Miranda
I remember the first time I saw Connor Templeton, over two years ago.
It was at some sort of fundraiser I was attending, merely for appearances. I had no use for clean water in African villages, or schooling for underprivileged children in Latin America. In fact, many times these things ran counter to my business interests.
But I had learned long before from my grandparents that social niceties are a cloak best used to hide your real intentions. At least, the smartest use them for that. The less intelligent use them to get from others what they can’t summon for themselves, whether that be approval, self-worth, or a balm for their conscience.
Fundraisers: self-absorbed liberals’ prescription for feeling better about themselves.
At any rate, it was some pompous gala where people pledged $1000 to charity and ate and drank $900 worth of champagne and caviar. I was trying to raise my profile amongst the do-gooder set, so I had donated $50,000 on behalf of my firm. I expected to make back a dozen times that on connections.
I was talking to someone – I forget whom; unless men are useful to me, they’re all interchangeable – when Connor walked in. I will admit, he was incredibly handsome. He wore his bespoke suit well over a powerful frame. Mostly, I remember his eyes: intelligent and rapacious, they darted around the room, taking in everything and everyone, analyzing, prioritizing.
But mostly he looked bored… until he saw me.
His reputation preceded him: his sexual prowess, his outsize appetite for beautiful women, his love of the hunt.
I had planned accordingly. After all, he was one of the bigger fish I hoped to hook that night. I had dressed in a plunging gown that accentuated my breasts and left my shoulders and arms completely bare. Plus, my hair was fastidiously swept up on my head to expose my neck. The more skin you show, the more sexually receptive men think you are. ‘Think’ being the important word in that sentence.
I intended to look like a helpless gazelle to the lions in the room.
Ha – if the ‘lions’ only knew who actually was the prey...
From the spark in his eyes, I knew my target was fascinated. I, on the other hand, only glanced at him briefly, just to note his existence. Then I looked back at my yawn-inducing conversational partner, feigned interest, and proceeded to ignore Connor completely.
Which drove him insane. With curiosity, mostly, but also annoyance that I hadn’t so much as batted my eyes at him.
He didn’t show any more interest… at first. He made the rounds, glad-handing and back-slapping his business and social acquaintances. But I noticed throughout the evening that he kept circling around me in ever-decreasing spirals, the way sharks hunt their prey, slowly closing in.
I let him think that’s what he was doing. Hunting his prey, that is.
He finally introduced himself about an hour into the party, appearing out of nowhere at my side.
“You get the prize for being the most out-of-place person here tonight,” he remarked as he took a glass of champagne at the same moment I did, and from the same waiter’s platter.
“Oh?” I asked coolly. “And why is that?”
“You’re acting like you’re interested, and doing a convincing job of it.”
“That hardly makes me out of place,” I said. “There are plenty of people here who are interested in the charity.”
“There are. But you’re bored. There are plenty of other people here who are bored, too, but they’re barely trying to hide it. You’re trying very hard.”
“Who says I’m bored?” I asked in a very bored tone of voice.
“I do.”
“And you are…?”
“Connor Templeton.”
He smirked, like he thought I was pretending not to know who he was.
He was right about that much, at least.
“And you are…?” he continued.
“Miranda. Miranda Lockwood.” I gave him my hand to shake – only he didn’t let go of it. “On what, exactly, are you basing this analysis?”
“Your tells.”
“As in ‘poker tells’?”
“Yes.”
“And what, pray tell, are my ‘tells’?”
He grinned. Whenever he did that, it was somewhat attractive, in an idiotic, man-child sort of way. “If I reveal those, you might change them, and then I couldn’t read you as well.”
For a second I had a brief glimmer of trepidation, the feeling that maybe my motives were more transparent than I thought. But then I reminded myself who I was, and who I knew this Connor Templeton fool to be.
There is never an easier mark than a man who believes he’s a master poker player. His ego is too wrapped up in reading other people and winning the hand to ever admit he is wrong.
“Again, nothing you’ve said would make me the most out-of-place person here,” I said.
“Well, that, and you’re far too beautifully dressed to be acting so aloof.”
With that, he lifted my hand and kissed my fingers, keeping his eyes intently on mine the entire time.
My prey had taken the bait.
The amusing thing was, in the two months following that I played hard to get, he thought of me as some big-game fish – like he was reeling me in.
When actually he was just an insect struggling in my web.
Two years later, as I walked into another charity ball…
…nothing had changed.