Page 35 of The Rose (The Godwicks 2)

Well, she’d had that one sip from the Rose Kylix. She could blame the wine.

“Mum...” Lia said.

“What?”

She giggled again. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, darling,” her mother said, shaking her head. “But let’s go and get this party over with.”

They turned a corner to the main staircase, and she saw her father passing by at the bottom of the steps.

“Daddy!” Lia skipped down the stairs and launched herself into his arms. He caught her, just barely.

“Lia? You all right?” he asked, holding her tightly to him.

“I’m...wonderful,” she said, grinning. She kissed his handsome cheek, ruffled his salt-and-pepper hair and rested her head on his strong shoulder. He really was the most handsome papa in the kingdom.

“Did you enjoy your party? Too much, maybe?” he asked, laughing as he patted her back.

“I have to tell you something, Daddy.” She pulled back and took his face in her hands. “Something very, very important.”

She patted his cheeks, his dear cheeks, his dear old darling cheeks.

“And that is, love?” She could tell he was trying very hard not to laugh in her face. Apparently, he and her mother thought she was drunk. Well, fine. She was. Drunk on happiness and magic and Perseus and bird noises and August and...and...and...

“Daddy, I’m being serious,” she said. “You have to be serious with me.” She put her thumbs on the edges of his lips and forced his smile into a frown.

“Better,” she said.

“Mrph,” he replied, unable to open his lips now.

“It’s about my graduation present,” Lia said. She released his face and now held him by both shoulders. She raised two fingers to his eyes and then to her eyes to make sure she had his entire attention.

“The kylix? What about it?” he asked.

“The thing with my graduation present...”

“And that is?”

“Daddy... Iloveit.”

PART THREE

Briseis & Achilles

CHAPTER TEN

That night, Lia slept better than she had in years. She woke up the next morning still buzzing with a low-level sort of euphoria. By 8:00 a.m.—the day after her graduation party when she should have been sleeping off a hangover until noon—she was out on the lawns of Wingthorn playing with Gogo. They tramped through the woods. They launched a little boat onto the little river that bordered the property. Lia even sang a sea shanty to Gogo, who looked at her with his head cocked as if to say, “My human has lost her marbles.”

She spent the rest of the morning and afternoon in various happy pursuits. Part of her wanted to chalk it up to being out of university after three long hard years at the academic grindstone, but she knew it was August, all August, she had to thank for her newfound bliss. Unfortunately, all good moods came to an end eventually, and Lia’s did when she returned to the house by midafternoon. She’d stopped in the kitchen for lunch, but on her way out she ran into her father.

“Hello, sweet papa,” she said, and kissed his cheek.

“Hello, bizarre child,” he replied. “How are we feeling this morning? Mostly recovered?”

“Completely recovered. Gogo and I went out in the dinghy on the river.”

“Did he row?”

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