Eva stood and scribbled down her phone number on a pad the hotel had provided.
“Good night, husband,” she said, giving him a wry smile.
“See you tomorrow, wife,” Ari replied.
Eva smoothed her hair before leaving the hotel room, reflecting on the odd situation she’d found herself in. In little more than twenty-four hours, she had gone from a straight life to a brand new con; she had been fired from her real job, met a billionaire, put herself in hot water, and now she would be working with someone to pull the wool over a major company’s eyes.
As she rode the elevator down to the ground floor, Eva thought about the task ahead. She was going to have to do her best to forget completely about the sex she’d had with Ari; just thinking about it sent a jolt of heat through her body that she couldn’t ignore. Even as she’d been sitting in the chair, fully dressed, it had been impossible not to look at the gorgeous Greek. This is going to be the most difficult scheme of my life, she thought frankly.
She would have to keep her mind on the plot—not on the feeling of Ari inside of her, the taste of his lips. She chuckled to herself as she left the hotel and headed back to her apartment; even if she’d felt insulted by Ari’s frank assessment of her erstwhile career, she had to admit that he had chosen his pretend-wife well. She had convinced businessmen of more difficult sells on more than one occasion. Just think of them like another set of marks, she told herself, skipping down the steps to the subway.
She thought that the fact that she knew what Ari looked like naked, what it felt like to have sex with him, would work in her favor, as long as she didn’t let it distract her. It would, at least, lend some physical chemistry to their interactions. You’re going to spend the entire week wishing you could go at it again, Eva thought.
She took a deep breath and stepped onto the Brooklyn-bound train, glancing around at the nearly empty car. You need to be careful, Eva. Ari Christodoulou is your partner in a scheme; he’s not someone you can trust. Not really.
The thought sent a chill through her spine; she knew that Ari wouldn’t do anything to harm her—but she also knew that it would only be too easy to develop real feelings, at least of a temporary kind, while she was pretending to be in love with the man. She had to do whatever she could to keep things purely business, right up until the dinner; after that, she would probably never hear from Christodoulou again, and she could move on with her life.
Not that I have all that much to look forward to, Eva thought, watching lights flash past the window as the subway picked up speed. If nothing else, at least the scheme with Ari would fill some time before she had to figure out how to live without a job.
Chapter Eight
Eva looked around the southern entrance to Central Park, trying to suppress the rising sense of anxiety she felt as she waited for Ari to appear. If there was one thing grifting had taught her, it was that few people were to be trusted; even if she knew Ari’s motivation, even if she trusted that it was in his best interest to follow through with the plan, there was still a little voice in the back of her mind that whispered that he would fall through. Something was going to go wrong: he wouldn’t take the preparation seriously enough, or she would forget some particular and end up flubbing an important fact about his life—and then their lie would come tumbling down.
A week isn’t enough time. Not nearly enough. This is crazy. And yet, she knew she had little choice; Eva had no doubt that the realtor would do her best to bring a suit against her without intervention from Ari.
He had sent her a message that morning, telling her to meet him at noon at the park; Eva had wondered how a businessman like Ari Christodoulou was going to manage to dedicate the amount of time that their charade required, but apparently he was able to manage his time more or less how he liked.
Eva glanced around her again, watching people entering and leaving the park; Ari was going to be late if he didn’t show up soon. We’ll soon see just how committed he is to this, she thought, taking a deep breath.
Just when Eva was convinced that Ari was going to be a no-show, she spotted him. He was striding along, bags in his hands, and Eva frowned in confusion at the sight. The next moment, Ari saw her, and quickened his steps, smiling.
“I know—I was almost late,” Ari said as he approached. “But I thought that a little lunch was in order.” The markings on the bags were foreign to Eva’s eyes, but the scents that wafted up from them were appealing. “My favorite Greek place, about three blocks from the office,” he told her.
“Greek, of course,” Eva said with a smile. “I should have expected it.”
“I thought it would be apropos for our meeting,” he said with a shrug. “Let’s find somewhere quiet—if we can.”
They walked deep into the park, until they came to a secluded enclave, far away from the screaming children, the Frisbee players, the musicians. Ari brought out a blanket and they both sat down.
“These are a few of my favorite things to eat,” Ari explained as he began to take containers out of the takeout bags. “Zucchini flowers, stuffed with cheese and herbs. This is eggplant dip, similar to baba ganoush.” Eva nodded, watching as Ari served out bits of the different things as he spoke. “These are fried smelts—doesn’t sound very appetizing, I know, but they’re actually delicious.”
Eva laughed. “If they’re a favorite food of anyone, I’d assume they can’t be bad,” she pointed out, and Ari grinned.
“I also bought us some lamb—the story behind this dish, as my mom told it to me, was that the Klephts, a group of bandits with no flocks of their own, would steal lambs from the respectable herders. Since they didn’t want to be caught cooking stolen animals, they’d cook their meat in a sealed pit so there was no smoke to lead someone to them.”
Eva grinned at the fanciful story.
“Did your mother cook?” she asked.
Ari shrugged. “She did when she wanted to, but mostly she hired in a woman to do the cooking.” He finished divvying up the first servings of the food, and they began eating. Eva savored the different flavors, the richness and brightness of the food, the balance of the sweet and savory.
“Let’s get started,” Eva suggested after a minute. “Tell me about your childhood—and remember: I need to know as many details as humanly possible.”
Ari chuckled and put his plate aside, taking a sip of his drink.
“I have three siblings,” he began. “Two sisters and a brother. My mother promised my father that she would give him two boys and two girls. As soon as she had my younger brother, she informed him that either he could accept her getting her tubes tied, or she would divorce him.”
Eva laughed. “She was serious about that, it sounds like.”
Ari nodded. “Her mother nearly died from having too many children too quickly—that’s what she told me,” he explained. “Greeks are used to living in large families, so she thought that at least giving my father four children was fair.”
“I have an older brother and a younger sister,” Eva volunteered. “I’m not really much in contact with them, though Jessica calls me from time to time. Alex always kept to himself, but I get the occasional Christmas or birthday card from him.”
“Eleni is two years younger than me,” Ari said. “Nico is my baby brother, six years younger than me, and Xanthe is three years younger than I am.”
“What was your childhood like?” Eva returned to her food, unable to quite resist the tempting flavors; Ari had been right about the fried smelt.
“It was interesting,” Ari said, smiling fondly. “We were always in competition; my mother wanted us to be the best.”
“Competition against each other, or against other kids?” Eva raised an eyebrow.
“Yes,” Ari said, his smile deepening.
“Both?” Eva tried to imagine growing up like that; she had known that Alex—as the only son—was her father’s favorite, even though her parents tried to make sure that all of their children felt equally loved. �
�That seems…” she shrugged.
“It definitely gave us plenty of motivation,” Ari said. He picked up his plate and ate a few bites of the zucchini flower. “Whoever got the best grades in school, whoever was the most on top of things, got the best gifts, the most attention, the most freedom.”
“Let me guess,” Eva said drily. “You were generally the best?”
Ari chuckled. “Not always, but often,” he admitted. “Though Eleni gave me a run for my money sometimes. She’s the CEO of one of my father’s subsidiary companies now.”
“Is it better that you were successful on your own, or did they hope for you to stick with the family business?”
Ari shrugged. “I think they still hope that I’ll come back at some point, take things over,” he said. He shrugged again. “Nico is doing a good job following in my father’s footsteps. I don’t see any reason to knock him off of the throne.”
“You must have argued a lot with your siblings,” Eva observed. “Being so competitive—I feel like I could never trust my own family if I was pitted against them like that.”
“I could trust them not to tell my parents certain things,” Ari said, looking off into space. “And they could trust me not to tattle. We knew that we needed the cover sometimes—all of us.”
“It seems kind of…cold,” Eva admitted.
“It was effective,” he pointed out. “Look how successful I am now; I can’t say that I would have been if I hadn’t been taught to consider my self-worth based on what I achieved.”
“I guess the only thing separating you and me is the fact that my parents wanted me to love myself no matter what.”
“And several billion dollars,” Ari told her. “I have to acknowledge that if my parents hadn’t been rich, it would have been more difficult for me to come here, and start my own business.” He paused and smiled slightly. “You might have met me at the call center instead of the open house.”
“Ouch,” Eva said, flinching at the assessment.
“I’m not saying that to make you feel bad,” Ari told her. “There’s nothing bad about having an honest job.” Eva raised an eyebrow and Ari grinned. “Or a dishonest one, as long as you don’t get caught at it.”
They finished off the food but continued to talk throughout the afternoon, comparing their education: Eva’s in public schools, and Ari’s in the most elite private schools throughout Europe. He’d spent years in Switzerland, in Germany, in Denmark. He’d studied at Cambridge before moving to the United States. In comparison, Eva felt positively provincial. As the hours passed, Ari called his assistant to deliver them both coffee in the park, barely taking a break from their conversation to take care of their flagging energies.
Eva filed away every detail that Ari told her, beginning to form a portrait of the man in her mind, above and beyond what she needed for the scam they planned to perpetuate. As she and Ari exchanged the details of their lives, she found herself more and more intrigued by him; in spite of the coldness of his upbringing, Ari seemed to have no problem being warm, even affectionate. He was charming. Keep your head in the game, she reminded herself more than once; it wouldn’t do to take his charm personally.
She sipped the coffee that Ari’s assistant had brought and they quizzed each other on what they had learned that day, correcting the occasional error. “You’re a quick study,” Eva told Ari; he had remembered almost everything she’d told him, save for her brother’s name.
“As are you,” Ari said, smiling at her. Eva had needed a few tries to get the names of all of his cousins correctly, and it was practically impossible to remember all of the places where his family had estates.
“You don’t need to flatter me,” Eva countered.
“Not flattery,” Ari insisted. “There are more details to my life story than yours, and half of them are in foreign languages. You’ve got the much harder job.”
Eva was torn between frowning and smiling at his justification. “I sound so boring next to you,” she observed, and Ari laughed.
“Well, you’d sound less boring if we could tell them about your criminal career,” he pointed out. “But since that’s out of the question, boring is good.”
“We can come up with a story about how we met tomorrow,” Eva suggested. “I think my brain has taken in as much as it possibly can for now.”
It wasn’t entirely the truth; she had bought flash cards on the way to meet with Ari, and she fully intended to make use of them as soon as she got home. She would write out the important place names, the names of his cousins, the most relevant events in his life, and she would study them before she went to bed, every day that week. “Proper preparation is the key to any successful operation,” Jared had told her, and he’d been proven right; the job that had gotten him and half of their phony consulting company convicted hadn’t been one of the ones they’d over-prepared for. It had been the one time when they’d thought they had a lock on the mark they were after with only a dozen or so hours of research.
As Eva took the train back to her apartment, she thought about Ari; it was easy to see why he would be a magnet to women of all kinds—not just those interested in his wealth. He was stunningly good-looking, and the easy charm of his demeanor, coupled with the light accent in his voice, was enough to make any woman melt—even she had fallen for it at first. Eva pushed the memory of their tryst out of her mind; she had to stay focused. She had to keep on task.
That morning she’d gotten a call from the realtor’s lawyer, stating that they were interested in proceeding against her. She hadn’t mentioned it to Ari, but Eva told herself that she would tell him before they got into the meat of their next meeting. She reminded herself that even if the realtor were completely set on suing her, it would take longer than a week.
You’re just assuming Ari’s as good as his word, Eva thought grimly, listening for the announcement of the next stop. She shook her head and dismissed the idea of distrusting Ari. If you can’t trust him you shouldn’t be in the plot with him, she told herself, standing as her stop came up.
Chapter Nine
The next day, Eva went to the Park once again; Ari was five minutes early, bearing more food—this time from a Moroccan place near the first hotel he’d lived at in New York.
“First thing’s first,” Eva said when they found their spot in the green, dappled depths of the wooded area where they could be alone.
“What’s that?”
Eva licked her lips, taking a quick, deep breath.
“I got a phone call from a lawyer yesterday,” she said. “Apparently…I’m going to be sued.”
Ari’s eyes widened and he shook his head. “I’ll make a phone call tomorrow,” he said.
Eva held his gaze for a long moment, caution warring with hope.
“Okay,” she said. “So the next order of business is figuring out how we met, and the story of our great and timeless romance.”
Ari snorted. “We don’t want to make it too romantic, or too great and timeless,” he pointed out. “Believable is best.”
“Of course,” Eva agreed. “Spontaneous and believable.”
Ari served up the food, dividing it between them. “How about this: we met on a plane, on the way to a music festival,” he suggested as they began to eat.
Eva laughed. “Too obvious,” she said, shaking her head. “It should be more mundane. Like…” she considered, savoring the flavors of the vegetable tagine. “We met at a pharmacy. Both of us were looking for allergy medicine—and there was only one box left of our preferred brand. We haggled over it and eventually decided to split it, after you graciously attempted to insist that I take the whole thing.”
Ari snickered. “No—because then we’d have to remember what each of us is allergic to,” he pointed out. “What about if we met at some kind of charity event? We both ran the same 5K and got to talking, spurring each other on when we faltered. Love and sweat and bloody nipples?”
Eva almost choked on a bite of cucumber salad.
“And you said my first story was too obvious!” Ari shook his head. “We can do better than this.”
“Let’s go over our biographies for now; something will come to us,” Eva said. She and Ari quizzed each other, and Eva wondered if the Greek had taken the same tactic that she had with flashcards, or if he just had an innate good memory.
They finished off their food and moved back onto the subject of their cover story. Ari wiped his lips with a napkin. “What if we said that we met here? At the park?”
“Go on,” Eva said, smiling slowly.
“We were both here on miserable blind dates,” he continued. “You somehow got set up with just—the most terrible guy ever. Total asshole. And the girl one of my friends set me up with was just awful; she hated all of my favorite bands, only interested in my money—all of those things.”
Eva snorted. “So there we were, having the worst dates of our lives,” she said. “How did that end up with us meeting?”
“That’s where it gets good,” Ari said, grinning. “You got into a fight with your guy. Couldn’t stand his attitude, or whatever. The girl I was with saw it going down, and rushed over to cheer you on.”
“Totally ignoring you—that’s interesting,” Eva observed. “And was I in over my head? Is that where you saved me?”
Ari shook his head. “You knocked him flat on his back. Someone called the police, and I stayed behind to be a very, very helpful witness for you.”
Eva laughed out loud, considering the story.
“I think that will do it,” she said after a moment. “It’s not too boring…it’s interesting and believable all at the same time.”
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