Ingrid’s head fell back on her shoulders, her pale throat exposed to the glaring ball of buttery Grecian sun. “Oh, you did not fall for that story she fed you, did you? She must’ve heard you going on about how Igor was a total jerk, and how you’d had it with romance and love for good.”
“Well, I have,” she defended. She had, too. All her life, her mother had told her to knock off the daydreaming about her Prince Charming and find a man who was real—if she had to find one at all.
If real meant finding a man who scratched his love sac and burped while watching the Playboy Channel, she’d rather keep daydreaming about her Mr. Darcy.
Until her ugly breakup with Igor, that is. Since the night she’d found out he’d been sleeping with a leggy redheaded waitress who worked at the Spotted Pig, two doors down from the bookstore where she worked, she’d thrown in the towel.
Ingrid’s ringed fingers flashed in the sun in protest. “Stop. Even with everything that’s gone down with that cheating slug, you still listened to that crazy woman on the bus. Which means you, in all your unicorns and cinnamon sticks, could manage to find romance at the urologist’s. You’re a diehard, Quinn. Your soul-mate take on life alone could feed a buffet of the love-starved. It’ll come back. Right now, you’re just butthurt. That aside, she was probably just trying to make you feel better. And you, an expert on all things Greek and mythological, fell for it? I don’t get it.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. She had fallen for it. Which meant her romantic bone still needed work if she was going to be more of a realist about love. “To be fair, it was a really compelling story.”
She loved a good story. Almost any story, in fact. As long as it was about love—tragic, happy, or anything in between. Until she’d decided no more romance. She’d promised herself from here on out it was sci-fi and cookbooks only.
“Quinn Morris, you know the ins and outs of Greece and all its rich history almost better than you know your own home country. You did not believe her, did you?”
Quinn crossed her arms over her chest in exasperation. Well, she almost crossed them. Her big, big balloons really prevented a lot of extracurricular activity. “Blame, blame, blame. How could I not investigate what she told us, Ingrid? I mean, you have to admit, even you were a little curious about a mysterious golden apple no one’s ever heard about. It was pretty spectacular. How could I not at least take a peek? Seriously, I actually thought she’d probably go home and wet clear through her Depends laughing after feeding me such gibberish, but…”
Ingrid’s eyes rolled upward. “You did it anyway. Now, if you tell me that you actually confessed your heartbreak to a damn produce item in some marble column like she told you to do because she claims the gods can hear your love woes, I’m going to deflate your new cans one at a time. Ping-ping,” she said, making a gun with her forefinger and thumb
Quinn gave her a sheepish look. “But I did find the column with the apple. It looked just like it had been stamped there. So I thought, what the heck? Who better than Aphrodite’s shoulder to cry on, right? Goddess of Love, blah, blah, blah. And before you say another word—I was just talking out my grief over my breakup, Ingrid. You know, kind of like one big, ugly purge, never really-really expecting anything to come of it, and then…”
“And then?” she asked in that tone she used when she became irritated with Quinn, who was usually much more cautious and less impulsive.
Except today, of course. Today she’d thrown caution to the wind like she was pitching for the Yankees.
The hot breeze whipped at Quinn’s flowing skirt, tugging at her sunhat with the silky pink tulle streams of ribbon tied around the brim—another piece of her “must haves” wardrobe for this trip. Because it was romantic and frilly and she loved both of those things.
“Quinn?”
She gave Ingrid another embarrassed glance, her mouth dry. “And then I said something about Igor being a wolf in sheep’s clothing and how he was going to regret his infidelity so hard. And I swear to you on my beloved copy of Keats, I heard a deep rumble of laughter.”
Ingrid’s eyes grew suspicious, flying upward and then to the surrounding landscape, brilliant and white under the glare of the sun, clearly looking to see if anyone else was around.
Wait—why isn’t anyone else around? How could the Parthenon be so deserted when it was one of the biggest tourist attractions in Greece…?
“Get to the big, big boobies, Quinn,” she ordered, pulling her phone from her backpack.
To not go all the way with this was just putting off the inevitable. “So then the wind picked up with a huge gust of hot air, all while I was going on and on about Igor being a cheat, and how ridiculous that must sound to someone like Aphrodite and a bunch of gods who aren’t exactly opposed to a good genital jamboree. And…”