Page 42 of Ungodly Rich

He took a step back and tugged Julia’s hand, urging her down the street. “Can we walk for a while? I want to show you something.”

“Sure.” To be honest, Julia was glad for an excuse not to rush back to the Upper East Side.

They strolled into the West Village, past high-end boutiques and buzzing wine bars and a pet store where puppies romped in thewindow. As she and Harry neared, dogs hurried to press their adorable little noses against the glass, watching Harry with rapt attention. “They love you,” Julia teased, at which Harry laughed and said, “Dogs always do.”

He paused on a quiet, tree-lined street, filled with red brick town houses. “Should we go up?” he asked nonchalantly, nodding at number5.

“Wait—where are we?”

Harry said nothing, just marched up the steps and withdrew a key from his pocket. He opened the door and stepped inside, flicking on the lights.

The town house was empty. The bare floors were made of wide oak planks, stained a warm caramel, the same as the exposed wooden beams that soared over the high-ceilinged living room.

“Whose house is this?” she asked, though part of her already knew the answer.

“Ours,” Harry said. “If we want it, that is.”

Julia started up the staircase, her heart pounding. “I thought we said we were getting an apartment. We’re only two people.”

“I know this feels big, but it’s actuallylesssquare feet than some apartments,” Harry explained, following her up the stairs and into the main bedroom. “And just think, your commute to work would be so easy. You could walk!”

“What aboutyourcommute to work?” she asked. As Tara had promised, Bruce had offered his son a job at TWL in “project management and client relations.” It sounded a bit vague to Julia, but Harry had explained that it was decidedly not a desk job. It would include site visits to factories and client offices, and the occasional round of golf to close a deal.

Harry shrugged. “I won’t be at the company offices all that much. And when I am, I can take the One uptown.”

It took Julia a moment to realize he meant the subway. That, more than anything else, reassured her. They were in New York, where his family exerted a gravitational pull the size of a black hole, but shehadn’t lost him, not yet. Not as long as he was willing to join the sweaty masses on the subway instead of taking a town car. Or, for all she knew, a helicopter.

He was still her Harry. The Harry who told slightly off-color jokes and made her laugh so hard her belly hurt. The Harry who tried to cook pancakes and burned them so thoroughly that the smoke alarm went off, evacuating their whole building. The Harry who’d surprised her with a hike up a glacier in the middle of summer, just because she’d confessed that she missed New England winters. She would never forget how surreal it had felt, seeing snow in the middle of a hot summer day.

Julia walked through the bedroom to the spacious bathroom, then up another flight of stairs to the guest room, before heading back down. Harry didn’t say anything. He just watched her, giving her space to think.

“How much is it?” Julia finally asked, once they had gone back downstairs to the kitchen.

“Within our budget,” Harry said evasively.

Which meant nothing if your budget was limitless.

“Harry, you can’t keep paying for everything.” It created such a fundamental imbalance in their relationship. If it washishouse, paid for withhismoney, what did that make her?

“Why have money if I can’t spend it on things that matter to me?” Harry said, challenging her. “If you hate this house, I won’t say anything more, but I think we could be happy here.”

New Zealand was over, Julia reminded herself. They were no longer two young people running away from their problems—playacting at being adults, paying their rent month to month, falling in love as easily as breathing. They were engaged now, and putting down roots. Facing the things they had been running from.

Their relationship would never again be as carefree and effortless as in New Zealand. But perhaps it could be something stronger. Everyone always said that marriages took work, and maintenance, as if they were machines falling constantly into disrepair. Well, Julia hadnever been afraid of hard work. Anything worth having was worth fighting for.

She could see a new life unfurling before her and Harry. They could decorate this house with cozy furniture—not the antiques his mother preferred, but warm furniture that begged to be lived in. They could wander this neighborhood hand in hand, sit at a wine bar for a glass of merlot. They could seek out new friends, new rhythms, new adventures.

“All right,” she heard herself say.

Harry grinned. “Is that a yes to the house?”

“Yes.” She hoped she wouldn’t regret this.

“Oh, good. I couldn’t have let the Thai food sit out there any longer.” Harry moved eagerly to the front door, where he grabbed a brown paper bag from Uber Eats.

Julia stared at him, surprised, and Harry grinned. “What? It’s our tradition now, right?”

Back in New Zealand, the night they had moved into their shared apartment, they had ordered Thai food, which they had eaten sitting cross-legged on the floor, because they hadn’t yet owned a stitch of furniture. Worse, the takeout place hadn’t sent them any chopsticks, so they’d grabbed fistfuls of pad thai with their bare hands.