Page 18 of Ungodly Rich

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Of course, Ares couldn’t explain any of this to Julia. He couldn’t tell her about the year he’d spent after leaving Olympus, how lost and alone and pissed off he’d felt. First he’d headed to the Middle East, thinking he might as well focus on the thing he was best at. He would go to war.

Except modern warfare had no place for him. The type of battle that Ares relished was an honorable one, both sides fighting for what they considered a noble truth. A fight where champions challenged each other in single combat, where soldiers held to an irrefutable code of honor, even among enemies.

Now wars were fought from behind screens, as with everything in this modern world. They were fought with drones and bombs, by harming civilians and ignoring treaties.I deserve this,Ares had thought,I’m as dishonorable as these men bombing hospitals.The notion left a sour taste in his mouth.

After a while he’d moved on, roaming his way through India and then East Asia. He scaled mountains, went skydiving, climbed into underwater cages where sharks bit at him beneath the surface. Eventually, he’d found himself in New Zealand, and met Julia.

She was like no one he’d ever met, mortal or divine.

Julia made him feel like he’d been lost his whole life and had finally come home. Perhaps it was her confidence, or her intelligence: not bookish like his sister Athena’s, but quick-witted and clever. Her ideas shot into the world as fast as a hail of arrows. Or perhaps it was the simple joy that emanated from her. Each time she grabbed his hand and pointed at a sunset, or gave a little moan of delight as she tasted fresh gelato, or tilted her head back and laughed, he would think anew how much he loved her.

Be careful,he imagined his mother saying. Hera always warned her children not to get too close to mortals.They are so vibrant, so very alive, and then before you know it they are gone.

Ares had no intention of letting that happen to Julia.

He longed to tell her everything: his real identity, his history withAphrodite, the truth about his family. But he didn’t dare. Ares knew too many gods who had revealed themselves to mortals they loved, only for the humans to run off. Then Mnemosyne would have to chase down the human in question and wipe the entire relationship from their memory.

The gods’ secrets must be protected at any cost.

As hard as it was to live with this fiction, he had to keep letting Julia think his relatives were just a bunch of judgmental billionaires. It would be far more painful for Ares to watch her forget that she’d ever known him.

“Who was she?” Julia asked quietly. “The ex-girlfriend Dylan was talking about?”

Ares revealed as much of the truth as he dared. “She wasn’t an ex-girlfriend. She was someone I got involved with very briefly, before I left home, and it caused problems with my family.”

Julia blew out a breath, wisps of dark hair catching around her face. “Because she wasn’t rich, and they disapproved of her?”

Ares winced. “They disapproved, but it had nothing to do with her background. And they were right to be angry with me about her. The whole thing was a mistake.”

“It’s hard not to feel like I’m a mistake, too,” Julia said quietly. “How can we have any kind of future if I’ve never met your family? If you keep this huge piece of your life separate from me?”

Ares leaned his head back against the couch cushions. He was starting to get a feeling he rarely experienced, one he’d had a time or two in the sparring ring. The sensation that he was about to lose.

“You really want to go?” he asked Julia.

The change in her was instantaneous. She lit up, turning to Ares and pulling him close. “Yes,” she said emphatically. “Please, let’s go. And if it’s hard on you, if you hate it, we can leave,” she promised, tilting her head onto his shoulder. “But I’ll be right there with you, every step of the way.”

“All right. Let’s go,” Ares heard himself say.

He was going to regret this. Taking Julia to Olympus?

He might as well toss her straight into the lion’s den.

Chapter Eight

Julia

Julia held tight to the side of the speedboat, watching as a once-blurred coastline came into view. She glanced over at Harry, but he just stared at the island with an inscrutable expression.

She still couldn’t quite believe thatherHarry—who was happiest in a ratty old sweatshirt, who ate falafel from street carts, who worked at a bungee jump—was an Ellene. She’d been trying, lately, to ask more about his past, but he was as reticent as ever on the topic of his family. Julia told herself that it didn’t matter. After all, if she’d found out Harry was in massive debt, she wouldn’t have left him. Shouldn’t it be the same in the opposite scenario?

At least Harry had agreed that they could attend his family reunion in Greece. Julia was looking forward to meeting everyone, and hopefully gaining a new understanding of the man she loved.

Though she would have been lying if she said she wasn’t nervous.

Over the past weeks, Julia had done some surreptitious googling, trying to prepare herself for what lay ahead. She’d started with Harry’sfather, Bruce Ellene, only to find that he had a surprisingly slim online presence for the CEO of a major conglomerate. The news sites that did mention him merely called him a “strategic genius” or a “reclusive businessman.” None of the websites featured photos. He didn’t seem interested in any of the brand-building that CEOs usually invested in. He had sponsored no charities, given no TED Talks.