See, I wanted to see her, spend time with her.
And not just because the file told me to, because the orders were to get close, because I wanted the recognition when I finally finished the job, wanted that to lead me to a more risky job, the kind I had been itching for.
Nope.
I just wanted to.
Me.
As a person, not an agent, not as someone with a job to do.
It was trouble.
I knew it even as I took her to Mashtots Avenue like she had mentioned, as her eyes lit up, as her smile spread.
I was supposed to call my handler in this kind of situation, tell him, have him call this off, move onto the next, let a different agent take on the case.
But, quite frankly, the idea of someone else taking her to these places, getting graced with her smiles, getting to hear her laugh, and not appreciate it on a human level, yeah, it made my stomach knot, twist painfully.
So I did the unthinkable.
I said nothing.
I compromised the mission because the idea of someone else getting to share her time filled me with jealousy the likes of which I had never known before.
"Oh, wow," her voice rushed out of her, snapping me out of my thoughts, dragging my attention to her standing there, her hand pressed over her heart, eyes wide, lips parted, the breeze kicking her hair back over her shoulders, teasing the edges up behind her.
It was just the fountains.
Sure, they were nice to look at, but they were just a collection of fountains in a square.
But she was looking at them as though they were the Sistine Chapel, like they were the pyramids. Like they were something to wonder at.
But, I figured, as I stood there watching her stand there taking it all in wearing a simple black dress and flats, I was looking at her with the same kind of wonder.
So who the fuck was I to say anything?
"I wish I had a camera," she declared with a sigh. She'd already told me about her dead phone thanks to dropping it in the bath the night before, that she had to wait another day for her uncle to get her a new one. "Then I could sit down right there," she said, pointing to the space between two of the biggest fountains of water. "And make you take my picture like a silly tourist, and post it up like it was some unplanned candid picture."
"Go sit," I told her, reaching into my pocket for my cell, opening the camera.
"I was being silly," she objected, shaking her head.
"Now that you put the image in my head, I want the picture," I told her, waving her off toward the ledge as I got into position.
"Should I look off at the fountains?" she asked as she carefully cocked her legs to the side, making them look longer, placing her arm far behind her to arch her back just right.
"No, you should look right at me and smile," I told her, watching as her gaze fell for a second before lifting. And then shooting a fucking radiant smile in my direction.
I snapped the picture, not knowing it would be the only one of her I would have, that I would find myself sending it to my email each time I had to get a new phone, downloading it, keeping it in my wallet, looking at it every night.
It was a risk to carry anything personal on you. Especially pictures of people you cared about. An untold number of dirtbags in the world would happily use them against you in cruel, sadistic ways.
But I had thought she was dead.
So there had been no risk.
Just daily, painful punishment.
For what I had done to her.
"How did it come out?" she asked as I moved to sit down beside her, tucking my phone into my breast pocket.
"Beautiful," I told her, getting closer than I had let myself be to her yet.
"Let me see it," she demanded.
"Nope. You're going to have to trust me."
"Well, if you're not going to show me, I will have to see for myself," she declared, reaching across me to get the phone.
But my hand moved up, closed around hers. My fingers slid between, pulled downward to rest on my thigh as my other hand raised, brushing some of her hair back behind her shoulder, then planting on the side of her neck, my thumb stroking down the line of her jaw, angling it up slightly when shyness made her try to turn her head down.
This was not cold or calculated.
There was nothing detached about the way I was drinking her all in.
Her cheeks flushed slightly, her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks, her lips parted, her breath got caught in her chest.
There was a similar tightness in mine, anticipation caged there for a long moment before my head tilted down, watching as her lashes fluttered closed, banking those honey brown eyes of hers.