Page 25 of Ungodly Rich

There was another moment of awkward silence before Tara cleared her throat expectantly. Hector stepped forward and hugged his brother then, thumping him awkwardly on the back, before quickly stepping aside.

“It’s nice to meet you, Hector. I’m Julia,” she cut in, since he didn’t seem to have noticed her.

Hector turned to her in something like surprise, holding out a hand to shake. His sheer size intimidated her, but there was something warmin his eyes, something that put her at ease. “Julia. I’m so glad you were able to join us.”

Tara put a hand on each of her sons’ shoulders. “Come on, boys,” she chided. “I need help, or the string quartet can’t set up!”

Julia retreated a step. There was no chance she would let Harry’s mom accuse her of being clingy. “I look forward to chatting more later,” she told Hector, then smiled at Harry. There was still a strange expression on his face as he mouthed a goodbye and followed his mother and brother across the lawn.

“Can I interest you in a spritz?”

She turned around to see a young man with blond hair and hazel eyes. He was wearing a pale blue sports coat, ridiculously preppy with its windowpane check pattern, and a belt with a silverHthat even Julia recognized as Hermès. He smiled, lifting his hands in a rueful gesture, an Aperol spritz in each.

“I’m Percy, by the way,” he introduced himself.

“I’m Julia. Harry’s girlfriend.” She accepted the cocktail warily. “I think these are dangerous. I had one the other day and then slept for twenty-four hours.”

“First of all, everything here is dangerous. You can’t blame the spritz.” Percy said it like a joke, but Julia couldn’t help feeling there was truth to his words. “As for your long sleep, I’d blame jet lag.”

She took a very small sip to be polite. Though the spritz was delicious, she didn’t want to pass out again. Apparently, when Harry had come to find her this morning, Julia had moaned,I just want to sleep, let me have what I want!She didn’t even remember saying that.

Harry had hesitated, then left for the yacht without her. She’d still been sleeping when he came back that afternoon and finally shook her awake.

Julia had forced herself to rally, determined to attend the family dinner. Though she was starting to realize that she might have underestimatedhow manypeople were included in Harry’s “family.” If only she could download some kind of guide to keep them all straight.

Speaking of which…“I still can’t get Wi-Fi on my phone,” she told Percy. “Isn’t there a network here?”

“It’s pretty spotty. Old house, you know,” Percy said breezily. “Don’t you find it liberating, giving up the doomscrolling of Instagram?”

“It’s not Instagram I’m worried about. It’s my email.”

“Whoever is emailing you, they’ll just have to wait,” Percy replied. There was something antsy about him, something almost unstable. Julia had the odd thought that if you glimpsed him out of the corner of your eye, his outline might shimmer like quicksilver.

She glanced around the gathering again and sighed. “You know, when most people invite you to a family dinner, it’s a table of six. Not a seated dinner for three hundred.”

“I take it Harry didn’t warn you what this weekend would be like?” Percy wasn’t being cruel—if anything, he sounded sympathetic—but Julia knew he was staring at her dress, a red one she’d bought at a thrift store in Queenstown. She’d thought it was fashionable until she saw the couture items and expensive jewelry around her.

Julia kept her head high. Her mom always said that a girl could live on three dresses: a white one for summer parties, a black one for winter, and one good option in a solid color.Pale blue or navy is a safe choice,Claire would muse, zipping up her own blue dress before heading to her job at the local newspaper.

Well, Julia had chosen fire-engine red. She never did learn to play it safe.

“Harry didn’t prepare me foranyof it. I’ve lived with him for two years, and the whole time, I had no idea he came from all…this.” She gestured vaguely around them.

“That sounds like Harry.” Percy paused a moment, swirling the ice in his cocktail. “You sound American, but you met him in Queenstown? How did that happen?”

Might as well tell the truth, Julia thought. “I met Harry while I was working on the Elysian Cruise Line. Like I said, I had no idea who he was—he told me his last name was Adams! We ran into each other at a bar, and, you know. The rest is history.”

“You worked on the cruise line,” Percy repeated, with something like disbelief. “Doing what?”

“Leading group tours. I was an art history major in college.”

“Oh, what kind of art did you study? Please,don’tsay modern. There are far too many specialists in modern art as it is, all of them clamoring for jobs at Sotheby’s, trying to sell Kusamas and Kehinde Wileys to tech millionaires who can’t tell good art from bad.” Percy shuddered dramatically.

“Not modern. Actually, the opposite,” Julia replied, amused. “My senior thesis compared depictions of Athena and Ares in ancient Greek vase painting. It’s fascinating, really. Athena was always shown surrounded by other people, mainly humans. But Ares was invariably a singular figure on the vase, and he appears so much more infrequently in religious—Sorry,” she added self-consciously, aware that Percy was staring. “When I went on too long about my thesis, my roommate Abby used to throw a pillow at my head.”

“Save your pillow for a more exciting use,” Percy quipped, but he was still studying her. “I’m just intrigued to meet a classicist in the modern age. Most people think the ancient world is dead and gone.”

“Well, they’re wrong,” Julia declared. “The ancient world has left its fingerprints all over modernity.”