“I don’t understand,” Calliope said at last. “How can you love him when you aren’t even yourself with him? I mean, he thinks you actually want to spend your honeymoon volunteering, scooping up woolly mammoth poop!”
“I’ve had plenty of beach vacations in my life. I don’t really need another one,” Elise said, in a way that made it seem as if she truly didn’t mind at all. That must be real love, Calliope thought wonderingly—being able to efface your own desires for the person you care about.
She wondered if she would ever feel that way about anyone. Brice’s face rose stubbornly into her consciousness, but she quickly forced it away.
“It’s really worth it to you?” she asked. “Staying in New York is worth playing this role forever?”
“Nadav is worth it,” Elise corrected. “New York was always your thing. I like it here, but I wouldn’t really care where we were, as long as I was with him.”
It was so outlandish that it had to be true. Wow, Calliope thought again in silent shock. Sweet, fumbling Nadav: so well-meaning but gruff. Who would’ve guessed that Elise would end up falling for him?
“If you really love him, I’m happy for you,” she decided, and was gratified by her mom’s smile.
Then Calliope remembered what Livya had said to her at Saks and again at the wedding. Her heart sank.
She glanced down at her hands, clasped in her lap, her fingernails filed into careful half-moons and utterly devoid of polish—because of course nail polish, even nude colors, wasn’t in character. “I think Livya suspects something.”
“What do you mean?” Elise asked carefully.
“She confronted me while we were dress shopping and at the reception. She suggested that we’re gold diggers, and that we aren’t who we say we are.” Calliope paused to let her well-trained eidetic memory kick in. “She said that most of the women who’ve dated Nadav in the past were just in it for the money, and that one of the reasons he loves you is because of how selfless you claim to be.”
Her mom listened to this with surprising calm. “Any girl would say that about a stranger marrying her wealthy father. It doesn’t sound like Livya really knows anything.”
Calliope winced. “She did catch me sneaking out. Twice.” She refrained from mentioning the fact that it was to see Brice.
“Then you can’t sneak out again,” Elise admonished. “Not with Livya watching us so closely. We can’t afford to do anything suspicious.”
Elise didn’t have to spell it out for Calliope to know what she meant. Nadav’s moral code was severe and uncompromising. If he learned the truth about them—that they were high-class grifters who’d left a string of broken hearts in their wake; that Elise had, in fact, first targeted Nadav for his money—he wouldn’t just send them packing. He might very well send them to jail.
“Promise me you’ll behave. Don’t risk everything just because of some boy,” Elise pleaded.
And even though she’d been telling herself that it meant nothing, that it was just a flirtation, Calliope bristled at her mom’s words. “He isn’t just some boy.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. But no more sneaking out, no more acting sarcastic or opinionated. Just keep your head down and act like the sweet, selfless girl that I told everyone you are,” Elise asked. “It’ll all be over in less than a year when you graduate. Then you can go off and be whoever you want to be. Please, for my sake, promise me.”
Calliope sighed in resignation, watching as her reflection in the mirror did the same. For once, the sight didn’t make her smile. “Why did you tell Nadav that we were philanthropists, again?”
“Because it was so clearly his type,” Elise said softly and sighed. “I’m sorry this is such a mess. To think that of all the people we’ve conned, he is the one I ended up staying with.”
“More like, of all the roles we’ve played, this is the one we ended up stuck with,” Calliope exclaimed. “Why couldn’t you have pitched us as something else? Eccentric heiresses to a shipping fortune, or bohemian artists, or what about French nobility? I loved that time we were comtesses.”
“You were an appalling comtesse,” Elise declared, and they both smiled wistfully at the memory.
“Poor Nadav, in love with a made-up character.”
“Maybe I can change,” Elise said with surprising vigor. “Maybe I can become the person he’s fallen in love with, if I give it enough time.”
Calliope wasn’t sure that was the best foundation for a relationship, but what did she know? She’d never exactly had a real relationship either.
“Besides,” Elise went on, “this way if you go to college next year, you’ll actually have somewhere to come home to.”
“College?” Calliope had never really considered it.
“What else are you going to do, start running cons by yourself?” Elise shook her head. “I don’t want that for you.”
Calliope didn’t want that either. Yet she couldn’t really picture herself in college, at least not in classes. Lounging around a coffee shop and scouting out boys, maybe. Flitting around parties and breaking hearts, definitely. Joining a sorority, rising to the top of its hierarchy, and ruling it with an iron fist, for sure. But actually going to classes and studying to become something? Calliope wouldn’t even know where to start.