already running late.” She glances at the door, hesitating. “I’ll take care of her.”

“Thanks, Max.”

She nods. “I’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes. Don’t be late, or I will quit.”

She slips out of my bedroom, and I’m left alone, looking at the door, wondering what it was that I felt when we were nose to nose.

Surely not.

There’s one thing I know from being the god of love—falling for your personal assistant is a bad idea. Some stories make it sound romantic, like some sort of fairytale, but nothing good would come out of making a move on Maxine Galloway.

I bet she’d be great in bed with her fiery temper, passion, and the way she takes charge of everything.

It would be so damn hard to find a better personal assistant though.

I turn away from the door, not following through with the errant thoughts roaming through my head.

I tell myself that’s the only reason why I don’t do anything.

Yeah. Right.