Page 87 of Ungodly Rich

“I do,” he admitted. “Camping just feels sosimple,you know? It’s full of concrete tasks—pitch your tent, carry your gear, refill your water. Walk onward, one foot in front of the other. It forces you to live deliberately.”

Julia swallowed. She didn’t want to upset him, but she had to ask. “Are you sure you should be working at TWL? Maybe you need a job that’s more…active.” Like coaching high school football, she wantedto say. Or leading white-water rafting trips in Colorado, or being a park ranger for the National Park Service.

“Don’t worry. I have boxing for staying active.” Harry glanced back over his shoulder with a provocative grin. “And I have you. I’d say we find lots of ways to be physically active.”

Julia knew she should drop it. She would never push him on this normally, but out here in the cool, clean air, things felt different.Harryfelt different. “It’s just—you seem much happier away from it all,” she insisted. “Do you really like being part of the corporate rat race?”

“Actually, my job has some pretty interesting moments,” Harry assured her.

“I still don’t really understand what you do,” Julia said helplessly. “What doesproject management and client relationsmean, anyway?”

“Oh, you know. Playing lots of golf at Liberty and tennis at Maidstone. Do you know how hard it is to convincingly let these guys win? I have to lose, but just barely, so that they believe it was actually a close fight.” Harry’s laughter faded as he added, “And of course, Father needs me to help bully the occasional TWL subsidiary that tries to step out of line.”

Julia wondered what Harry was like in a contentious board meeting. Perhaps Bruce needed his quiet, intimidating presence as a counterbalance to his own temper.

A thunderous roar reached her ears. She cast Harry a questioning glance, and he grinned. “Best camping spot within helicopter distance of New York. Believe me, I’ve tried them all.”

They turned a corner, and Julia gasped. A river twined through the forest before them, ending in a twenty-foot waterfall.

“It’s spectacular,” she breathed.

Harry reached to unclip her backpack and slide it off her shoulders. Julia noted that while she was damp with exertion, he didn’t even seem winded. “Should we swim?” he asked, eyes glinting with mischief.

“It’ll be freezing!”

“Chicken.”

Harry tucked his hands under his arms to make chicken wings andmade little teasing sounds,boc boc.There was something so boyish about it, so endearing, that Julia burst out laughing.

She sprinted giddily for the river, peeling off her clothes and tossing them onto the bank. When the freezing water hit her skin, she gasped. It was ice-cold, bracing, the sort of cold that momentarily wipes your mind blank. Julia hoped that Harry had brought a sweatshirt. She turned back toward the bank, shivering.

“Jules, come on!” Harry had gone to stand behind the waterfall, in a little alcove tucked behind the sheet of falling water. “Your lips are turning blue,” he called out. “Come here, I’ll warm you up!”

Her wet bra still clinging to her body, she waded behind the waterfall to Harry. He settled his hands over her bare shoulders. “Better?”

To her surprise, it was. They seemed to be standing in a magical pocket of warmth, as if the water swirling around her and Harry were coming from the jets of a hot tub. Julia let out a contented sigh. “So much better. Is this a natural hot spring?”

“Something like that,” Harry murmured distractedly. He’d pulled her torso flush against his, melting away any last vestige of cold, and his hands tangled through the long, wet strands of her hair.

Julia tipped her face up. But instead of lowering his mouth to hers, he began trailing fiery kisses down her jaw, to the achingly sensitive spot on her neck, just below her ear. Julia let out a moan. Her hands slid down his stomach to the waistband of his wet shorts, and she tugged at them impatiently. God, this man’s body was perfection, as chiseled and taut as the marble statues she’d studied in college. Carved from years of running and boxing and all the other endless, restless movement that made Harry himself.

The water thundered a few feet away, spray flying up in a misty haze, settling in Julia’s eyelashes. Little bubbles began roiling around her, almost as if she were in a hot tub, but Julia hardly noticed. Right now, it felt like she and Harry were the only two people in the world.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Ares

Ares really needed to take more care with Julia’s mortal body. He shouldn’t have challenged her to run into the river, not when it was so close to freezing. Once he’d seen her shivering, he’d hurried to heat the water surrounding them. It was minor magic, a power he’d used countless times before to wash wounds or sterilize water for drinking. This was by far the most enjoyable use he’d ever found for it.

Still, he shouldn’t have put Julia in that position. Of all the gods, Ares was the most painfully familiar with the fragility of human life (except, of course, for Hades), because Ares’s followers were constantly dying. That was the inherent risk that came with testing your own mortality. The humans who lived by Ares’s values were always jumping out of airplanes, racing cars at top speed, climbing mountains that humans were never meant to scale. And they often paid for it with their lives.

It was easy to forget that Julia was as mortal as the rest of them. She was so brave, as brave as Ares sounded in all the myths humans told about him. In the past months alone, he’d seen her talk back to Heraand stare down an ex-boyfriend who had betrayed her in the most despicable way. She had faced her own death on a climbing wall and hadn’t even screamed; she’d just closed her eyes and focused on staying alive.

He needed to tell her the truth so that they could hurry and deify her. That was the whole reason he’d planned this trip to the Catskills, to reveal who he really was.

It was Athena’s idea, actually. Earlier this week, Ares had called his sister on a predawn run. Athena had always been the easiest family member to talk to, even when she was halfway around the world. When he mentioned that he had yet to tell Julia the truth, Athena clucked at him reprovingly.

“You can’t keep putting this off, Ares. Julia deserves to know before the wedding,” Athena chided him.