AN: sorry if my updates aren't that fast lately, hope you like this chapter, it's more about their relationship than the case, I hope you don't mind it!
"May I ask you out to dinner?"
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, Miss Lisbon, don't be shy now."
Teresa looked at the man in front of her; he was attractive, tall, dark long hair, a mixed bewitching accent. The first moment she had seen him though, she had immediately had the impression that something was wrong; it was the way he kept looking at her like she was a piece of meat, challenging her eyes with every word of his too prompt replies. This man was a benefactor, a lot of plates and certificates on the wall proved his loyal commitment, but his eyes betrayed him. They seemed clearer than everything that had been hung on that wall. She had tried to dig in his past a little, to learn more about his movements but she hadn't found nothing suspicious, at least for now. He stretched his arm on his desk and took her wrist, tightening it with a strength that wasn't really necessary. She tried to retreat her hand without success.
"I don't get why an attractive woman like you should be surprised by my invitation." He said, not leaving her wrist.
"Do you mind leaving my hand, right now?" She answered him, annoyed, trying to hide that hint of fear she had started to feel.
"Do you have a boring boyfriend who's waiting for you at home?" He kept asking.
She did indeed, but she was trying to ignore the fact that the moment he had asked her out, her mind had been invaded by the image of another man, very different from her actual boyfriend. A man who had been able to read between her external lies, finding her painful truth the second he had met her.
"I have to go." She said, freeing her hand.
"It has been a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lisbon!" He said.
"Likewise, Mr. Volker." She said sarcastically.
When she had left Volker's office that morning, she couldn't imagine that her day would have been even worse hours later; she had thought to have already reached a dramatic point with that brief but intense meeting. She had forgotten though, how she was doing all this secret research and investigation alone, with no one's help and most of all, with no permission. The moment her boss, Minelli, had called her with a disappointed and annoyed voice, that certainly didn't belong to him, she knew she had failed again.
"What are you doing, Teresa?" Minelli asked her, his eyes lucid like it happened sometimes when he was particularly nervous.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Virgil." She replied, sounding like a child caught with her hands in the cookie jar.
"I'm not Virgil now, I'm your Boss." He said severe. Lisbon lowered her face, she felt near to her breaking point, she could still stand another failure, she couldn't stand to hurt the people she cared about, especially when she could count them on the palm of her hand.
"Do you know Thomas Volker, Teresa?"
"Yes, heard about him." She replied.
"Well, I don't know if you know about his position in this country."
"He's a man, Virgil." She said, now annoyed.
"He is one of the most powerful men in the United States. He claims to be a good friend of the governor.. what were you trying to do, Teresa? He's a benefactor, are you insane?"
"I was working on a lead." She replied.
"A lead? I knew it and this takes me to my next question.. are you working on a case, Teresa?"
She didn't reply, choosing silence as her personal weapon. He was the only man who could make her feel that way, like a little child who had just disobeyed to her parents, she liked that feeling sometimes, it had the power to give her that sense of adolescent rebellion that she had never experimented in her tormented one. The problem was, she wasn't a teenager anymore, she was a grown woman with duties and responsibilities and it was too late to play that game.
"You're still working on the Red Bull case, am I right?" She nodded. "We left aside that case for one reason Teresa, we needed to cool down the situation, besides, we hadn't literally nothing, what were you trying to do?"
"I.. I was trying to help." She said weakly.
"You were trying to clean yourself from that sense of guilt that you're still feeling since the death of that girl, I should have known it." He finished, grabbing some documents on his desk.
"What are you doing?" she asked insecure.
"You're suspended for a week, Teresa."
"What? Are you insane?"
"Do you prefer two weeks?" He said, challenging her.
"Please, don't." She said.
"Look, I'm doing this for yourself, you're stressed, you're not thinking clear, you need to rest and relax, ask Marcus to take you somewhere, leave the city, I don't know.. just find the real you again and then come back to work; no more lies, no more secrets. Make me trust you again." He said with a hint of sweetness mixed to pain.
Lisbon took the documents and left the room without saying anything.
Spending the afternoon at home wasn't that bad as she had imagined it, also because she had basically isolated herself from the rest of the world; having a boyfriend related with your Boss though, was a different problem, especially when he had been informed of everything happened in a blink of an eye. She had ignored his first two calls, at the third she had replied. Marcus had invited her at the Spa the day after, she was about to laugh for the absurdity of the situation, also because she hated those kind of things, she hated physical contact made by strangers, those sticky oils on her body that made everything even more nauseating and she hated the idea of walking hand in hand with his boyfriend like she was the happiest woman in the world. She didn't want to see him anyway, she had dismissed his tentative to reach her at home with the lame excuse of a flu that didn't really exist. She felt selfish for the way she was treating him, she needed to leave him, but she didn't find the strength. She was free to do whatever she wanted, she kept repeating to herself, like it was a mantra. She was a free woman and she liked to think she still had this decisional power of her life, she didn't depend on anyone and she strongly believed that she was born to be alone. That was almost a certainty, especially since she had a great man on her side but she kept treating him like he was the worst in the world. When she saw the screen of her phone illuminating again, she was about to throw the object against a window, but something blocked her; it was his name, on that screen, that strangely seemed almost bigger than every previous one.
"Hey." She replied immediately after the second ring, not able to hide her excitement.
"Well, it seems you're happy to hear me, Teresa." Jane said.
"Yes." She said weakly, surprising even herself.
Some seconds of meaningful silence passed between them, then Jane talked again.
"Are you free tomorrow afternoon?" He asked casually.
"I guess I am." She said, thinking about her suspension, she was more than free actually.
"Ok, my place at five." He said.
"Wait, what? Your place? Why should I go to your place?" She replied alarmed.
"Because it's where I take my best pictures."
"Right, that." She said, sounding not really convinced.
"You promised me." He said with a very convincing voice. "I'll send you the address."
"Jane.. I'm not a model, you know it, right?"
"No, you're better. See you tomorrow Teresa." And he ended the conversation.
When she entered in his house the day after, she felt in the right place at the right time. All the thoughts about her job, Volker, the case and Marcus disappeared magically. She didn't know if it was that beautiful window in the middle of the living room with a windowsill even more gorgeous underneath, one of those that made a perfect sitting; she had always wanted one when she was little, to sit and read her favorites novels and isolate herself from the rest of the world. Or maybe the way his hair kept being messed up from the wind, or his smile the moment he had seen her. He seemed different in his house, more genuine and less unattainable somehow. When she sat on that windowsill, he started to take pics, but it wasn't like she had imagined it. They talked for hours about the silliest things, their laughs alternated by his clicks. She had tried to ignore the several times he had pointed up the beauty of a particular freckle, the way she twitched her lips, the incredible green of her eyes or how she needed to show her dimples more.
"Who has those eyes in your family? Your mom, I bet." He asked.
"Mom, yes." She said, turning her eyes toward the window.
"Ok, wrong question, I guess." He said suspicious.
"Don't worry, just.. I don't want to talk about it." She replied, trying to ignore the fact that for the first time she felt an incredible desire to talk about everything.
"You're a secretive person, I got it." He said, not pushing her.
"It's not that.. it's.. ok this could probably seem absurd but it's like I'm kind of jealous of my pain."
"Jealous of your pain?" He repeated.
"Ok I shouldn't have said it." She said immediately.
"Like no one can actually understand it and then why you should talk about it, it would seem just a way to diminish it?" Jane finished.
She turned her head, looking at him, almost speechless. "Yes." She was only able to say back.
"I totally understand it, you know.. especially since I have every minute of my private life flat-spotted on magazines." He said, lowering his photo camera to look at her.
"I feel presumptuous sometimes, thinking like this." She kept saying.
"Maybe you've never found someone who could understand your pain."
"Maybe." She said.
"I lost my wife in a car accident, almost five years ago." He said, out of the blue, putting the photo camera on the side table and reaching her on the windowsill.
"You don't need to tell me this." She said.
"I want to." He said. "I was driving, and my kid, she was two, distracted me, she didn't do anything in particular, I was just lost in her beauty, you know.. I don't really remember the dynamic in the details anyway but well, it happened."
"Charlotte?" She asked, fearing of having crossed a line.
"Charlotte." He smiled at her.
"She's your copy, you know it right?"
"I couldn't even look at her." He said, voice trembling. "I wasn't having a good time the days after the accident and.." He stopped, trying to find the words and he was surprised when he felt her small hand on his. He turned his palm and started to play with her fingers like it was the most natural thing to do.
"I've spent some time in a clinic, the sense of guilt was killing me and Charlotte didn't help, Sam and Pete took care of her and when I came back, I still wasn't ready to take her back in my life, not completely at least.. it has been a process but lately I've spent almost all my free time with her, it's addicting."
"You should tell her." She interrupted him.
"I know, I'm only scared of her reaction." He said.
"She will find out soon or later."
"Yes, especially because she's incredibly smart, like her daddy." He grinned smugly.
She laughed, enjoying his playful presumption; then she left her place and his hand in the process and took his photo camera, smiling at him.
"What are you doing?" He asked, curious.
"Strike a pose, Jane." She replied, laughing.
"No way, sad eyes, nobody can photograph me." He said, covering his face with an hand.
"Oh come on, why not? It's really unfair." She sounded like a little girl and he was enjoying the lightness of the moment.
"Come here." He said, stretching his hand toward her. He took her fingers again and led her in front of that amazing window that had taken her breath away the moment she had entered in his house. He positioned himself behind her and covered with his hands her own, busy with the photo camera. He guided every movement until she was looking in the lens. One of his hand left the camera and found her side, the other moved her hair on a side to have better access of her ear.
"This is called the golden hour Teresa, it's the best time to take pics, it's after sunrise or before sunset during which daylight is redder and softer than when the sun is higher in the sky." He whispered in her ear.
She didn't know if he was using that seductive voice deliberately or if that happened when he talked about photography in general, she just knew that with another word from him, she would have melted on the spot. "Your hands are trembling, Teresa." He said.
"Sorry if I'm not a professional photographer." She replied grumpy.
He chuckled, amused by her childish response. "Let me help you." He said, supporting her hand again.
They took several pics of the beautiful view in front of them; she wondered how many times he had done that and that thought made his attentive commitment even more precious to her eyes, especially when she felt his fingers dancing slowly on the back of her hand click after click. They watched the sunset in silence after that, words were very unnecessary, besides, the furtive looks toward each other followed by those small smiles born by the awkwardness of being discovered spoke more than everything.
"It's getting late, I should probably go." She said eventually.
He was about to find an excuse to make her stay when someone rang at his door. "PADDY, OPEN UP!" They could hear from the closed door. They both laughed for the impatience of the voice.
"I had totally forgotten about the pizza night." He explained to her, opening the door.
"Here you are, goldilocks." He said, greeting Charlotte and waving to Sam who was waiting in her car. "Thanks Sam, I'll take her home tomorrow after school."
"Hi Teresa." Charlotte said.
"Hey Charlotte, do you remember me?" Lisbon asked surprised.
"Yes, you're Paddy's girlfriend." She said, bringing a basket full of dolls in the living room. "Do you want to play with me?" Lisbon was still processing the fact that neither her or Jane had corrected Charlotte in her affirmation.
"Charlotte, leave Teresa in peace, I'm sure she has better programs for the evening." He said, eyeing her.
"Won't you stay with us to eat pizza? Please." Charlotte said with puppy eyes.
Jane amused looked at Lisbon, waiting for her answer.
"Pizza seems a great idea." She said at the end. An happy Charlotte made her choose a doll from the basket while Jane watched the scene from the couch. Lisbon and Charlotte started to play sitting on the carpet and he couldn't contain his smile anymore, especially when the kid rebuked Lisbon for a wrong matched dress. Lisbon apologized to her and looked up at him, amused.
"Thank you." He mouthed to her.
She smiled at him and kept dressing her doll.
I hope you're still interested in this story, let me know if you liked the chapter, thank you!