Page 55 of Ungodly Rich

An eerie calm descended over her in that moment, as if her body had accepted that she was forty feet in the air, wearing a harness that connected her to nothing at all.

Would she die after falling from this height, or be paralyzed from the neck down?

“Julia!”

Harry was still too far, twenty feet below her at least, when Julia lost her hold.

As in the movies, time began to slow. Or perhaps it was Julia who sped up, her heart chattering as fast as a hummingbird’s, bringing everything into frightening focus. She braced herself for the brutal impact of her body on the mat below.

Her body did slam, but not against the floor.

Somehow she was colliding with the rock wall, and Harry was pressed against her, his body covering hers the way it did in bed—his chest over her back, his arm sneaking around her torso. His legs braced against the sheer concrete of the wall, muscles straining.

Impossibly, he was holding Julia around the waist, his hand clinging to a single handhold as he supported their combined weight.

“You okay?” he murmured.

Julia’s heart fluttered wildly against her rib cage. Her mouth was sharp with the metallic taste of fear. But she wasalive.She closed her eyes, tucking herself tighter against Harry’s body, relishing the warmth of him, his solidity. His strength.

“It’s okay,” Harry kept murmuring. Then, his voice tight with anger, he called out, “Belay down!”

The gym employee hurried to let out slack, so that Harry could slowly ease them both to the ground. “It’s okay,” Harry kept saying. “You’re safe, don’t worry.”

He waited until Julia was seated, taking small sips from a water bottle, before turning to the gym employees and saying something Julia couldn’t hear. Afterward, they scurried off like frightened rabbits.

“How do you feel?” Harry asked, crouching next to Julia. His blue-gray eyes were bright with concern.

“I’ll be fine.” Julia hugged her torso, unable to stop shivering. “A little cold, though.”

Harry came to sit behind her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her against his chest. “That’s the aftereffect of the adrenaline. You should warm up in a minute; let me just get your hormones back to baseline.” There was something adorable about the way he said that, as if he were a first responder setting a broken bone, rather than a man who loved her—who could do nothing but hold her close.

And yet, this did seem to be working. Julia felt herself calming because of the simple fact that Harry’s arms were around her. Her breath grew steady in her chest, her heartbeat slowing to match his.

Finally, Julia twisted around to look at him. “Harry. How did you get to me in time?”

“I climbed, of course.”

“You were twenty feet away on a sheer rock wall!” Julia had a bizarre urge to ask if he hadflownto her. But that was impossible.

“Twenty feet? I was way closer than that,” Harry insisted.

Right. He must have been closer, or he couldn’t have reached her in time. It was simply impossible.

Julia stood, striving valiantly for a normal tone. “Can we get out of here? I want to eat an entire bowl of guacamole.”

“Let’s go to El Cantinero,” Harry agreed, relieved.

As they walked out of the rock-climbing gym, Julia resolved not to mention this incident to anyone else. Because really, what could she say? Her fiancé was like the hero from a fairy tale and had saved her from a terrifying accident.

Yet she couldn’t help thinking of that final summer with her mom,when all those strange things had kept happening. Goose bumps trailed up her arms. Seeing her shiver, Harry shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

It was nothing, Julia reassured herself, just a combination of good timing and good luck. She refused to let herself think about it again.

Chapter Twenty-One

Aphrodite

Aphrodite stared glumly out the window, watching the rain fall in heavy sheets against the London pavement. It was only five p.m., but already the skies were dark as the wings of night. Really, the weather in this city was more fickle than she was. Zeus could have cleared the rain with a mere wave of his hand, but he’d promised Demeter at the last gathering on Olympus that he would no longer interfere in natural weather patterns.