“What’s wrong? You seemed to be having a very good time right up until a minute ago,” Ari said, gazing intently at her.

Eva sighed. “I remembered why I conned you into meeting with me,” she admitted. “Took me out of the moment.”

Ari chuckled and lifted himself off of her, moving to her side. He sat up and combed his fingers through his hair, looking for all the world as if nothing at all could possibly bother him in any way.

“I hope you didn’t think that the sex we just had was part of the deal I mentioned,” Ari said, glancing at her.

Eva shrugged. “You didn’t say that it was.” She hauled herself up onto her elbows and felt somehow more naked under Ari’s gaze than she had even when he’d been inside of her.

Ari grinned wickedly. “Want something to drink?”

Eva considered the question. “Water, I think,” she said, remembering the wine and cocktails she’d consumed; if Ari was going to try and negotiate a deal, she wanted to be as sober as possible.

Ari rose from the bed and left the room, and Eva watched him pad into the main part of the suite, remembering only then that she was in a hotel. It was easily the most sumptuous hotel she had ever seen—and she was certain that she was in the most luxurious suite the hotel offered. If I could trust that my legs would work, I’d check out the bathroom. There must be a killer bathtub in there.

A few moments later, Ari returned with one glass of water and another of wine. Eva accepted the water from him and took a sip before setting the glass down on the bedside table. Ari settled himself on the edge of the bed and sipped from his own glass.

“So,” he said, meeting her gaze. “Ready to hear my terms?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Eva said with a faint smile.

“I have a meeting coming up,” Ari explained. “It’s to discuss a potential business partnership with a huge company—a Middle Eastern outfit that I’ve been trying to connect with for years.”

“Okay,” Eva said, nodding. “Where do I come in?”

Ari smirked. “Since you’ve clearly done your research on me, you know what my reputation is,” Ari told her. “I need to convince these guys that I’m a respectable, settled, mature businessman.”

“That’s going to take some doing,” Eva said tartly. “Though it has been a few months since you were last in the tabloids.”

“That’s deliberate,” Ari said. “I’ve been trying to repair my reputation a bit. What would really sell them on this idea, though, is me having a wife.”

Eva’s eyes widened. “And you want me to play the role of Mrs. Christodoulou? We just met yesterday and you only learned my real name today!”

“It’s doable,” Ari countered. “You’re a smart woman, Eva—you’d have to be, to have done some of the things you’ve accomplished. Hell; you’ve been a con artist for longer than you’ve been a hard-working employee.”

Something about his words—accurate as they were—stung Eva.

“The schemes I’ve done were work,” she told him firmly. “Maybe not entirely honest, but I worked hard to be good at it.”

“Which is exactly why I’m proposing this to you, and not someone else,” Ari said, smiling. He took another sip of his wine. “You’re smart enough and motivated enough to actually pull this off.”

“What do you know about my motivation?”

Ari tilted his head to the side. “I know I’m good in bed, but I doubt I’m good enough to have made you forget what you came to me for,” he said. “I would think that avoiding a multimillion dollar lawsuit would be very good motivation indeed.”

Eva chuckled and picked up her glass of water. “Yeah, that is definitely enough motivation to make me want to make this work,” she admitted. “I just don’t know how likely it is that we can pull it off.”

She considered the idea that Ari had proposed: it wasn’t as though she’d never done anything remotely like it before, but she’d always had more lead time than Ari had implied they would have at their disposal. “How much time do we have?”

“About a week,” Ari told her.

Eva shook her head. “Impossible,” she said, gulping down some water and setting her glass aside once more. “If we had a month we could pull it off, but a week?”

“Like I said: you’re intelligent, experienced, and motivated.”

“What kind of money are we talking about? What kind of a business deal is this?”

“It’s worth billions,” he replied nonchalantly. “The shipping company in question is owned by members of the royal family of Al Akanish.”

Eva’s eyes widened; she didn’t know much about the small Middle Eastern country, but she knew it was home to one of the largest shipping empires in the world.

“I just don’t understand why you would lie to them about what you’re like? It’s not like your reputation is entirely made up—they’re going to figure it out eventually.”

Ari scowled. “Lying about yourself is how you got here,” he pointed out. “Don’t act as though you’ve got some kind of moral high ground.”

Eva bit back an angry retort and took a slow, deep breath.

“I’m just saying—with all due respect—that a week is not nearly enough lead time for a con this big,” she said quietly. “And I can’t believe that if this is a company you’ve wanted to get on the hook for years, you didn’t figure out this plan until just now.” She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling the heat in her cheeks as she remembered that she was naked—they both were.

“I’ve been thinking about this for months,” Ari admitted. “But I haven’t found anyone I could trust to make it work.”

“No? Not with all the women you’ve been seeing? Surely one of them would be a better candidate than me.”

“None of them would give me the kind of respectability I need for this contract,” Ari said, shaking his head. “Your name hasn’t been connected to mine in the tabloids; you’re a safe option. Then too, you have every reason to go along with it and keep quiet.”

Eva rolled her eyes. “That much is obvious,” she agreed. She licked her lips, wishing—fleetingly—that she hadn’t had sex with him. It was a good idea at the time. Don’t let it cloud your reason: it was just sex. She took a deep breath and sighed. “How are we going to make this happen?”

“Obviously, we’re going to need a cover story,” Ari said.

Eva nodded; they would need to explain how they had met, why she hadn’t been in the tabloids, why Ari was suddenly married.

“You realize that we have so, so much to explain, right?” Eva raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t even remotely acted like a married man—do you think they won’t have done their research? I mean, if you’re worried about them thinking you’re a woman-chasing party boy…” she shrugged.

“Clearly you’re more well-versed on plots like these than I am,” Ari said dryly.

Eva pressed her lips together. “I want an agreement on this,” she said, keeping her voice level. “If I’m going to pretend to be your wife, you’re going to need to pretend to be my husband, too. And you need to be able to treat me with respect and genuine affection by the time we’re playing this out.”

“Understood,” Ari said, inclining his head towards her.

“To that end: you stop making snide comments about my past.” Eva held his gaze, knowing that she was at a disadvantage in their current negotiation; but she had to stand her ground—just as she had with the irate caller—even if it meant that she lost out.

“Fair enough,” Ari said after a moment. “Anything else?”

“We’re going to come up with our story together,” she told him. “It needs to be as organic as possible.”

“That makes sense,” Ari agreed with a nod.

Eva sighed. “I think we can make this work,” she said. “I sure as hell hope we can make this work.”

Ari grinned. “If nothing else, it’ll make for a great story—sometime years from now.”

Eva laughed. “That it will. I can tell my future kids—if I ever have them—about how I pretended to be a billionaire’s wife so he could seal a business deal.” She glanced down at her naked body and sat up, climbing out of the bed.

“Where are you going?”

Eva collected her underwear from the floor where it had fallen, slipping into the panties and pulling the bra on in a few quick, practiced movements. “I’m staying right here,” she said. “But I think that if we’re going to pull this off, we’re going to need to keep things completely businesslike between us.”

“Why?” Ari watched as she pulled her dress on and then came back towards him.

Eva spotted a chair tucked away underneath a side table in the bedroom and pulled it over to the bed where Ari sat.

“Because we need to focus,” she told him firmly. “We need to devote as much time as possible to inventing an entire relationship, and if we have sex again, that’s just going to make it weird.”

Ari held her gaze for a moment, and Eva could see the thoughts churning behind his eyes.

“Okay,” he said, nodding. “I can see that.”

“So,” Eva said, taking a deep breath and exhaling it in a sigh. “We’re going to have to rehearse and practice every day until this meeting.” She licked her lips and considered. “What kind of meeting is it?”

“A welcome dinner,” Ari said. “The night before the paperwork is due to be signed.”

“You’re going to have to pay for a dress,” Eva told him. “Nothing I own will be appropriate to play your wife.”

“I figured I would need to supply the wardrobe for the evening,” Ari said with a shrug. “I’m not a total naïf.”

“Okay,” Eva said, nodding slowly. She could feel the lingering slickness between her legs, and the sight of Ari’s tantalizing, naked body distracted her. “Can you put your clothes on, please? Not that I’m not enjoying the view, but…”

Ari raised an eyebrow but stood, finding his pants on the floor. “I can meet with you tomorrow at Central Park,” he told her.

Eva considered that and nodded. “That’s good,” she said. “We’re going to need to work at this hard—you know that, right?”

“I do.”

“We’re going to have to know everything possible about each other,” Eva continued. “Tiny things. Details that people don’t even usually know about their spouses, we’re going to need to know.”

“If people don’t know those things about their spouses, why would we need to?”

Eva chuckled. “Because we have no idea what kind of questions are going to come up in conversation,” she pointed out. “And we don’t want to end up in a position where we’re confused or panicked.”

“Makes sense,” Ari said with a nod. “I look forward to it. Unless you want to get started tonight?”

Eva considered that; they didn’t have much time, but she knew her mind was too fogged from alcohol and sex to really focus.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “Let’s both get some sleep first.”

“Give me your number,” Ari suggested. “I’ll give you a time to meet with me once I know when I’ll be free.”

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.