Page 22 of Ungodly Rich

When Harry’s mother had left, Julia wandered over to the window and pressed her forehead to the glass. What the hell was she even doing here, on a remote island in Greece, surrounded by all this money and animosity?

Julia had a sudden longing to talk to someone who knew her—someone who would unwaveringly, unhesitatingly take her side. She reached for her phone to call Abby.

“Do you think your parents know the Ellenes?” Julia had asked her friend the last time they FaceTimed. Abby had grown up on the Upper East Side. For all Julia knew, she’d attended the same all-girls’ high school as Harry’s sister Alina.

“Oh, I already asked,” Abby had replied. “My dad has never met Bruce, but my mom has crossed paths with Harry’s mom through one of her charities. She said Tara is…” Abby had hesitated before saying, “Quite the personality.”

That was Abby’s mother’s way of calling Tara a bitch.

Seeing the expression on Juila’s face, Abby had sighed sympathetically. “If she’s as bad as my mom thinks, and you need to get away, just sneak on a plane to London.”

Julia was out of her depth. She might have gone to Harvard, but she was still helpless when it came to the Ellenes’ world of galas and private schools and garden clubs. Abby might have left it all behind, but she was still born to it. She still understood it in a way that Julia never would.

No Service, her phone informed her. Julia frowned, noticing the missing bars. After a few attempts to find Wi-Fi, she gave up and flopped back onto the twin bed. The mattress felt lumpy and old, but Julia was suddenly so tired. No, not just tired—exhausted,with a weariness that seeped down into her bones. She needed to shower for dinner, to find Harry, to…

Julia’s thoughts fragmented as she fell, hard, into sleep.

Chapter Nine

Aphrodite

Aphrodite leaned against the railing and glanced around Zeus’s yacht, theTitan.She didn’t see Ares yet, but it was only a matter of time. She felt lovely and deadly at once, her body flush with awareness of her own intoxicating beauty.

But then, Aphrodite had always felt strongest out on the water. Perhaps that was why artists loved to show her emerging from sea foam—to emphasize the startling blue of her eyes, the liquid curve of her body, the way her hair rippled down her back like sunlight dancing on water. Though Aphrodite liked to think that there was something figurative about this depiction, too. That the ocean mirrored her: her moodiness, her irrepressible mischief, her uncharted depths.

Her capacity to destroy, if needed.

“Don’t look, but Helios is hitting on Iris. Again.” Hermes sidled up next to her, wearing sunglasses and a pink linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

Aphrodite had always felt like she and Hermes were two of a kind: both bright and glittering and in constant motion, both bucking thedull traditions of the other Olympians. Both were members of the Pantheon yet excluded from the true inner circles of power, overshadowed by the heavy hitters like Zeus and Apollo.

Aphrodite let out an amused breath. “Helios has never learned to keep it in his pants.” At least Zeus showed some discernment in his human affairs, but Helios seemed to run after every last mortal who sunbathed on a beach. The phrasesun-kissedhadn’t come from nowhere.

“Another round?” Hermes nodded at her empty rosé.

“You’re a terrible influence,” Aphrodite replied, handing him her glass.

“Of course I am. That’s why you love me.”

“That, and your wicked comebacks.” It was delightfully satisfying, gossiping with Hermes, especially when he was mocking someone. And Aphrodite so loved to mock the other goddesses.They started it,she reminded herself. They had ganged up against her from day one and refused to change their minds.

Her memories of the past thousand years might have been hazy, but Aphrodite would never forget how it had felt, standing before the Olympian Council in her frail mortal body. Listening as they debated whether to make her one of them. In the end, the vote had just barely passed in her favor, with all the gods voting for her, and all the goddesses against—all except Hera.

A choice that her mother-in-law likely regretted.

As usual, Hephaestus hadn’t joined today’s outing. He claimed the ocean made him seasick, which Aphrodite secretly doubted, given how close he was with his uncle Poseidon. She suspected that Hephaestus was simply looking for excuses to avoid the party. He’d much rather be alone in his dark, smoky workshop—because of course there was a forge on Olympus—than out in the sunshine with the other gods.

Not that Aphrodite minded. With her husband gone, it would be easier to talk to Ares.

Apparently he’d arrived last night, bringing some mortal along with him. Aphrodite almost felt sorry for the poor woman. She was clearlyhere for Aphrodite’s sake: to prove to everyone that Ares was over her, or even—as absurd as the thought was—to make Aphroditejealous.

She put on her cat-eye sunglasses and wove toward the front of the yacht. Sure enough, Ares was up there, talking to his sister. Athena looked ridiculous in cuffed black pants and low-slung black pumps, as if she only knew how to dress for an office in Tokyo, not a yacht in the Mediterranean.

As Aphrodite expected, there was no sign of the mortal—what was her name, Julia? Aphrodite had made certain of that.

It had been easy, really. She’d walked by Julia’s room last night, mere minutes after the woman arrived, and tugged at the thread of Julia’s desire, making her crave sleep. When Ares had come looking for her, Julia was jet-lagged and groggy.

The other gods always dismissed Aphrodite. Stupid of them, really. Didn’t they realize that desire, the sheer intensity ofwantingsomething, was one of the most powerful forces on earth, as strong as Zeus’s thunderbolt and Poseidon’s tidal waves?