Goddess of Light (Goddess Summoning #3)(70)

"Easier, perhaps, but it feels wrong to me. Too cold. Too impersonal."

"But Diana will only be available until Friday. After that she has a... uh... prior commitment that she can not break," Pamela said.

"Then we must work quickly, because I wish to have my goddess immortalized in the ancient way. Phoebus, you're an expert in ancient Rome. How would it have been done then?"

"You are quite correct. The sculptor would have sketched his model and then worked from his sketches." Apollo paused and quirked one eyebrow up. "That is, unless you have hired Pygmalion. I believed he worked from the image of the woman he saw only in his heart." He suddenly shifted his gaze to Pamela and sent her a scorching look. "But few of us are lucky enough to have our heart's desire granted."

Pamela forced herself not to squirm. He said he was cut off from his immortal powers, but when Apollo looked at her like that, she felt hot and cold and tingly all at once.

Faust didn't seem to notice the byplay going on between his designer and her assistant; his attention had been captured by his own immortal. "Ah, but we have Diana with us, not Galatea, so a sketch of the model it shall be."

"Galatea was not a goddess. She was only stone brought to life by one," Artemis said, sounding vaguely annoyed.

"How true! How true!" Eddie exclaimed. "Pygmalion was not as fortunate as I."

"I can sketch your goddess, sir." A young man disengaged himself from the crowd.

"Excellent," Eddie said. "We have our artist; we have our model. I believe I have some photographs of the original fountain in The Forum. I suppose the artisans can work from that whilst our goddess is being sketched."

"Actually," Pamela said as she opened her briefcase and hurriedly pulled out her sketch book, "I thought that you might like something unique, so I worked up some preliminary sketches of a new fountain - based, of course, on the one you like so much in The Forum. I just didn't want to fill in the central statue without your approval. I think you'll be quite happy with them."

"Pamela conferred with me on the sketches, and I can assure you that the fountain she has created is one that even the gods would have welcomed on Mount Olympus," Apollo said.

"Well done, Pamela!" Eddie took the sketchbook from her and nodded appreciatively. "Mount Olympus." He chuckled, "I would expect no less for a fountain boasting a sculpture of our Diana. Please, share these sketches with our artist." He glanced expectantly at the young man.

"Matthew," he supplied. "My name is Matthew Land."

"Come, Matthew, Pamela, Phoebus and my lovely Diana. Let us sit and decide upon the details of my home." Eddie offered Artemis his arm. She smiled sweetly and rested her fingertips on the top of his silken sleeve. "Is there anything you require, Diana?" he asked as he led her around the marble bench.

"Yes. I have recently developed a liking for something called a mimosa."

Pamela tried not to groan as Eddie shouted for James to have his chef prepare mimosas for everyone.

Pamela glanced at her watch. She could hardly believe that it was after 4:00 P.M. The day had passed in a busy blur. It had certainly gone worlds better than she had anticipated. Ironically and irritatingly enough, she knew she had Artemis to thank for that. Pamela looked up from the glossy catalogue page of old-world-styled lighting fixtures the representative from Shonbeck was showing her. Eddie was pretending to pay attention as Apollo and the architect went over the latest version of the bathhouse sketch they had been working on for most of the day. In truth, Eddie was doing what he had done for the past several hours - he was gazing in rapt adoration at Artemis.

Artemis was incredibly beautiful. Even the flamingly g*y fabric representatives had sighed wistfully over the perfection of her hair and her br**sts and the lean lines of her legs. Currently, she was standing on a raised platform that Eddie had ordered erected, holding a large vase against one hip from which water would eventually pour when the sketch was turned into a sculpture turned into a fountain. It made Pamela dizzy just to think about it - and that was without figuring the expense Eddie would be incurring for this original piece of art. But her client seemed happy, and the fountain was actually going to be very beautiful. Plus, it was definitely going to be minus the awful animation. One horrified gasp from Artemis in response to the mention of animation, and Eddie had quickly vetoed the idea. Just like a frown from the goddess had been enough to talk Eddie out of building the horrid ginormic swimming pool and instead going with the tasteful, unique Roman bathhouse idea.

Those two issues dealt with, everything else was turning out to be a breeze. Eddie's taste wasn't as atrocious as Pamela had at first thought. It was just that his whole aura was so damn big. His ideas were big, and not just in his epic-length best-selling novels. E. D. Faust filled the world around him with the largess of life. Yes, he was eccentric. Actually, Pamela thought that he seemed like a character from one of his novels, larger than life and constantly ready for a new adventure. She smiled to herself. His flamboyance took a little getting used to, but she understood why people gravitated to him. Eddie was as generous as his size. The truth was, E. D. Faust was honestly a nice guy.

It had taken a little gentle nudging, with the help of Artemis and Apollo, but Pamela had convinced him to shift the design of his villa from the tacky pretend Romanesque Forum, to something that was beginning to remind her of the set of Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra. The design emerging was no less opulent than Caesars Palace and The Forum, it was just much more chic.