Hope shut her umbrella and handed it to the maitre d' almost automatically. She suddenly realized she was standing in the doorway of the best restaurant this side of Italy going on her first date in over a year. She found herself wondering what she had gotten herself into. She could see Tyler sitting at a table, looking impatient and nervous at the same time. He obviously hadn't expected her to show up.
That was pretty smart considering ten minutes earlier she hadn't even been sure herself.
Hell. She still wasn't sure.
Almost on cue, he looked up and saw her. "Ana!"
She gave a small smile and ignored the small voice in the back of her head pointing out how hard it would be to start having feelings for a man who doesn't even known her real name. "You look nervous."
"I wasn't sure you were actually going to show up. And then when I had convinced myself that you would, I was sure that you were going to be showing up just to take me hostage or something."
"You never know where the night will lead us," she said with a wink.
He stood up and pulled her chair out for her. When she had sat down, he leaned over and whispered in her ear, "By the way, you look beautiful."
"You would have liked it better if I had worn one of my little mini-dresses I save for missions, though. Admit it."
He shook his head. "Not every guy loves a scantily-clad woman."
"You prefer…"
"My women with clothes on their body."
She nodded as the waiter came over and put an end to their opening banter. Tyler began to order drinks for them in Italian, and even though she knew he was probably required to speak multiple languages by the CIA, she had to admit he was impressed.
"You sound like a native," she whispered as soon as the waiter was out of earshot.
"My family always stopped over in Rome when we made the trip to see my mother's family in England."
"Family in England? That must be nice. I always wanted to live in England when I was little."
"And where did you live?"
"Here and there. Everywhere actually." She let out a laugh as she remembered how much she had hated to move. "As my mother would say, there were extenuating circumstances."
She saw Tyler flinch at her casual mention of her mother. It didn't make sense. He worked for the CIA. Sydney Bristow was a legend and a hero around those parts. He should be gushing about the fact that he was on a date with the prodigal daughter of such a woman.
Maybe it was her father that made him so concerned. She frowned slightly at the idea of having to defend her father. Anyone that knew him knew that he was a good man. She had gotten tired of defending him to all those who didn't know.
"Ana." Tyler's voice cut into her thoughts.
"I'm sorry. What did you say?"
"I was telling you about the little town outside London that my mother grew up in. I thought you would find it interesting."
"I would." She smiled. "I do. I'm sorry."
"No problem."
The conversation lapsed into an only partially uncomfortable silence as the waiter brought over a bottle of wine. Hope noticed that it was definitely a rather expensive vintage. She had gotten her love of wine from her father. That love would probably grow in a year or two when she could actually legally drink. But that wasn't something she was about to mention to the man sitting across from her.
"I have a question," Hope said after the waiter had left. "If your mother's family was in England, why did you always make a pit stop in Italy? It seems like it would be out of the way."
He smiled at her. "I didn't always live in the States. I spent most of my life living in Fiji."
"Fiji? Like the island?"
"Yes. The beautiful tropical paradise."
She shook her head and grinned. "There's so much I don't know about you, Tyler Vaughn."
"Is that necessarily a bad thing?"
"In our line of work, yes. We shouldn't even be out in public with one another unless we knew that it wouldn't hurt us somewhere in the end."
"Considering we're both aware that we're on opposite sides, I think we already know that this is going to hurt somewhere down the line."
"You don't mind?" she asked.
"Do you?"
Hope simply leaned back in her chair and stared at him. Again, the waiter came over to interrupt them for getting into the areas of their lives that were probably better left alone. They both knew that what they were doing was not the smartest thing. But it seemed like it was hard to remember most of the time.
"So how'd you get away from work?" Tyler asked.
"You know evil agencies. They're not really that strict." She smirked. "I actually called in sick."
"You can do that?"
"Yeah. Turns out I have a really good vacation package. Plus they're lost without me. Have to keep the talent happy."
He chuckled. "I cannot believe we're actually talking about this."
"Why not? My life is an open book. To an extent, that is. I don't want have to get into any of those grey areas and then have to kill you. I just had this dress dry cleaned."
"I'm glad you did."
He reached out and grasped her hand across the table. For a second, she let him. She let herself forget who she was and all the baggage being Hope Lazarey brought to her life. She forgot that he was CIA and she was… not. She forgot that she still didn't know him. That she should be wary of him. That she shouldn't be so dangerously comfortable around him.
But then the warnings her father and mother had given her all her life sounded in her head and she remembered the danger she was putting Tyler Vaughn in just by talking to him. Ignoring his hurt look at her sudden decision to pull away, she asked him, "What are we playing at? This can't be happening. It's not safe for either one of us. No matter how much we ignore it, we can never really let each other know who we are. And neither one of us is stupid enough to give up our lives to let this continue. So we might as well just save ourselves the trouble and pain."
Before he had a chance to respond, she gave him a small smile, stood up, and began to make her way to the door.
"Crap," he muttered as he stood up to race after her. He knew this was going to be hard, but really, he had thought the hard part would be getting her to show up in Rome. He hadn't known it would be this hard to get her to stay with him.
He caught her right as she was about to step outside into the pouring rain. Grasping her arm, he spun her back to face him. "Don't I have a say in this?"
"No." She glanced down at where he held her arm and then shot him a glare. "If you don't let me go, I'm going to show you what a big mistake bruising me can be."
The thought that he might be actually hurting her made him let go immediately and take a step back.
"Thank you. Now if you'll excuse me."
"You're not excused," he said, slipping around her and blocking her getaway route. "I don't want you to leave until you tell me why you're so scared."
"I'm not scared," she growled, crossing her arms in front of her. "I'm pissed off and annoyed."
"Oh, I agree. You are definitely pissed off and annoyed right now. But you're also scared of something. I want to know what."
"I'm scared that you have a team of CIA agents outside waiting for the signal to swoop in and destroy my life."
"That's bullshit." He was happy to see her mouth drop open in surprise at both his words and his harsh tone. "You're trying to say what you think I want to hear. But that isn't it. I just want the truth. Can you tell me the truth?"
She bit her lip and looked up at the ceiling, trying her best not to start crying. No one had seen through the walls she had put up over the past few years. No one had ever been able to pick up on the fact that she was hiding so many things let alone that it was tearing her up inside.
No one but this CIA agent.
"I'm scared that you're going to realize the mistake you're making and that you're going to walk out of this. I'm scared that when you figure out the kind of work I really do, things that I'm not proud of, you're not going to stick around to let me explain." She rubbed the tears away as quick as they could fall. "But mostly I'm scared that if I actually start to let you in, you'll go running from me screaming when you figure out how truly screwed up I am."
He shook his head and walked over to pull her into his arms. "I'm not going anywhere, Ana. You don't have to worry. Our situation might not be the most ideal, but it's what we've both chosen. We both showed up on this date, knowing that there really isn't any logical reason why. It's our problem, and we can bear the burden of it together."
After Hope had calmed down a little, Tyler led her over to the bar. He ordered two glasses of bourbon. "I think we need to move to the hard stuff if we're going to get through tonight."
She laughed. "I think you're right."
He held his glass up to hers in a toast. "Is there anything else you want to tell me about before we go back to our table?"
"Yes. I'm also scared that my mother is going to find out what I really do for a living. She doesn't know that I'm a spy."
"Actually she does. I talked to her at work the other day. She knows what you've been up to."
"You sound as if she was happy with it."
"She is. She told me so herself."
Hope shook her head. There was no way her mother was cool with her being a spy, especially for a shady organization like the New Directorate. It made no sense. "I don't care what you say. I want you to promise me that you won't talk about me to her. You can't mention what I do or that you're even seeing me at all."
He held up his hand. "I promise. I won't say a word to your mother about you. What she doesn't know won't hurt her."
"Good." Hope held her hand up and ordered another round. "Is there anything you want to tell me in return for all my confessions? Any deep dark secrets you're dying to tell someone?"
He shook his head. "My life is pretty tame. You could find out pretty much of all of it if you just did a little research."
"I hate research. Tell me something that will save me some time. Make it interesting."
Tyler thought for a moment before turning to her. "I grew up with your cousin."
"I didn't know I had a cousin," Hope said.
"I doubt she knew that she had one, either. She lived a rather sheltered life because of who her mother was."
Hope's mind flashed to the little memory she had of her Aunt Nadia. If Nadia had actually had a child, then she probably would be overprotective and keep her locked away from the world. Of course, she would be molding her into some super evil spy. But she would also be sheltering her from the rest of the world.
"So you two grew up in Fiji together? I didn't even know my aunt was living there. I thought she was--" Hope caught herself before she could say in prison. "--somewhere else."
"I told you before. I didn't live in Fiji all my life. I moved around a lot."
"I can see that. My aunt has a lot of people who want to take her into their custody."
"That's what you get when you're as good of a spy as she is."
Hope nodded. She still vividly remembered the day she had come home to find her mother missing from their home. Her screams echoed through her ears, and she felt herself shiver.
"Why don't we drop this topic and move back to the table? I think our food should be just about ready."
She nodded and went to stand up. Her eyes caught on an elderly man standing at the end of the bar. Something was odd about him. She had noticed it before, but right now, it seemed extremely important that she understand what it was.
"Tyler. Does that man look…" Her heart stopped. "You bastard," she whispered.
"What?" he said, looking at her confused.
She reached down under the hem of her dress until her fingers felt the class of the gun holster she had attached to her thigh earlier. "I believed you when you fed me all that crap about us taking this risk together."
"I was telling you the truth." Tyler still had no idea what was going on.
"Then why is there a CIA agent sitting at the end of the bar?" She pulled the gun behind her back discretely. "I couldn't place him at first. But then I remembered the last time I was in Colombia. There was a CIA agent who kept trying to catch me in the act of the current job I had."
Tyler looked down at the man at the end of the bar. He did bear a slight resemblance to Agent Brooks, but it definitely wasn't him.
He didn't have time to dispute her claim, though. The old man noticed them both staring, pulled out a gun, and began firing. It was all Tyler could do to push Hope behind the bar where they could have at least some shielding.
Gunfire erupted from where the man had stood and a few places around the restaurant.
"Why are they shooting at you, too?" she yelled over the noise of the gunshots.
"Because they're not CIA." He pulled a gun out of his shoulder holster. "Are they yours?"
"I don't work with anyone but myself. Things are easier that way." She paused to pop up from behind the bar and let off a few rounds. Sitting back down, she turned to him. "So if they're not mine and they're not yours, then who the hell are they?"
"I don't know," Tyler screamed. "But I don't want to stick around to find out."
She pointed to the door leading down into what she guessed was the wine cellar. Nodding, he followed her across the floor and through the little opening. They ran in silence through the massive racks of wine and liquor for a few minutes until they came upon a door.
Hope kicked it open and rolled her eyes at the down pouring rain. She looked back at the man standing behind her. "You sure know how to take a girl on a first date."
"Contrary to popular belief, not all of my dates are this eventful." He flinched as gunfire continued sound in the restaurant above them. "My father is going to kill me for getting his favorite restaurant shot up."
For a second, she contemplated pointing out the sheer strangeness of the fact that both of their parents considered this restaurant their favorite. She squashed that little impulse fast. It seemed that every time she tried to talk about her family, Tyler got all uptight and upset. She didn't want to go through that again right now.
Tyler grabbed her hand in his and gave it a small kiss. "Hang on."
The next thing she knew she was dodging raindrops through the streets of Rome with a CIA agent who seemed to know a little too much about her family for her own good.
And strangely enough, she was the happiest she had been in years.