Killian wasn't surprised to find a familiar face sitting on the terrace of the café the next morning, sipping what looked to be fresh coffee between bites of an omelet. He hesitated for a moment, looking between the seat that he'd come to think of as his own and the empty one at her table, as he attempted to pluck up the courage to make his way over to her.

"Are you planning to stand there all day?" a voice called out, shattering through his inner panic. "Only, I've heard they stop serving breakfast at one."

"I um… I –"

"– Was trying to work up the courage to ask if you could join me?" she asked, fixing him with a hard stare.

Killian flinched a little under it, completely unnerved by the way she'd read him so accurately with only two brief meetings under their belt.

"For God's sake, sit down. You're starting to make me feel uncomfortable," she ordered, kicking out the seat opposite her own.

Killian didn't need telling twice. He made his way over to the chair, stopping briefly to ask their usual server for a large glass of orange juice as he did. However, once he was sitting opposite her, things suddenly felt painfully awkward again.

"Are you this bad at conversation with everyone or is it just me?" she teased, picking up the last of her toast to munch on it all the way up to the crust before she dropped it back down to her plate.

"You're a little intimidating," he threw back. "I mean… you just invited a complete stranger to sit with you at breakfast. Doesn't that worry you at all?"

"No, not particularly."

She took another small sip from her coffee cup and carefully set it back down before she raised her eyes to meet his. Until that moment, Killian had forgotten just how captivating they could be. The different shades of green and gold there seemed to shift as he watched, perfectly reflecting the emotions that played out across her face.

"I figured if you wanted to hurt me you'd probably have done it the night we spent hours alone out here together."

"So you uh… you noticed me?" he asked, because, for some reason, that was the part of her statement his brain had chosen to fixate upon.

The woman sitting opposite him snorted in a very un-ladylike fashion, and then reached up to twirl the end of her braid between her fingers. "I noticed you," she said, sitting back in her seat to watch him as she did. "I think most of the people in this village have noticed you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he worried.

She simply chuckled in response and Killian felt his shoulders relax a little. Hopefully, that meant nobody in the village had worked out who he was.

"Lighten up, pretty boy. It was a compliment."

Killian flushed a little under her praise. He was grateful that the server arrived at that moment with his freshly squeezed orange juice and a breakfast menu, as it gave him the perfect excuse to avoid thinking up some kind of response for her words.

When he'd placed his order and the server had retreated, taking his companion's mostly-empty breakfast plate with him, and promising her a fresh cup of coffee on his return, Killian found himself once again on the receiving end of her piercing stare.

"So, are you going to tell me your name now?" he asked, hoping to distract her a little.

"Maybe. I haven't decided if I like you enough for that yet."

Killian raised a brow at her in question and she shrugged in reply.

"You interrupted me while I was reading. That's not something I can easily forgive."

"What if I buy you breakfast?" he asked. "Will that make us even?"

"We'll see," she threw back at him, her face giving nothing away.

Their conversation was momentarily halted when their server returned with Killian's food and another cup of coffee for the woman sitting opposite him. Killian reached for the bottle of ketchup in the middle of the table, but before he could begin applying a liberal amount of it to his food, he was distracted by the conversation taking place beside him – in fluent French.

The English woman and their server bantered back and forth for a moment, talking about things Killian simply couldn't understand. His companion must have said something funny, however, as their server gave a short bark of laughter before he turned on his heels to head back inside.

"You do know it's rude to stare, right?" she asked, once they were alone again.

"Sorry," Killian croaked out, finally pulling himself together. He wasn't entirely sure how much time had passed while he'd been lost in daydreams of her speaking to him in those soft, lyrical tones. All he knew was that the woman sitting opposite him was clearly full of surprises - and he'd barely scratched the surface.

"You know French?" he asked.

The look on her face was all the answer he needed.

"Of course you do. You just spoke fluent French to our server," he mumbled to himself, before shoveling a forkful of food into his mouth to stop himself from saying anything else that could be deemed stupid. When he'd finally finished chewing and swallowing, he raised his head to ask, "Do you live in the village?"

"If I won't tell you my name, do you really think I'm gonna answer that question?" she snorted out.

"Right. No. Of course not," he mumbled, and then dove back into his food.

Things felt awkward now, and Killian wasn't entirely sure how to break that tension, so once again, he ended up blurting out the first thing that came to mind. "My name's Killian. Killian Jones."

"Killian?" she asked, sitting forward a little in her seat. "Killian's not a very American name, is it?"

"And how would you know that?"

"It's of Irish origin," she threw back at him. "You know, like the Irish actor – Cillian Murphy. And If I'm not mistaken, Jones is of Welsh origin. How did you end up with such a European name, Killian Jones?"

Killian had never really given his name much thought before. He knew it hadn't exactly been common while he'd been growing up, but he'd never really considered the origins of it until that moment.

"My mom, I guess. She's uh… she's a little quirky. I don't know why she picked Killian but I'm guessing she liked how original it was."

"She sounds like a wonderful person," the young woman offered, and if he wasn't mistaken, there was something a little wistful behind the look in her eyes.

"She is."

For a moment, another silence settled between the two of them and Killian used it to tuck into his meal, which was rapidly cooling down in the early September morning. As he ate, he continued flicking glances at the woman sitting opposite him, who appeared to be lost in thought. By the time he'd finished his breakfast, she still hadn't said anything else, and she looked incredibly distracted. Killian had just opened his mouth to ask if she was okay when she finally spoke up again.

"Emma."

"Huh?"

"My name," she explained slowly, lifting her head to meet his eyes. "My name's Emma."

"Emma," he repeated, just to test it out on his tongue. It suited her, he decided, even though he knew very little about her. "So, uh… what's the origin of your name? Why did your parents pick Emma?"

"They didn't."

"Huh?"

"My parents didn't pick the name Emma," she explained, offering him a small smile.

Although he hadn't known her for long, Killian could tell how fake it was. He could see something close to pain shimmering away in the golden flecks of her eyes.

"I picked it," she continued, as she briefly dropped her eyes down to her lap.

"Why did you pick the name Emma?" he asked, instead of voicing the much more obvious question now lingering between the two of them.

The smile she gave him this time was more genuine, even if it was tinged with embarrassment. "Baby Spice was my favorite Spice Girl," she told him, and Killian couldn't hold back his sharp bark of laughter.

He wasn't entirely sure if she was being serious or not, but he had interviewed enough people in his lifetime to know when a subject was verging on becoming painful, and this did not feel like the right time to open up an old, festering wound for her. Instead, he shrugged aside the many questions building in his mind and decided to ask her something else.

"So, Emma, is this your first time in Peillon?"

"Yes," she told him, nodding her head for effect. "Yours?"

"Yeah, actually," he declared. "I've um… I've spent a lot of time in France but I've never visited this village before. It's nice. Picturesque and inspiring."

"Yes, it is," she agreed, casting a glance over the edge of the balcony to stare at the scenery behind it.

"What were you working on yesterday?" he asked, when she said nothing else. Killian knew he was pushing his luck a little, given how reluctant she had been to initially open up to him, but now that she was talking, he didn't want her to stop.

Unfortunately, his plan didn't work. Emma simply giggled as she shifted in her seat to make herself a little more comfortable.

"Nice try, but you've gotta at least buy a girl a few drinks before you attempt to get all of that information out of her."

Killian chuckled as he looked down at his almost empty glass of orange juice. He wasn't much of a drinker; he'd never really seen the point in it before. But the urge to offer to take her out for a drink was pretty strong. There was, however, one thing that was holding him back from making that offer.

"Are you um… can you drink?" he asked, cringing a little at how the words came out.

He knew that she was younger than he was, but at forty-one years of age, most of the unattached women he met tended to be younger than he was, and Killian was not exactly skilled at working out just how much younger they happened to be.

"Are you asking if I'm old enough to legally drink or if I can hold my drink – because the answer to both of those questions is yes," she deadpanned, "Probably more so than you can."

Killian chuckled once more as he filed away that small piece of information about her. While she might not have told him her exact age, at least he knew a little more about her now than he had when he'd woken up that morning.

"Well then, would you um… would you maybe like to get a drink with me tonight?" he asked.

Emma sat for a moment, watching him carefully before she finally offered her answer. "I'm sorry, I can't tonight. I have a deadline I need to meet. But… I was planning to go for a hike tomorrow. You could always join me for it? I'm told it's better to take someone with you for those sorts of things, just in case you trip and need some help."

Killian was pretty sure he'd already hiked every trail in and around the village he could find, but he still found himself nodding his head enthusiastically at her offer. He didn't much care how he spent his day. Suddenly, all he wanted was the opportunity to spend more time with Emma; all he desired was the chance to get to know her a little better.

"Sure. I uh… I can meet you here tomorrow. What sort of time were you thinking?"

"How does eight sound?" she asked, fixing him with another piercing stare. "I have some stuff I wanna do in the evening so I was planning to get an early start on the day."

Killian swallowed down the sigh that was building inside of him and once again nodded his head. He wasn't a morning person – everyone who knew him could attest to that – but he knew that for Emma, he would drag his ass out of bed whenever she asked him to, just as long as it made her smile at him the way she currently was.

"Excellent news," she declared, jumping to her feet and stretching out her arms above her head. As she did, the white jacket she was wearing rode up her body slightly, and Killian thought he'd caught a glimpse of something black above the waistband of her jeans, and something else glittering close to her belly button. Before he could get a second look at either one, she'd dropped her arms back down to her sides and both were gone.

Instead, he had to content himself with watching as she reached out to grab her bag from the seat beside her, which had a familiar-looking notepad emerging from the top of it. Emma took a second just to stuff it back inside and then looped the strap over her head to rest the bag comfortably across her body.

"Thanks for breakfast, Killian," she said, before she pulled her earbuds out of her pocket and slipped them into place, then flounced her way off the balcony.

She was already out of sight when her words finally made an impact, which also happened to be the exact moment their server reappeared with both of their checks in hand.

"Do you take credit cards?" Killian asked, already fishing his Amex out of his wallet.

The server nodded his head and then hurried off to fetch the card reader for him.

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