Page 106 of Ungodly Rich

Despite her sympathetic smile, Julia knew this woman was taunting her. And maybe it was the stress of this enormous wedding—one she wouldn’t have planned for herself, with a price tag that made her slightly nauseous. Maybe it was the fact that she was stuck without power, surrounded by Harry’s extended family, none of whom really cared about her. Maybe it was that she’d barely seen Harry over the past week, the two of them forced to stay in separate rooms out of deference to her mother-in-law.

Whatever the reason, Julia rose to Valentine’s bait.

“Call off the wedding? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Julia snapped, and shook her head. “If it wasn’t impossible, I would think thatyoudid this.”

Valentine scoffed. “First you accused me of inviting some senator I’ve never met to your party in London; now you think I can control the weather?”

Of course Julia didn’t believe that Valentine controlled the weather. She just knew that the other woman was delighted by this turn of events, that she would have sabotaged the wedding in exactly this way, if she could.

And it felt sogoodto act irrationally right now—to behave outside the bounds of normality, or politeness, and just say what she thought. Even if her feelings were irrational.

Julia gestured to the rain jacket thrown over the back of Valentine’s chair. “The forecast was seventy-five and sunny all weekend, but you packed amatchingponcho.It’s like you knew what was coming.”

“Ponchosare for smelly crowds at Disney World,” Valentine said, correcting her. “This is atrack jacket,and I always pack it. Part of being a responsible adult is preparing for any weather.”

Julia felt so weary, suddenly, of all these rich people and their smug superiority.

“Why do you hate me so much? Is it because I wasn’t born rich like the rest of you?”

To Julia’s surprise, Valentine came to stand next to her at the windows, both of them staring out at the storm. “Julia, I don’t care about you enough to hate you. And you should know that I wasn’t born rich. I was just like you once.”

“You and I are nothing alike—”

“I was just like you,” Valentine repeated insistently, “an ordinary woman entering the fold, and they haveneveraccepted me.” She turned to Julia with a sad, almost pitying smile. “You think this family is easy? Let me warn you now: it will never stop, not even after you are married. They will find a thousand small ways to cut you down, to chip away at your confidence until you doubt everything you thought you knew about yourself.”

Julia felt oddly saddened by the woman’s words. And though she didn’t want to admit it, she felt afraid.

She couldn’t bear the thought of turning into Valentine: allowing herself to become quietly enmeshed in the Ellene ecosystem, constantly worrying about whether she was good enough. Letting the demands of this life whittle away at her, making one sacrifice after another until all she had left to give up was her relationship with Harry.

“I tried to explain this back in London,” Valentine said softly. “If you stay with Harry, you will eventually have to choose. You can either let the Ellenes absorb you completely, or you can tear Harry away from them. If you do that, Harry will come to hate you for it—and worse, he will come to hate himself.” Valentine drummed her fingers against the glass in a rhythm that felt oddly haunting, like the tune of some funeral dirge. “But if you stay…you may come to hate yourself, too.”

“Is that what happened to you?” Julia ventured.

Slowly, Valentine turned. Her bright blue eyes landed on Julia withsomething like surprise, as if she’d been caught in her own musings and forgotten that Julia was here at all.

“Sorry,” she murmured. “Pretend I didn’t say any of that. I’ve had my issues in this family, but that certainly doesn’t mean you will face the same. You and Harry probably have it all figured out.” She smiled, but it came out wobbly and frail.

That smile panicked Julia far more than Valentine’s threats or intimidation.

As if to underscore this new, unnerving kindness, Valentine grabbed the raincoat, or track jacket—whatever the hell it was—and held it out toward Julia.

“You should take this, since it sounds like you didn’t pack one. From the look of things, you’re going to need it more than I do.”

Unsettled by this new, tragic Valentine, Julia tried to hand the jacket back. “That’s all right, I don’t mind a little rain.”

“But the color looks so good on you. I insist,” Valentine pressed, before turning toward the door.

Julia stood there, holding the jacket, utterly still. Trying not to reveal how panicked that conversation had left her.

Chapter Forty-Three

Hera

“Am I correct in assuming you did all this?”

Zeus lay in bed next to Hera, propped up on one elbow, his figure more shadow than god in the semidarkness. Outside, rain still lashed at the windows, thunder booming incessantly overhead. But here in their nest of sheets and limbs, she felt sated and warm.

How decadent, to be lying in bed in the middle of the afternoon with one’s husband. Perhaps they should go on vacation more often.