Page 81 of Ungodly Rich

The moment was broken by Hermes’s phone buzzing again. He glanced down at the screen and sighed in resignation. Hera, of course.

Peitho disappeared into the back, muttering something about Julia needing casual options and more footwear.

“Do you need to take that?” Julia asked, her eyes on Hermes.

“It’s Tara. I’m doing her a favor, and she’s…”

“Not very grateful?” Julia supplied.

“I was going to say impatient. No one is evergrateful,not in this family.” Hermes tried to sound flippant and careless, but Julia must have heard the hurt behind his words. She stepped forward, the lace skirts of the Dolce swishing as she moved.

“It’s not fair of them to take you for granted, Percy.”

Hermes shrugged, his eyes still on his phone screen. “They can’t help it.”

“What, rich and powerful people can’t be expected to say thank you?”

“I just mean, this is the way of things,” Hermes tried to explain. “Bruce and Tara ask for favors, and I help. I don’t exactly have the strongest position within the family.” That was how it had always been, among mortals just as much as gods. Power was concentrated in the hands of a few, while everyone else jostled along the hierarchy for what was left.

“You can’t keep letting your family walk all over you, asking you for ‘favors.’ ” Julia put little air quotes around the phrase to imbue it with sarcasm. “I know how it feels, thinking that you’re lucky just to be part of it all. But I, for one, am done trying to win Tara and Bruce’s approval, acting like someone I don’t recognize on the slim chance they’ll decide I’m good enough. I alreadyknowthat I am.”

Hermes stared at Julia. What had happened to the mortal he’d met in Greece, the one Ares had to run after because she’d fled when things became too much?

This woman wasn’t running anywhere. She was staying put, fighting for what was hers—and making Hermes feel like he could, too.

Julia shook her head. “Tara might be obscenely rich, but that doesn’t give her the right to treat you like the help. You’re her family! You should stand up for yourself. You deserve more than the scraps from their table.”

“If I stand up to Tara, I’ll lose what Idohave,” Hermes said quietly.

“Maybe you will,” Julia agreed sadly. “But maybe in the process,you’ll find something better. There’s a whole world outside of the Ellenes, and you’re stronger than you think.”

Their eyes met—one pair human, one divine—and a beat of understanding passed between them.

This was the moment when Hermes was supposed to pry information from Julia. He could ask more about how she’d met Ares, try to find out why Julia was impervious to magic. Hera would expect him to.

But Hermes was so tired of doing what Hera expected, and more important, he wasn’t ready to cheapen this moment of connection to Julia. He didn’t want it to be an act. He wanted their bond to bereal.

Maybe it was.

Hermes looked at her again. He’d always thought of Julia as vulnerable—because she was trapped in that mortal body, because she had no idea that she was in the presence of gods. But she didn’t look so frail anymore.

In that Dolce dress, her expression intent and fierce, she looked as formidable as any goddess.

“I’m rooting for you, you know,” he told her. And shockingly, he meant it.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Hera

“I’m so glad you were able to join me,” Hera said brightly as she and Julia followed a uniformed spa attendant. They were at Trellis, her favorite day spa, tucked between Upper East Side apartment buildings like a forgotten gem.

Hera was growing increasingly frustrated with Hermes. He hadn’t brought her anything on Julia since London, when he’d shared that he and Aphrodite had both failed to enchant Julia in recent months, though Aphrodite had successfully used magic on Julia at Olympus. Hera’s mind had been whirling ever since, turning over various explanations. Could Julia be under a protection spell cast by another god? Perhaps she’d bathed in the blood of a dragon (never mind that dragons were long since extinct). Or she might have eaten the berries from Demeter’s sacred rowan tree, which granted mortals protection from both physical and magical harm, at least for a time.

Was it possible that Hera had made a mistake when she activated the Eye of Argos? She thought back to when Julia had selected theengagement ring. Julia had slipped it onto her left hand, opposite that plain gold band on her right…

What had Hermes said back in London, that it felt like Julia carried some kind ofshield? No, Hera thought with dawning horror, it couldn’t be.

Could it?