Anyone else would deny it. He didn’t really lie, after all—he never told me his name. He never claimed to be someone he wasn’t. But he never told me the truth, either. He pretended not to know me, and his mortal form alone was an intentional deception.
Hephaestus nods. “I’m sorry.”
“But—you’re mortal,” I say, dazed.
“I’ve been searching for you ever since you left, and I scoured the world looking for this place. The only way I could blend in was to take a mortal form. I knew my boat might crash. I knew I might feel pain. It was a risk, but for you…” He clears his throat. “Please forgive me.”
“I don’t…” I trail off and stare at him as if this is the first time I’ve ever seen him. It is, in a way. “Why are you here?”
He grimaces. “Because I want you to have the life you deserve. I’m not very good with words, but I love you, Aphrodite. I’ve loved you my entire life. Not because of what you look like, not because of the horrible arrangement my father made, but because of who you are underneath. You radiate. You’re sunshine. You make the world a brighter place just by existing. You see the beauty underneath the surface, and the way you love—I’ve never seen anything more inspiring. And what you’ve done for me on this island…” He shakes his head. “You risked your safety to heal me. You took extraordinary measures when anyone else would have left me to die. You gave hope to the hopeless, and that is the person I love. I only wish you would let me show you.”
I open and shut my mouth, speechless. What am I supposed to say? What does he expect me to do? Up and leave this place just because he found me and tricked me into caring about him? “Nothing’s changed, you know,” I say in a shaky voice that betrays me. “I still love Ares.”
“Even though Ares loves himself more than he could ever love you?”
I recoil. “You have no idea how much Ares loves me.”
“I know he left you alone with your baby son,” says Hephaestus. “I know he’s been gone long enough for you to feel lonely and betrayed.”
“You don’t know that,” I mutter.
“I saw how you looked at him when he came back. If you truly loved him the way you claim, it would have been an entirely different look,” he says. “You can love more than one person, you know.”
“I love Ares. Just Ares.” I say this more forcefully, as if I’m trying to convince both of us. He frowns, and I know he hears it, too.
“Love isn’t just passion and noise and lust,” he says. “Love is the way you feel for Eros. Love is the way I feel for you, the way you fill something inside me whenever you so much as walk into the same room. Sometimes love is quiet, lingering in the background until you least expect it. But love is always there for you. Ares hasn’t been.”
It’s my turn to look away now. The way he talks about my relationship with Ares as if it’s only temporary, as if it isn’t the best I could have—I don’t know how to swallow that.
“Aphrodite,” says Hephaestus, and he reaches for my hand. His fingertips graze my knuckles before I pull away. “Love is an action, not a word.”
“I don’t need a lecture on what love is.” I hiccup. I’m crying now. “I’m the goddess of love. I know what it is better than anyone else.”
“Then prove it,” he says. “Come with me. Or tell Ares he isn’t welcome anymore. We can stay on Olympus, we can stay here, or—or if it’s what you want, I will leave you in peace. Just don’t let him do this to you. He’s hurt you enough already, and you deserve better. You are better.”
My vision blurs, and I can barely make out his face anymore. Just those piercing gray eyes that aren’t really his. “I’m not,” I whisper. “This is my home. Ares is my home.”
“Your home is love,” he says. “I could be that love if you’d let me. I want to be there for you and Eros. Not when I feel like it, but every moment of every day for as long as you’ll both have me. Let me love you. Please.”
I hiccup. I must look like a disaster, but Hephaestus’s focus hasn’t shifted. If I do look awful, he doesn’t care. “I can’t choose,” I whisper. “Please don’t make me.”
He takes my hand again. This time I let him. “If he matters that much to you, then with me, you would never have to choose. As long as it’s what you truly want and as long as he never hurts you again, you’re free to love him as much as you’d like.”
I don’t understand what he means. No, I do understand—I understand what he thinks he means. But Hephaestus is Hera’s son through and through. Going into the kind of relationship he’s talking about—the kind where I could still love Ares and Hephaestus wouldn’t mind—will be too much for him after a while. Maybe immediately. Maybe a few years. Maybe a few centuries or eons. But one day, Hephaestus will wake up and realize he doesn’t want to share me. Or he’ll give me the option of seeing others in the hope he’ll be enough.
“For me—” I hesitate. “For me, love isn’t something you only give once, and then it’s gone. Love is everywhere. Love is everything.”
He raises my hand to his mouth and kisses my knuckles. “I know. I have no interest in stifling you or loving a version of you that isn’t real, and to ask you to commit to me and only me…” He shakes his head. “It would go against your very nature, and I’m all right with that. More than all right. It’s part of what I love about you. As long as you’re happy, I’ll still be there for you regardless of who else you choose to love.”