• Banner made by the lovely @Sweetishlove - thank you, love. Music by Stanaj - Romantic •

Okay, so when Vince said he was taking me out, this hadn't exactly been the vision in my head.

We had driven through valleys and on the side of some mountain where rows of green grapevines and cornfields pretty much owned the slopes of the steep terrain. The sunset over lake Garda had been ōrgasmic to watch, even if just from a car window. I had imagined Vince taking me some place incredible like in all the sappy movies, and while my usual sarcastic body dejected the whole premise of corny love, I had to admit it would've been nice.

But no. Instead Vince chose to reenact what I could only assume in his head was some cheesy, human version of Lady and The Tramp – actually set in Italy this time, instead of some back alley.

I looked around in the cozy, old fashioned-Italian restaurant where Vince shockingly and despite my countless protests had parked his Lexus at, wherein couples were dining and families were lively chatting away. Kids were running around the red-and-white-checkered tables because they couldn't sit still, while their parents enjoyed a few moments of romantic hand-holding by the little yellow candlelight that oh-so-clichéingly had been placed by a jar filled with breadsticks. Waiters were trotting around with platters of admittedly delicious smelling food and bottles of wines I couldn't pronounce, and smiled with their Italian charm to warm their customers up.

– All the while a tone-deaf man and his band played some Italian opera in the corner, bellowing through the restaurant that was placed on the mountainside in the middle of nowhere.

I just couldn't cope with the stereotype explosion that was happening in this little restaurant. Right from the green ivy crawling up the wooden pillars, to the kitchen-mama who greeted all the customers at the door, to the stray cat that smoothed in between the tables to catch leftovers that had fallen of the plates.

And here we were; Two wanted government agents with licenses to kill, smack-dab right in the middle of it all with kids playing around us.

If Vince found it uncomfortable, he didn't show any signs of it. I, on the other hand, kept squirming in my seat and had trouble focusing on reading my menu – but that was partially because I couldn't read Italian and there were no English translations. This was a truly thoroughbred Italian restaurant.

"Vince, what are we doing here?" I finally decided to say to break the eerie silence between us that only seemed to get amplified by the noise around us. We were the only couple there that weren't twining fingers or even looked at each other.

Vince had his face in his menu card and unlike me seemed to be reading it with great interest and actual capability. Had we been in Romania, things would've been the other way around.

"We are here to eat," He responded with a small crease between his brows as he focused on his menu. "Pick something."

"We have food at your place," I stated and sat up a little straighter in my chair. "Why did we have to go here? And don't tell me it's because of Fiorelli the Fantastic over there belting out."

Vince's lips twitched in slight amusement, but then he focused back on his menu. "We're just here to get something to eat, dolcezza. You don't have to overthink everything. Relax and taste what Italia has to offer."

I had already tasted more than enough of what they had to offer, and yes, that was a euphemism. As Vince's eyes flickered up again, I noticed them glint with that dirty look I recognized as lust and the 'I-can-guess-what-you're-thinking' undertone. I pursed my lips at him and turned my attention back into my menu, simply so I wouldn't have to look at the smug look on his face. "You know that's not what I mean."

"I do, but I'm choosing to ignore it."

"You shouldn't. We're both wanted, Vince," I now said and changed into a serious tone as I looked up at him again. "Do you really think we should be sitting here, dining amongst kids, when our heads are wanted with a platinum bullet in them? I know you don't give a crap about people getting killed, but I'd at least thought you cared about helpless children."

Vince finally closed his menu, then folded his hands on top of it and looked at me. "You really have a way of making me seem like a bad guy. First I was a rapist, now I'm a sociopath." When I flattened my lips, he squared his jaw. "Do you think I would've brought you here if I wasn't confident it was safe? Do you think I would risk innocent civilian families of my own country—or any country for that matter—if I wasn't absolutely one hundred percent certain we could do this?"

"So if you do care, then why do you pretend you don't?"

"Staying emotionless is a part of our job when we are actually on the job," He said and cocked a brow at me. "You seem to have trouble leaving behind your cold façade when you're off the clock, dolcezza."

"We're not off the clock, are you forgetting?"

"Right now we are," He picked up his menu once more. "There's not much we can do until the kid returns with a strategy. And besides..." He opened his menu and calmly began reading it again. "Everyone's got to eat."

Releasing a long, heavy sigh, I looked down at my own menu as well, admitting defeat. "Fine. Whatever you say, Spaghetti."

His lips twitched, but his eyes stayed on his menu. Meanwhile, I began reading my own while absentmindedly thinking about everything.

I desperately wanted to get back to work, yet at the same time it was nice to relax for once. Only I couldn't. As long as I was around Vince, I had a constant knot in my shoulders. I felt tense, unable to ease up and enjoy myself. The nervous jitters down my back reminded me why. Just in case I had forgotten.

I quickly distracted myself by focusing on the menu. "What the hell is all this goo? I can't read any of it—oh, look, you're not welcome here; its says antipasto. Sorry, Spaghetti."

Vince chuckled a little. "Pasta and spaghetti are two different things, and there's no pasta in antipasto. But you already knew that."

I did know that. I just wanted to annoy him like he was annoying me. "What's carpackio?"

"Carpaccio," Vince repeated with the proper enunciation, his lips twitching at my attempt of irritating him. It was ricocheting right off him. "You'll like that."

"I'm not asking if I'll like it, I'm asking what it is."

Just then, a waiter passed us by and Vince raised his hand. When the waiter stopped up, Vince spoke a string of Italian words and closed his menu, all the while the waiter nodded and wrote down his order. The waiter then smiled and gave a polite bow before he took both our menus, me reluctantly letting go of mine.

"Excuse me, I wasn't finished with that!" I shouted after him when he left. "What the hell—oh, don't tell me you just fucking ordered for me, Vince. I swear to God, I'll rip your meatballs off."

"I ordered for you," Vince affirmed and made me clench my fist. "And you can have a go at my balls when we get home again. Until then, act civilized. For the kids, dolcezza."

I ground my teeth when he smirked. I wanted to pull my gun at him so badly, but now I realized why he chose a family restaurant; He knew I'd have to be on my best behavior if he misbehaved.

"Asshole," I muttered under my breath.

"Coglione," Vince corrected me. "You're in Italy now, tesoro, if you're going to insult me, do it properly."

"Oh, yeah? How does one say, 'go fuck yourself?'"

"Fottiti. Want me to repeat that slower?"

I just glared at his cocky smirk. "Coglione."

His lips split in a sexy grin. "Very good. You learn fast."

I sighed. This was even more painful than taking a bullet through a kevlar vest. My body rejected the way he made me feel, like a virus trying to infect my system. The wrenching anxiety in my stomach was what caused me to utter the next words with determination.

"I want to make something clear here, Vince," I said and caught his attention, "this, whatever there is or isn't between us, it's not going to work out. I'm just going to do me and you can do you. That's it."

He was quiet for a long moment after that out-of-the-blue comment. I was on the verge of thinking he had gone completely mute when he suddenly sat up and folded his hands on the table. "How come you're so guarded, Rya? The minute I'm close to getting you to open up, you cower away and close up your shell."

Now I was the stunned one. This wasn't what I had expected him to answer. He had never sounded so serious in all the time I had known him. It automatically made my defenses go up.

"So?" I curtly replied. "That only means you can't take a hint."

"I've been trying to get you to let me in for weeks, not just in between your legs, but into you," He continued, unfazed by my input. He leaned back in his chair and watched me with hard eyes. "But you shut me out, Rya, and I'd like a better reason than my passport being Italian. After everything, you owe me that much."

Instantly, my tone chilled. "I owe you goddamn shit. I've been telling you all along this would never work, it's not my fault you keep on trying."

"Bullshit, it's more than that," He snapped and leaned in over the table towards me. "You're afraid. Your closest friend is a goldfish, and the last time I tried being there for you, it ended with you calling me a rapist. So you tell me, Rya; why, are, you, scared?"

I didn't realize I had stopped breathing before my head started to ache. Just before the dizziness took a hold of me, I sucked in a breath and clenched my hands in my lap.

I wasn't ready yet. The explosion inside my stomach and the chemistry setting off all kinds of alarms inside my head told me right now was a no-go; I wasn't coming clean.

"I'm not scared," I therefore replied, pressing my lips tightly together. I didn't care how pathetic my lie was, I wasn't letting him rip me open in public and cause me to have breakdown. "There's nothing the world can do to me that I haven't already tried, so just back the fuck off, you invasive prick," I stood up angrily, pushed my chair out and grabbed my clutch. "Drive me back to the house. Now, please."

He clenched his jaw for a moment, but then slowly stood up as well and laid a few bills on the table before he straightened out and looked at me. "All I wanted was to talk to you tonight. I had hoped you would give me that much. Apparently that was asking too much."

"We're not here to be friends," I said and fought back the turmoil of both anger and pain tumbling about inside my body. "If I wanted to talk, I would've bought a goddamn parrot, not a fish."

And with that, I turned on my foot and walked for the car.

I couldn't do this. He had gotten too close now, this was what I feared would happen. I was strong and independent alone, but all my tocsins triggered when someone came too close to me and started wanting to be let in, just like Vince. So I cut them off, I pushed them away, but Vince had pushed himself back inside. Almost literally. He had seen through me and realized my whole strong, careless façade was just a cover.

God, what a cliché I was.

~~~

Back at the house, the swimming pool became my refuge. I swam laps after laps until the night settled around me and the water grew cold. Still, I kept swimming. Cardio was good for the body, ergo good for the soul, and the silence below the surface of the water gave me the peace I needed. Peace from all the chaos in my life.

I was on my umpteenth lap when I surfaced to see Vince standing at the foot of the pool. He was holding a phone and a towel.

"The kid texted," He curtly said. "Video conference in kitchen in fifteen minutes."

"Okay," I replied. With that, I arose from the pool and accepted the towel Vince handed me. He then turned on his foot and left me there to dry by myself. I didn't blame him. I told myself it was for the better.

When I was somewhat dry, I patted into the kitchen where I found Vince waiting with a tablet set up on the kitchen island. He was tapping around with it and didn't even look over his shoulder as I came in. Again, I didn't mind.

"Is he calling us from a secured line?" I asked him as neutrally as possible. Hopefully, we could keep things professional now that I had shut him out.

"It's Caleb," He tonelessly replied. "I'm assuming not even your president has a more secured line."

I nodded once, but he didn't see. Luckily, he didn't have to, because now the tablet showed a big question mark with Caleb's head as the dot. Vince tapped it.

"Hello, minions!" Caleb's picture appeared on the screen, the resolution somewhat good. You could still see the grin on his lips. He was in some tech room, it appeared, probably still at AISE's headquarters. "How've you been holding up? Should I ask Zoe to mark up some wedding invitations samples?"

"Tells us what you've discovered." Vince cut through. His voice was unhumored and slightly angry. Of course I knew why, but Caleb was joyously oblivious. His grin faded a little and was replaced with a small frown.

"Someone's got a case of the blue balls. A'right. Straight to business then. Rya, I'm afraid you're not going to like hearing this."

Instantly, I stepped closer and leaned in towards the screen. "What have you found?"

"Woah, control the nip slip!" He instantly said and covered his eyes. "Why are you in a bra? Did I interrupt you guys again? Is that why he's pissed?"

Signing and rolling my eyes, I quickly wrapped the towel around my body and secured it so my breasts were hidden. "It's a bikini and no. Just get to the damn point. What have you uncovered?"

"Besides your boobies?" He commented. He then dared to peep out through his fingers and then nodded when he was satisfied I was decent. "Well... okay, so you guys remember how I wasn't able to hack into the supercomputer, so I had to have Vince steal me the files to get direct access?"

"Vaguely," I sarcastically muttered. I glanced sideways to Vince. A muscle in his jaw twitched as well. We were both thinking back to that kiss we shared. The chemistry. The thrill. The one I was killing now.

"Okay, well, somebody had to have filed them there," Caleb told. "But the supercomputer is specifically programmed to encrypt that person's name for discretionary reasons. You know, so in case that any information is stolen, the person who worked on the case doesn't get targeted."

"How convenient. So what you're saying is that you tried finding the person who put the C.E.N.T.U.R.I.E.S file in the supercomputer?" I voiced. "Can you even do that?"

"Bitch, please," Caleb scoffed and smirked. "I'm the LeBron of computers—no I'm the Beyoncé of all things tech. I do impossible every day and look sexy as fuck while doing it."

"Focus, kid," Vince cut in again. He looked impatient. It made Caleb sigh heavily again.

"You guys are fucking boring."

"So did you manage to get the person's name?" I asked. I was impatient too, especially since he said he wouldn't like what he had found.

Caleb ran a hand through his hair and looked down. "Yeah... I did. And it's someone from the CIA. Someone who you've worked closely with, Rya."

Monroe. I fucking knew it. "I am going to kill Monroe. I knew when he chose to monitor me in my apartment, he was—"

"Not Monroe," Caleb interrupted and looked up at me with sympathetic eyes. "Howard."

The time stopped. For a whole of ten seconds, I stood still and watched the screen where Caleb uncomfortably squirmed in his seat. And then it finally hit me.

Howard. My boss. The guy I had trusted more than anyone through it all. A guy who I had always been confident had more honesty in his pinky finger than the entire CIA had all together. He somehow knew about the C.E.N.T.U.R.I.E.S experiments. Now all the questions rang in my head; Why? And how involved had he been? Did he know that what Vince had stolen was the file on the C.E.N.T.U.R.I.E.S experiments?

The last one I had to assume no. If he did, he could've warned the people who were affiliated and maybe made sure to harm the subjects in danger, in exchange for the information back. Or something like that. My head was hurting trying to contain everything.

"Rya," Caleb said when I turned away from the tablet and leaned up against the kitchen island instead. "It might not be as it seems. We should interrogate him before we jump to conclusions."

"And what conclusions should those be?" I dryly voiced. "That my boss is in tow with a group of people who experiment on kids?"

"We don't know that yet," He argued. "For all we know, he just knows that it exists and filed it in the supercomputer."

"If that was the case, why is he trying to hide it away?" I almost growled. "Howard wouldn't do that. He has kids himself for Christ's sake. He would never sweep something like this under the rug. He just wouldn't."

"Rya—"

"No," I said. Mostly because I refused to believe that the one person—the one human person—I truly trusted had betrayed me in a way. I knew the CIA worked on some sketchy cases, but this. They were kids for the love of God.

Everything was falling apart. I was an enemy of my country. I had slept with my enemy. My tech guy was someone I never knew and now as it turned out, so was my boss.

There really was a good reason as to why I only trusted Bob.

... Although even he had shortly been in tow with Vince.

– There was nobody I could truly trust anymore.

"So what is the plan now?" Vince decided to ask when all I did was cup my face and hide away everything I was feeling.

"Well," Caleb said. "The most logical thing would be to question Howard and hear what he knows about the new program C.E.N.T.U.R.I.E.S is starting up. If he doesn't know anything, we can assume he's only a small pawn. If he does know something, however..."

"We'll get it out of him," Vince replied. I had a feeling he was sending me a glance, but I couldn't get myself to look up from my hands. Sometimes, I wished I could just disappear from the world for a few hours and come back when I could deal with it again.

"Alright," Caleb then said and took a deep breath. "Can't get you on a plane before the day after tomorrow, though. It's for safety precautions. So, uh... you're stuck here for another day or so. I'll text you the details when I know more. For now, we just focus on getting you back into America under the radar."

Vince gave a hard nod, then straightened out. "We'll stand by until then."

"Great," Caleb tapped on his keyboard and then sent us something. "If you need to contact me in case of an emergency, use that number. It's safe. I'll talk to you soon! Cheer up, Rya. Don't lose hope yet."

I didn't respond. I kept my head down and then vaguely heard how Vince said Ciao to Caleb before ending the call. The glow from the tablet disappeared and I heard the screen lock. And now I felt Vince turn and look at me. I didn't face him.

"Rya."

"Don't." I said and shook my head a little, still covering my face. "I can't deal with any of it. This case is compromising me. I should've pulled out of it a long time ago. The minute you..."

"Kissed you?" Vince finished. I felt him take a step closer. "So why didn't you?"

"Because," I said and now finally pulled my head out my hands and turned to look at him. Exactly like I had suspected, he looked at me with a hard face. "Back then, I thought I could still fight it. Fight you – all of it."

"Why do you fight me?" Vince pressed on and stepped even closer, now standing uncomfortably close to me. I was already leaning up against the kitchen island, so I couldn't pull back. "I was your enemy then, I get that, but now... why do you still fight me?"

"Because... b-because—"

"Because what?" He snapped, a little, angry expression forming on his face. "Because I used the word love?"

I cringed. Was there a phobia for love? If so, I had it. It was a toxic word that fermented the room in a fragrance I didn't like. I was allergic, it itched on my body and made my eyes sting. My tongue tasted sour. Why did he have to use that word?

"It's not just that," I said and now looked directly up at him. "It's you. Everything you do. Everything you say. It... infuriates me."

"It makes you feel something," Vince corrected me and leaned closer down to me. I instantly recoiled and pushed him back.

"What is it that you don't understand?!" I shouted at him. "I'm not looking for a man, I don't want love! I prefer being alone, I live with a fish, not a dog, that should give you an idea of what I mean! I don't even want a dog that needs a walk twice a day, a walk that could potentially lead to conversation with other dog walkers! I want to be alone, Vince, so stop goddamn trying!"

Vince finally stepped back and instead squared his jaw. His eyes turned from flat to cold. "Fine; I'm done. I'll stop trying to find a goddamn way into your heart. I see now it was a waste of my time." He took another step back and unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt. "I'll take the bed tonight since I'm certain that'll be too much for you to sleep in. Goodnight."

With that, I watched as he left while my heart pounded in my chest. His broad shoulders turned the corner to the living room and left me standing in silence and heartache. Actual heartache. The kind they talked about in books and acted out in movies, the kind that felt like you had cement in your chest instead of an actual heart.

I kept telling myself this was for the best, but even the non-logical part of my brain had begun to detect the lie of that. I knew it was fear and anxiety talking out my mouth, and that deep inside, there was a better part of me that longed to try again.

But then the heartache came back and reminded me of why I didn't.

Vince didn't know of my past and I wasn't sure I wanted him to. Just thinking about him made my heart clench in even more pain.

I was the epitome of pathetic; The girl who couldn't get over the one who died on her.

"Didn't Vince say he owned gin?" I asked Marley, his cat, as he smoothed easily into the kitchen and across the floor to his food bowl. Just like him, I decided it was time for dinner.

Even though mine would be liquid tonight.

• • •

The fear of love is called Philophobia. It's a real thing.