Page 119 of Ungodly Rich

“That’s why Hera wanted Julia gone,” Zeus mused aloud, his voice a low growl. “She didn’t want me to learn her secret. That she snuck behind my back,defiedmy authority, and killed a mortal under my protection.”

Well, Hermes thought, the secret was out now. Come what may.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Hera

Hera knew she sounded shrill and hysterical, but for once, she let decorum fly out the window. She was just so angry: With Aphrodite, for being unbearably selfish, yet again. With Ares, for being stupid enough not to realize that the woman in his bed wasn’t his fiancée.

And mostly with herself, for setting all of this in motion.

If she hadn’t joined forces with Aphrodite to get rid of Julia…If she’d kept Ares from running away after he’d slept with Aphrodite the first time…If she’d never given Aphrodite that potion, which had backfired and sent her straight into Ares’s arms…Better still, if she’d never killed Julia’s mother, turning Julia into a ticking time bomb that could implode her marriage…

There were so many ways this mess could have been avoided, and yet here they all were. Dealing with the consequences of their many mistakes.

“I should have kicked you out of this family three years ago,” Hera hissed at Aphrodite. “How dare you drive a wedge between my sons,again? Getout!”

Aphrodite’s cheeks were bright with color. “You don’t have the authority to kick me out. Only the full Olympian council can do that.”

“Call the council, then!” Athena cut in. “I’ll start gathering votes against you!”

“Where is Julia?”Ares bellowed, but no one answered.

Hephaestus was the only one who sounded reasonable. “Mother, Athena, this isn’t your battle to fight. Please stay out of it.”

Hera whirled on her son. “You can’t possibly be defending Aphrodite after what she’s done. Why would you forgive her a second time?”

Her son’s reply was quiet, dignified, in stark contrast to the savage fighting that surrounded him. “How can you ask me that question, when you have forgiven Father more times than any of us could count?”

The three of them fell silent at his audacity. No one ever,everspoke to Hera of Zeus’s infidelities. She wasn’t a fool; she knew that the other gods were all aware of his cheating, even her children. But it was one of those things that was never discussed.

Hera was surprised to feel herself blinking back tears. What could she tell Hephaestus?It’s different between me and your father? When it wasn’t different at all; it was brutally, painfully the same.I put up with it because I love Zeus and keep hoping he will change, even though he proves me wrong every time?

Hephaestus would understand that better than anyone.

She remembered how he’d been as a child: the way his small body would cling fiercely to hers, his head nodding onto her shoulder as he fell asleep.I love you,he would whisper, words that Ares and Athena rarely spoke. But Hephaestus had been different from the beginning, gentle where his siblings were aggressive, subdued where they were loud. None of her children had ever needed Hera all that much—that was the nature of gods—but Hephaestus lingered near her while the other two ran off.

Hera had always thought that he was the best of her, the best of all of them. Humble, kind, warm, empathetic. She would never forget the first time he’d come to her with something he’d invented: a tinybird that she could wind up, so that it walked on little bronze legs. She had been upset about Zeus’s latest affair, and Hephaestus, still a child, had climbed into her lap and held out his present. He never said that he made it to cheer her up, but she knew he’d sensed her sadness, even if he was too young to know its source.

Her brilliant, creative child, who had spent his life quietly building things that were useful and lovely all at once. The only thing Hera had ever created was the occasional flower arrangement; she didn’t even cook, could hardly boil water. Well, the best thing she had created would always be her children.

It hurt to realize that Hephaestus hadn’t just absorbed the best of her; he’d also absorbed the worst. Her pliancy, her self-abnegation. Her decision to forgive, over and over again, no matter how much Zeus hurt her.

This was the cruelest part of being a parent—being forced to see your flaws, the qualities you despised most in yourself, coming to life in your children. Being unable to fix them, as you were unable to fix them in yourself.

“Aphrodite won’t change, Hephaestus,” Hera said, her heart aching.

Her son’s eyes brimmed with sympathy. “Neither will Father.”

She felt like such a fool, suddenly, for believing in—what? A second act of her marriage to Zeus? A new chapter where he was now devoted to her and never strayed? Where he took her to bed in the afternoon, swept her off for a romantic trip to the lake in France?

This wasn’t some fundamental change in him. Zeus was the same as he always was.

Right now, he just happened to be having an affair with his own wife.

Hera hated herself for being so willfully blind. For being so addicted to Zeus, to the rush of reckless energy she felt when she was with him, that she’d put up with the rest. It would have been easier if she could stop loving him, if she could hate him for the affairs—but somehow, each time he strayed, she felt a renewal of that pull toward him, as if the fear of losing him only intensified her need.

The thing was, after so many years of marriage, her love and anger were so intertwined that she didn’t know how to separate them.