Hope rolled her eyes as her cell phone started to ring and she recognized the number. "I'm still waiting for my flight back to the States. I left you ten minutes ago."

Tyler laughed on the other end. "I know. I just wanted to make sure you enjoyed our trip."

"You know that there's probably one of our agencies tracing this call right now."

"No. I made sure it wouldn't be that easy."

"Planning on calling me often?"

"Now that you've finally given me your number, hell yeah. I'm a guy who needs constant validation. And speaking of, you haven't said if you enjoyed your trip."

"You just took me for a picnic on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower. It was cheesy but much appreciated. And one hell of a fourth date."

"I really wish that you and I could just go to the deli down the street from my apartment in L.A. It would be a whole lot easier and a hell of a lot more meaningful."

"I told you that would be more trouble than either one of us want to get into."

"That's debatable. You're starting to teach me to like trouble."

She ignored his playful attempt to keep their conversation light. "Tyler. We've been over this every single time I agree to see you."

"I know. You cannot let this get too serious. You cannot let me get too close to your dangerous life. You cannot let yourself have a little bit of fun for just one second of one day."

"Screw you," she hissed, snapping her phone shut. She only had to wait two seconds for it to start ringing again. She didn't give him the opportunity to yell at her for being so temperamental. "Listen up. You don't know me or the way my life is. I have things in my future that I constantly have to deal with. I just can't throw caution to the wind and do what I want. There are consequences."

"You speak as though the whole world revolves around you." She could hear him biting back him temper. It was that kind of intelligence that kept making her say yes to his advances.

"Sometimes it does," she said with a laugh.

"I have things in my future that aren't so pleasant."

"But you won't tell me what they are," she pointed out. "You and I can't let the other get that close. It's dangerous. For you and for me and for everyone we loved." She breathed in deep and let it out slowly. "Now. I think that's enough of the arguing. Can we go back to discussing how you can't even wait an hour after saying goodbye to me to call my phone?"

"Pathetic, I know. But I have never met a girl like you before, Ana. You understand the parts of my life that I really can't even tell you about."

"It's the spy dynamic, sweetie. If you ever dated any other girl who was an agent, you would see it's the same."

"No, I don't think so. I think this has something to do with the girl I'm dating being you."

"Maybe you're just sex starved," she purred.

"You might be right. My girlfriend hasn't even kissed me yet."

"Girlfriend?" she spit out through her shock. She had never really been referred to as that before. Not once in her life. It was scary and exciting at the same time. She found that very interesting.

"Don't try to change the subject. You haven't let me kiss you."

"Not for your lack of trying," she said with a laugh.

"Why haven't you?"

"Because the thought of you repulses me," she deadpanned.

"Ha ha. Very funny."

There was a few beats of silence between them before she got the courage to answer him truthfully. "Because you were right, Tyler. I can't let you get close to me. It's only going to end badly."

"You've already played our relationship out in your head?"

"And it ends badly. People in my life have a habit of dying."

"That's because you live in a spy world."

"How many of the people you love have died?" When he didn't answer, she went on, "How many people in your life have had to live through the trauma of being shot at?"

"Quite a few, actually. Spy family, remember?"

"How about traumatic kidnapping? I bet you haven't had one of those."

"I do have one of those," he said simply. "I was kidnapped by my father's best friend when I was little. You probably weren't even born yet."

"Stop talking like you're that much older than me." The teasing came out before she could even stop herself. She knew that she should be focusing on the fact that he had actually trusted her enough to tell something about his life that was so personal. It was little things like that which were chipping away at the armor she had erected over the past few years. Which was obviously why her sarcastic teasing defense mechanism was kicking in.

"Five years is a lot."

"All right. Then end this. If you feel like a cradle robber, then let's stop before this gets ugly."

"It's phrases like that which make me think you're only keeping me at a distance for your own sake and not because you're afraid my knowing you will kill me."

She was thrown off by his rather dead-on insight. "I want to let you close regardless of whether you want to risk this or not, Ty. I really do. But I just can't."

"I see." She could hear his frustration even through the phone lines.

"I want to kiss you more than anything. Hell, it's all I can do to keep control of myself when I'm around you. But it's for the best."

"So you're in control when I'm not around? You don't ever think about me when I'm not with you?"

"Stop digging for compliments. You know that I think about you when I'm not supposed to be just like I know you think about me. I let myself lose control sometimes when you're not around."

"When it's safe, you mean."

"Yeah. It's easy to imagine what could be when it's not right in front of me." Hope shook her head. She had no idea why she was telling him all this. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was miles away from her and couldn't actually tempt her into doing anything she might regret.

"So how much control do you have over your libido right now, seeing as how I haven't been around for about 72 minutes now?" he asked.

The sexy, gravely tone of his voice was definitely making her nerves stand on end. And she was pretty sure that was the desired effect he was shooting for. "Not a hell of a lot."

"Good."

Her ear rang with a beep as she stared down at the phone. He had hung up on her. Just like that, he had hung up on her. He had warmed her up and then left her high and dry.

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Before she could figure out even one possible answer to that question, someone grabbed her arm and spun her around. Later she would swear that she knew it was him which was why she didn't take him out. It wasn't because she was too distracted by his words on the phone to think of what the proper reaction would be to such an invasion of physical space.

And it definitely wasn't because his lips were on hers before she had time to even register what was happening. She could feel him smiling at her even though he was already occupied in showing her what a fool she had been to not want this to happen. And so she let herself go for a fleeting moment.

She felt a small nibble on her bottom lip, and she realized that somehow he was hitting all the right spots that would make her want to permanently forget that they were on opposite sides of the law. How did he know her so well after only four dates?

She really should have done this sooner. If she had known it was going to be this good, she probably would have. To hell with common sense and doing what's right.

Eventually, though, her sensibilities did come back at least partially, and she pulled away. Shaking her head, she felt her hand came up to touch her lips without even realizing why she was doing it. "Tyler Vaughn. You know we're in a public place. Our bosses could be watching."

"I don't care. I've wanted to do that since the first moment I saw you."

Her eyes went wide as he gave her that sexy grin and started to inch his mouth down to the curve of her neck. She bit back a moan, instead choosing to whisper. "You and I are in so much trouble."

"I know," he whispered before pulling her into another kiss.

Trouble didn't seem that bad of a thing anymore.

Ten minutes later, Hope waited patiently to make sure Tyler had completely left in order to finish up the mission the CIA had given him in Paris. She still thought it funny that he had taken time off from work just to go on a date with her, an enemy agent. Granted this was purely a stakeout kind of operation for him. But still, he obviously wasn't staking out if he was eating lunch with her.

He had begged her repeatedly to put off her flight back to L.A. and stay with him in Paris for the rest of his mission.

She had told him no, no matter how much she really, really, really wanted to stay. Because she would have given anything and everything to stay.

But in actuality, she was giving him anything and everything by not staying with him.

By leaving right now.

Sighing, she went up to the ticket counter. "Hi. I have a ticket here for L.A. that I need to return."

"Okay. Would you like to exchange it for another, ma'am?" the young attendant asked.

"No. I already have a ticket for Berlin." Smiling, she watched the young man process the return of her ticket home and hoped this would all be worth it.