Now….
"No," Nicky says.
Bourne can't mask his surprise. Nicky drops her head, her smile bitter. He wouldn't know of course, and can't remember that Nicky used to routinely defy him. She always challenged him, never made it easy for him. It was partly a characteristic of her personality, and partially because she liked keeping him off kilter. Bourne was so rigid, so precise, so intense that she wasn't above throwing him a stick of dynamite from time to time to shake him up, force him to be present.
In this present, he knows none of that. He frowns.
"Call him," he repeats firmly.
She looks up again, meeting his eyes in the mirror. "No."
Then….
"This?"
"No." A smile and she flits away.
An exasperated sigh from him. He moves to another row of flowers, pointing at a gathering of breathtaking burnt orange and brown roses. "This?"
"Nope," she trills, trying to contain her laughter.
"These," he says, pointing to several other floral arrangements.
"Non, nyet, neh, nein, nej," she warbles negatively in several languages he knows.
He looks out of place, standing among an explosion of colors and scents, his masculinity even more emphatic in the center of all that beauty.
Paris' famed flower market is located on Place Louis Lépine, flanked by Notre-Dame Cathedral and Sainte-Chapelle chapel. The open air pavilion is bursting with a dizzying array of fresh cut blooms, majestic purples aligned with blood red and sunset oranges. Yellows, blues and pristine whites. Every color imaginable, flowering plants of every kind are available.
The swarm of bodies can be oppressive as tourists and locals alike push at one another to pick up blooms for their table or to pose for pictures. The only problem with visiting the market on Saturday, apart from the crowds, is that they don't have birds available. The bird sellers come on Sundays, when the florists take the day off. That's usually when Nicky goes to the market – to buy several cages of birds along with her favorite flowers; the flowers she keeps, and the birds she releases over the Pont au Double.
It's a little bit of rebellion, a symbolic reclamation. Or some such drivel.
"I'm not giving up," Bourne declares.
Nicky rearranges her long scarf, twirling into an infinity loop. In her skinny jeans, navy lace shirt and ballet flats, she's more Parisienne than American.
"I'm not waiting on you," she warns, taking a few steps away from him.
"Nicky." He drawls her name slowly, making that word as intimate as a caress. "I wouldn't get too far from me."
She snorts derisively. That has hardly been an issue. In the office, out of the office. There's no respite from him.
It's been five weeks since that encounter at Mariages Frères. After a tremulous moment following his declaration, she'd pulled her hand away, retreated into herself, too overwhelmed to allow him pursuit. He'd accepted her quiet withdrawal, and they'd had tea together silently. The lack of words, however, did not suggest a lack of a conversation; they would look at one another in between bites, they would touch every now and then, fingers brushing against hands, wrists, lingeringly, longingly. He shared his lunch platter; she gave him half her macaron. She sampled his tea, wrinkled her nose; he tried hers, eyebrows rising approvingly. They exited the building together, backs of hands brushing against each other, fingers nearly clasping; but upon walking out that door, they separated, she toward her flat, he in the opposite direction.
In the office, they alter neither behavior nor conversation: all is as before his declaration. They do not casually cross each other's paths; they do seek each other out. But out of the office, all bets are off.
On weekends, she does not keep to a schedule; but somehow, Bourne always managed to appear where she went. She called him out on the stalking after the first few times it happened. He stopped showing up unannounced. Instead, there appeared the following weekend a note tucked into her mail slot. She read the bold, precise print:
The Sun Also Rises. I'll be at the bar.
Whenever.
She was tempted. So drawn. Still, she resisted, forcing herself away from Montparnasse, where he was waiting at Closerie des Lilas' famous American piano bar. It was there that Hemingway wrote most of "The Sun Also Rises" and drank with James Joyce. She ran her errands, enjoyed a lovely lunch at her favorite bistro in the Marais; she assiduously avoided the left bank. The day passed and moved on to dinner, and then night fell in the city. She was heading home when she found herself in the mood for a walk; and somehow she found herself down Boulevard Saint-Michel near midnight, telling herself firmly that she was just going to pass by, that it was a lovely night for a long walk. But she couldn't suppress the tightness in her chest, the fluttering in her stomach.
Maybe she'd have a late, light snack, she thought. Alone. Her absence could only have sent a very clear message. He would not be there.
Boulevard Saint-Michel became Avenue de l'Observatoire and then she veered right onto Rue Notre Dame des Champs. The venerable Closérie des Lilas loomed ahead, the conservatory full of diners among the leafy plants. The brasserie looked equally as crowded. Finger food would suffice, she decided, heading toward the piano bar.
The room was dominated by leather and dark woods, plush booths, and a dark mahogany long bar with brass accents. The ever present pianist was playing. A wall of liquor was ready to pour any drink, no matter how esoteric or mundane. At the far end of the bar sat a quiet figure, reading a book, a tumbler of amber liquid by his side. She stopped, gobsmacked.
He was still here.
As if preternaturally aware of her entrance, he looked up, the blue in his eyes warm, welcoming. He had been here all day, all night, but there was no reproach, no irritation in those eyes. She approached slowly, lips slightly parted to allow for her suddenly quick breath.
He was still here.
"I said, 'Whenever,'" he noted with a smile, gesturing at the empty seat next to him.
"I didn't think you'd still be here," she confessed, sliding onto the barstool.
"But you hoped I would be," he said confidently. She bristled, ready to argue. He forestalled with a gentle smile. "Why else are you this far away from home at midnight?"
"Because it's Paris," she snapped, determined to hold onto her pride. She fiddled with a spot on the bar.
"I'm not giving up," he advised her, his voice as warm as the richness of the wood beneath her fingers.
That was three weekends ago. Since then, he leaves notes for her, telling her where he'll be on Saturday or Sunday. There is never a demand that she come. Despite her best efforts to resist, she has yet to miss a rendezvous. During their assignation last Sunday after lunch in the Quartier Asiatique, they went for a walk, stopping on the Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir. The pedestrian bridge overlooks the Seine and links the 12th and 13th arondissements in Paris. It was on the bridge that Bourne leaned in to kiss her; but she backed away, too rattled to allow him that liberty. He did not take offense, merely smiled, acquiescing to her refusal.
She's thought about the near-kiss for the last six days. Apparently he has too; because when they met this morning, he announced that he intended to kiss her before they parted.
That's why he's now standing amidst a riot of blossoms. This is his penance (for his presumption) and his trial (to earn the right to kiss her).
They'd met at the Louvre. She ordered him on a march to the Flower Market in the quatrième.
Find her favorite flower. If he did, the kiss was his.
"I'm not giving up," Bourne says again wading through a sea of blue and violet and orange and white.
He is a damn good looking man and if he were anyone other than who he is, and if she were anyone other than who she is, there would be little to mull over whether or not to kiss him. But it's complicated. For all his playfulness, that cheery patience whenever she shows up much later than she intends or wants to, because she doesn't want to seem so eager for his company, for all that openness and laughter and easy conversation about books and movies and music…she has no idea who he is. He's a complete blank. He's extremely versed in a wide range of topics – a necessity in their world; but she doesn't actually know how he feels about anything. And then there's the fact that he's essentially a very dangerous man. She has no illusions about what he is. What she is.
She was in a meeting not too long ago with Conklin and a Colonel Byers, debriefing an assignment that had inadvertently endangered a platoon of his men. After the ass chewing he'd dished out, he'd calmed down and uttered, "What you do is morally reprehensible but absolutely necessary. You are sin eaters. But cross that line again and I'll shut you the fuck down."
It was the first time since she'd come to Treadstone that she absolutely understood the justification for her role, the cost of what she did.
"Nicky, give your brain a rest," Bourne calls out. She's startled. Is he reading her mind? He quirks a brow. "Just…be here."
She wrenches herself from all the what ifs and whys, tries to return to this moment and enjoy the spectacle of him walking down a row of nasturtium and violets before he finally, unerringly, goes straight for a vase of cut daisies. She catches her breath.
He speaks to the florist, hands her a franc, and plucks one delicate stem out of the vase. He walks to Nicky, white daisy in hand. There's a look on his face…she considers it. Not triumph. It's certainty.
He knew. He knew all along.
"Fair maid," he says, bowing with a flourish, presenting her with the white petalled beauty. He's so close to her, crowding in; she wants to take a step back. She doesn't. She holds her ground.
"You knew."
He inclines his head, then points at her neck. Her hand flies up to touch the daisy charm necklace. "You're kind of an open book, Nicky…"
That's not true.
"…If someone knows what language you're written in."
And he does.
He waits patiently, flower still in hand.
It's on the tip of her tongue to say, "No." To lie. To refute his claim.
What a scene they make, she thinks. Young man offering a daisy to a pretty girl. Paris bustling all behind them. They're a snapshot away from becoming a postcard image.
She hates that her hand is shaking slightly when she reaches for the bloom. Hates that he can see her response. He is so cool, so measured. Why the fuck is he always so calm? It comes again, that thought that she doesn't know who he is, doesn't know how he feels about anything.
"I don't know who you are," she murmurs. His gaze is steady, focused solely on her.
Before she can take the flower, his reaches with his other hand to grab her wrist gently. His expression does not change; he is aloof, collected. She's confused as he pulls her hand toward him. He places her palm squarely over his heart, his hand holding hers in place.
In direct contrast to his placid demeanor, his heart is thundering. There is no pretense here. She gasps softly, looks up, startled.
"My name is David Webb," he says very softly, very solemnly.
Nicky tugs at her hand. He doesn't let go. So she reaches with her other hand, plucks the flower from his grasp.
"Hello, David."
"Hello, Nicky."
She tucks the flower in her hair, then moves in closer to him, lifting her hand to his cheek. When she pulls the hand over his racing heartbeat, he lets go this time; she cups the other side of his face and pulls him toward her. His hands drop gently to her waist, and when Nicky leans forward, lifting slightly on her toes, his head bends down toward her.
And when their noses brush, just before their lips touch, Nicky whispers, "Yes."
Now….
Bourne gets up from the bed, his stance aggressive.
Nicky doesn't flinch from the hostility. She steps away from her bureau, ignoring him as she walks to the small armoire which functions as her closet, pulling her damp tank up and over her head. She's not wearing a bra. He makes a surprised noise.
Fuck it, it's not like he hasn't seen it before.
Well technically he can't remember that he has.
"Get the fuck out, Bourne," she tells him wearily, pulling on a fresh tee shirt. "I'm not calling them, I'm not helping them, I'm not getting involved. You're the one who told me it gets better. I'm waiting for that to happen and I'm not becoming another casualty in your amnesiac cluster fuck. So leave. Go back to ghosting me, or better yet, leave me the hell alone."
When she turns, it's to find him directly in front of her, that big body crowding into her. Bourne's face is impassive, those blue eyes angry.
"No," he grits out.