Page 43 of Ungodly Rich

“You know what,” Julia said slowly as Harry laid the takeout boxes on the floor before the fireplace. “I think the takeout can wait.”

Hearing her tone, Harry grinned and started across the room toward her. For a moment there, Julia felt the need to avert her eyes; he seemed bigger or brighter or more impossibly handsome than she could bear to look at.

Then his hands were around her waist and he was hoisting her up, setting her gently on the kitchen island. Julia had always loved the way he lifted her, as if it were completely effortless. As if she weighed nothing at all.

The marble counters—how impractical to have marble where you cooked, she thought distractedly—felt cool through the silk of her dress. Julia shifted, wrapping her legs around Harry to anchor him inplace, and leaned down to kiss him. She wondered if this was what he always felt like, being taller, bending down to her.

“Should we move?” Harry growled, when they finally broke apart. “These counters are a little tall for what I’m planning.”

“I didn’t know you were an engineer,” Julia teased, breathless and a little dizzy.

“More like an expert in a very specific field of geometry.”

“You make an excellent point. Let’s see if the bathroom counters offer us a better angle,” she agreed.

“I don’t think we need a counter at all.”

Harry scooped her up in a single motion, his hands cupping her ass to hold her weight flush against him. Julia hooked an arm around his shoulder, reaching with the other hand to unfasten his pants. Her blazer had been tossed aside, and she wondered dimly when that had happened; she didn’t remember removing it. Harry had always been mysteriously good at getting her clothes off.

Their faces were very close, their breaths intermingling. Julia’s dress was bunched up around her waist, her thighs slick around Harry’s torso. She let out a little cry, and her back arced instinctively as he angled her against him, moving her slowly up and down. It was all so acutely delicious: the sensations of friction and heat, the salty tang of him as she nipped at his jawline, the way he held her so perfectly.

That was the thing about Harry. There seemed to be no limits to what he could do, the things he could make her feel. Sometimes it frightened her, the sheer force of what she felt for him, physical and romantic all at once, and almost blinding in intensity.

“I love you,” she whispered, holding tight to him. He was the only solid thing in a delirious, spinning world.

Chapter Seventeen

Hera

There was no view quite like the one from Hera and Zeus’s dining room, which occupied a corner of their fortieth-floor penthouse. The floor-to-ceiling windows offered dramatic vistas of Central Park as well as the southern half of Manhattan, including the gleaming spire of the TWL office building. And of course, the room itself was exquisite, with a massive oak table and a gleaming Louis XIV sideboard—in this case, one formerly owned by the Sun King himself. The frescoed ceiling overhead had been imported from Greece, lifted here by a crane, and painstakingly reinstalled by a team of specialists. The whole operation had stopped traffic on Seventy-Second for a day.

Hera glanced around at her perfect room: at the crystal sconces on the walls, the silver platters of fresh berries and scones. It didn’t feel quite so perfect as usual. Julia was here—and Hera was beginning to find the woman’s presence increasingly unnerving.

She glanced at her husband, but Zeus was staring down atTheWall Street Journal,indifferent to the mortal.

He clearly hadn’t tried to use any magic on her, or he would have been just as alarmed as Hera.

“Your dining room is lovely, Tara,” Julia said into the silence. She didn’t seem bothered that Ares had left her alone with her future in-laws. With a glance upward, she added, “Especially the ceiling! It reminds me of one I used to visit with my tour groups, on Samos.”

That was another thing Hera didn’t like about this mortal: She was far too observant. Ignoring the comment about the fresco, Hera said simply, “I find great joy in setting a beautiful table.”

Julia nodded in agreement. “That’s a Martha Stewart quote, right?”

Next to Hera, Zeus turned a page of the newspaper and snorted back a laugh. They both knew that if Martha had said that, it was only because Hera had prompted her to.

Hera watched, incredulous, as Julia reached for a slice of toast and buttered the entire thing at once. Then shebit into it,as if it were a slice of pizza! Hadn’t anyone taught this woman the proper way to eat toast: breaking off one ladylike segment at a time, then buttering that individual piece before popping it into your mouth? Only a complete Neanderthal would slather butter over the top like that.

Things like buttered toast were meant to be savored. But mortals were always rushing from one thing to the next, as if determined to cram as much as possible into their time on earth. Even now, the minutes of Julia’s life were relentlessly, quietly, ticking away.

Unless Ares got what he wanted and found a way to keep her among them forever.

“Good morning.” Ares strode into the dining room, his hair still wet from a shower. He came over to kiss his mother on the cheek, then took the seat next to Julia.

How did Julia not feel it—the divinity crackling off him like lightning, the sheer force of his otherworldliness?

“Thank you again for letting us stay here,” Ares began.

Hera forced herself to smile. “Of course! What else is family for?”