Page 8 of Ungodly Rich

Hephaestus had come home late from a work trip, taciturn as always. Unable to handle the silence, Aphrodite had asked how his meetings went.Our vendors are cheating us,he’d said tersely.Liars, all of them.

That word,cheat,had started it all.

Maybe they didn’tmeanto cheat,Aphrodite had snapped in reply. She wasn’t sure why she said it, other than she longed to finally address what had happened.

Address it they did—in a loud, ugly, vicious way. An awful part of Aphrodite had relished that fight. Finally, she had cracked through her husband’s placid surface and exposed the beating heart beneath.

When they fell into bed, it felt like the natural conclusion to all the wounds they had inflicted on each other.

Obviously, Aphrodite had slept with Hephaestus countless times during their marriage. But something had been different that night.Hehad been different. He had kissed her with a possessive fierceness that wiped everything else from her mind, until there was nothing in the world but the sensation of his body against hers. Everywhere his hands touched, sparks seemed to trail in his wake, the white-hot sparks of a hammer striking in a forge.

The next morning, still flushed and crackling with sensation, Aphrodite had looked over to find that he was gone. The only evidence he’d been there at all was the rumpled pillow on his side of the bed.

They had never mentioned her infidelity again.

Then, barely a month later, Aphrodite had learned she was pregnant. At the news, an incredulous smile had spread over Hephaestus’s face. “A baby,” he’d murmured, resting a tentative hand on her belly, which was still toned and flat. The gods had plenty of demigod children scattered over the world, but this—a true god, fully divine and immortal—was inconceivably rare.

Eros’s arrival had shifted things between them, had brought a new center of gravity to their marriage.

Hephaestus’s hands were warm on her shoulders, his eyes still locked on hers in the mirror. Aphrodite felt that little shiver again. Most men were so easy to read, probably because most men’s desires were so clear. But Hephaestus’s thoughts had always eluded her.

Had they reconciled, or was this merely a truce?

She would find out in time, Aphrodite reminded herself. That, they had plenty of.

Chapter Four

Julia

“Where are you taking me?” Julia protested, but Harry just tugged her onward. They were near the bay, in the part of Queenstown that catered to tourists, full of women in camel-colored coats and men in Barbour jackets. Quite far from their usual haunts.

“You’ll see.” Harry flashed her a mischievous grin. “You clean up nice, by the way.”

Beneath her coat, Julia was wearing her swishy black dress from New Year’s and stilettos. She kept stumbling over the cobblestones. Normally, she wouldn’t have bothered with heels, but when she’d FaceTimed Abby earlier, Abby had convinced her that two years was a significant milestone.

“I’m not saying he’s going topropose,” Abby had remarked, peering at the phone, which was wedged against her computer monitor. She worked as a director of engineering at Google in their London office. “But two years merits something special, Julia.”

“What, like a new sex position?” Julia had quipped, and her friend laughed.

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t had a relationship that lasted two years since high school.” Abby had shaken her head. “But we’re not talking about me right now; we’re talking about you.”

As Harry started tugging Julia toward the marbled entrance of a boutique hotel, she cast him a dubious look.

“I still owe you that bottle of champagne. I haven’t forgotten!” Harry exclaimed at the expression on her face. “Besides, it’s a special occasion.”

They couldn’t afford a place like this, but Julia swallowed her protests and walked to the bar. It was empty save a group of women in cashmere sweaters and tailored pants. They cast her skeptical glances that made Julia shrug out of her jacket and flip her dark hair over one shoulder, daring them to judge the way her hemline skimmed over her thigh.

“We need a bottle of champagne, please,” Harry asked the bartender, who immediately placed a menu before him. Julia waited for her boyfriend to flounder, or at the very least ask for a recommendation, but Harry scanned it for a moment, brow furrowed. “The 2014 Ruinart,” he decided, after a beat.

“Excellent choice,” the bartender said officiously.

Julia glanced over, an eyebrow raised. She’d never seen Harry drink a mimosa, let alone order from an overpriced wine list. “Since when do you have an opinion about vintage champagne?”

“As you so often remind me, I have opinions on everything,” he pointed out, which startled a laugh from her. It was true; Harry never hesitated to share his thoughts, whether they were about weed gummies (for tourists only) or theHobbitmovie set tour (a guilty pleasure) or cowboy boots (only if you wore them while riding, never for the sake of fashion).

The bartender popped the bottle with a soft hiss, then poured their champagne into flutes with stems so painfully skinny that Julia worried they might snap.

“Cheers,” Harry said, tapping his glass to hers.