That was why Elise had homed in on him with such deadly skill. She could smell new blood a mile away. Newcomers were more trusting of strangers, since to them, everyone was a stranger. They were far less likely to notice any missteps.
A hovertray floated past, laden with crystal flutes of something pink and fizzy. Calliope plucked three of them deftly off the top. “Mr. Mizrahi,” she said, handing him a drink. “I’m not very familiar with cybernetics. Can you explain the basics?”
“Well, cybernetics is technically defined as the study of subsystems in both man and machine, but I work in a division that attempts to replicate simple patterns …”
Calliope smiled even as she tuned out his monologue. Give a mark the chance to show off, to spout a little bit of specialized knowledge, and he or she automatically felt affection toward you. After all, there was no topic of conversation that people enjoyed talking about more than themselves.
“And how have you enjoyed New York?” Calliope asked at a break in the conversation, taking a sip of her drink. There were sticky sugar crystals on the rim and bright red pomegranate seeds clustered at the bottom.
And so she and her mom went back and forth, settling into their familiar, practiced rhythm. They flirted and teased and peppered Nadav with questions, and no one but Calliope could sense the cold ruthlessness behind it all. She watched how her mother’s pale green eyes—not their original color, of course—barely flicked away from Mizrahi’s, even when his gaze was directed somewhere else.
It’s all about the eye contact, Calliope remembered her mom saying, her first lesson in the art of seduction. Look directly into their eyes until they can’t look away.
And then, unexpectedly, Calliope heard a familiar voice behind her.
She made a little gesture to her mom and turned slowly, dragging out the moment before he recognized her. It had only been five months, yet he looked older, and somehow sharper. His shadowed beard from the previous summer was gone, his eyes glassy in a way they hadn’t been before. She’d never seen him in a suit.
The only boy who’d ever gotten the better of her; and here he was, halfway around the world.
She saw the moment he registered her presence. He looked as stunned as she felt. “Calliope?”
“Travis?” she asked, which was the name he’d given her this summer, though she’d suspected at the time it wasn’t real. Then again, neither was hers. Thank god she’d been using Calliope so much lately.
He winced, and looked around as if to see whether anyone had heard. “It’s Atlas, actually. I wasn’t quite honest with you this summer.”
“You lied to me about your name?” she said indignantly, though of course she didn’t mind. If anything, she was intrigued.
“It’s a long story. But, Calliope …” He ran a hand through his hair, suddenly awkward. “What are you doing here?”
She tipped back the rest of her pomegranate champagne, then deposited the empty flute on a passing tray. “At the moment, I’m at a party,” she replied flippantly. “What about you?”
“I live here,” Atlas answered.
Holy. Shit. Calliope prided herself on being prepared for anything, but even she needed a moment to process this turn of events. The boy she’d met this summer, who’d bummed around Africa with her like a pair of nomads, was a Fuller. He wasn’t just rich—his family was in its own stratosphere of wealth, so high that they had their own zip code. Literally.
She could work this to her advantage. She wasn’t sure how quite yet, but she felt confident that a situation would arise, some way that she could walk away from Atlas richer than when she’d met him.
“All that time we spent haggling over the price of beer, and you live here?” She laughed.
Atlas joined in, shaking his head appreciatively. “God, you haven’t changed at all. But what are you doing in New York?” he persisted.
“Why don’t you tell me why you were hiding your name, and I’ll tell you what brought me here?” Calliope challenged, even as she tried to remember what exactly she’d told him about herself. She smiled—her absolute best smile, the one she held in reserve for special occasions, which blossomed into something so bright and dazzling, that most people had to look away. Atlas held her gaze. She wanted him all the more for it.
The truth was, she’d wanted Atlas from the first moment she saw him.
She’d been standing in the British Air lounge at the Nairobi airport, trying to figure out where to go next, when he walked past, a tattered backpack slung over one shoulder. Every instinct in her body—honed to precision after years of practice—screamed at her to go go go in pursuit of him. So she did, tailing him all the way to a safari lodge, where she watched him apply for a job as a valet. He was hired on the spot.
She kept watching.
He was a mark, all right, for all that he was wearing a regulation khaki uniform, greeting guests, helping carry their luggage. He came from money. Calliope could see it in his brilliant smile, in the way he held his head, the way his eyes traveled over the room, confident and easy, but somehow not overly entitled. She just hadn’t guessed how very much money.
She’d showed up at the lodge’s employee party that weekend, wearing a crimson silk dress that draped all the way to the floor, hugging the curves of her hips and her chest. She wasn’t wearing any underwear and the dress made that fact abundantly clear. But as her mom always said, you only got one good chance to bait the hook.
The party was far behind the lodge, past the enormous shed where they kept the flexiglass safari hovers. It was more crowded than she’d expected: dozens of young, good-looking employees were gathered around one of those fake bonfires—the holographic kind that threw off real heat—all dancing and laughing and drinking a bright lemony liquid. Calliope wordlessly took a cup and leaned back against a fence post. Her expert eyes picked him out at once. He was standing with several friends, grinning at something they had said, when he looked up and saw her.
A few other people approached, but Calliope waved them off. She crossed her legs to better reveal the slit in her dress, her long legs beneath. Calliope never made the first move, at least, not with boys. She’d found that they bought into a romance more quickly when they were the ones that came to you.
“You won’t dance?” he asked when he’d finally come to stand near her. He sounded American. Good. She could pass for anything, but she always preferred being from London; and American boys were usually fascinated by that husky, sexy accent.
“Not with anyone who’s asked me so far,” she replied, raising one eyebrow.