“So you want me to learn how to charmyou? How scandalous. Julian made it sound like you didn’t have much experience.”
Zafir rolled his eyes up to the heavens as if he were praying for patience. “Men are far from complicated. What works on one man will most likely work on any man. I’m just teaching you general principles.”
“Carry on then. What am I supposed to do?”
“You…” Zafir looked me up and down and swallowed. “You need to show an interest in what he does for work.”
“As far as I know, Julian doesn’t work.”
“Show an interest in what he does for pleasure, then.”
“I did! You saw me at the bazaar last night. I was hanging on his every word, but he didn’t even kiss me.”
A vein throbbed in Zafir’s temple. “Of course he didn’t. You were both just pretending to be enamored with each other to irritate me.”
“Did it work?”
Zafir ran his hand through his hair. “This isn’t about me. It’s about Julian. No man would drop tens of thousands of dinars on a woman he barely knows to take heracross the world. You need to make him obsessed with you.”
I threw up my hands. “Then this won’t work. He just isn’t interested enough in me. Maybe we need a new plan. Stealing things is more my style, anyway.”
“I’m sure this may come as a shock to you, but I don’t know an absurd number of fabulously wealthy men who are also easy to manipulate. Julian’s our best chance.”
I crossed my arms and paced across the room. “I don’t want to fail. What if we…” My eyes fell onto the recipe book of all the different potions. “What if we make a love potion? That’s within my skillset.”
“No potion can replicate or simulate genuine love. At best, I could attempt an infatuation elixir, but I’ve never done so before.”
“Infatuation is good enough for me. As long as I can keep his attention long enough to get him to fund the trip, I don’t care if it’s genuine love or not.” I began flipping pages in the book. “What does it require?”
Zafir snapped the book closed and I only just got my fingers out in time. “I’m not going to drug a Parliament member’s son with an untested potion just because you’re terrible at flirting.”
I frowned. “You’re literally trying to teach me how to seduce and manipulate said employer’s son. How is using a potion any different? This’ll just speed up the process.”
“It’s still illegal, and I won’t administer an untested potion to an unsuspecting man. I’d lose my position, and I won’t risk my career for you or anyone else.” He shoved the book back onto a shelf, high enough so I wouldn’t be able to reach it without a stool.
I watched him return to the potion he’d been experimenting with.
“Zafir?” I asked sweetly.
“What?”
“Part of your work involves research, doesn’t it?”
He scribbled a few words into his notes. “Yes, it does.”
“What if you made an infatuation elixir as anexperimentto conduct some research? Then you could take notes and you won’t have to administer anything to anyone.”
He turned a baleful eye onto me. “What, and turn a blind eye to you stealing it soyoucan drug him? Where did you hide the other potions you took from me?”
I raised one shoulder. “In the highly unlikely situation that a potion was stolen from you, you’d still be innocent.”
He pursed his lips. “But it would still be untested and I won’t do that. I don’t know the side effects. It could be harmful.”
Zafir and his rules would be the death of me. “But youcouldmake it, couldn’t you?”
“I could, but every potion needs to be tested.”
“Then I’ll try it. I volunteer. Give it to me right before I see Julian and I’ll drink it.”
