I worried that after Alistair's confession he would curl up into himself and become very defensive and hostile towards me as I knew that is exactly what I would do. But, after a day of isolation and tormenting himself, he reverted back to his normal demeanor. His time of solitude in the village allowed him to gather so groceries so he was entirely prepared for an adventure the next morning, the past drifting further away by the second.

But I wasn't quite so ready to let things rest just yet.

I woke up before him and carefully prepared a simple breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast for him and myself. I hoped that it would serve as a peace offering and the warm, dark tea would help the words go a little easier.

"Always the early riser." Alistair said with a soft laugh, rubbing his eyes as he entered the kitchen.

I tried not to notice how handsome he looked in just a teeshirt and jeans with the edge of his tattoo peeking out under the fabric, but it was difficult. I just gave him a nervous smile and sat down at the dining table.

We sat in silence for a while; the only sound was utensils on the plates. I was trying to get up the courage to say the words I needed to. They seemed simple enough in my head, and they certainly needed to be out in the air. However, my tongue wouldn't move properly. No matter how much I wanted to say it the words wouldn't come out of my mouth.

"Something is on your mind, what is it?" Alistair asked gently.

His ability to read me was almost as good as Sophie's and his words broke the spell that my mind was under.

"I'm sorry that I kissed you." I announced. "It wasn't fair of me to do that, I was running off emotion and not logical thinking, but it's no excuse. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

Alistair watched me as I spoke and when I was done my horrendous rant he leaned back in his chair slowly. His arms were folded over his chest and his expression was unreadable. I was thankful that I had been able to get the words out, but now I had wished I simply let it rest.

"I kissed you too." He pointed out after a moment, "And I don't want you in a position that makes you think that you are like Malia. That was Jasper's mistake, not mine. Sure, it crossed my mind when I first met you, but you have shown me time and time again that you not only don't have the personality to do something so malicious you also aren't in a situation where you can flip this against me. You're a victim, you can't sick Josh on me without harming yourself in the process. It's a very different situation. The only real problem I see is the fact that it's heavily frowned upon to do this kind of thing in my work."

With that he stood up and walked to the sink with his dishes.

I was left with my mouth hanging open in shock. Did that mean that the kiss had been okay? Or even that he wanted more? But hadn't he told me that he essentially would've wanted me if I hadn't come with all my baggage? Did that mean that with it he didn't find me as appealing?

"Come on, I want to show you around one of my favorite cities." He hinted when I still hadn't moved.

I was still a little bitter about riding the trains again and I certainly hadn't missed the snow as much as I had originally assumed, but the city of Kosice was certainly worth it.

It was substantially quieter than Paris which made it much more magical. The cobblestone streets, the gothic street lights, the pops of modern art. It was stunning place to be and so much less of a whirlwind to enjoy. I felt like I had room to breathe again and time to appreciate the glory that was all around me instead of dodging tourists. And Alistair let me. He loomed behind me, his hands clasped behind his back as he took in the architecture, but he kept his distance and allowed me to take as much time as I needed. The easiness that rested in his eyes told me that this was his home more than Pairs had been.

But, even though this wasn't Paris, my transportation was limited just as much. Alistair made sure that I got in more than my allotted steps when he made me trek across the city to a magnificent cathedral. With that gentle hand resting in the small of my back he guided me into the cathedral and those lips were close to my ear once more, whispering all kinds of facts to me under his breath.

"Can you believe it took over a hundred years to complete?" he murmured.

"Absolutely." I whispered softly.

The impressively high ceilings and intricate stained glass was certainly something that couldn't appear overnight, or even through half a century. Notre Dame had been huge and wildly eye catching with its daunting structure. But this was softer, gentler, more delicate and more refined. It held its own beauty in a completely different way. This cathedral was simple, bright with natural little and held deep warmth instead of dark intensity.

I felt like I could've stayed there forever, but Alistair had other plans.

He decided to lift his ban on transportation so we could pop into the local zoo. It wasn't particularly thrilling or ground breaking, but it was still very pleasant. And I was kind of a child at heart. I loved peering through glass to try and spot animals that were napping just out or sight or trying to identify fish I had never seen before.

With the day half over I was sure that we were heading home for a quiet evening, but that was not on Alistair's agenda.

"Come on." he whispered, taking my hand tenderly, "There's a great place we can hit for supper, it won't be too busy yet."

I was dragged across the city once more, but now I couldn't stop talking about the amazing cathedral and the little funky fish that had caught my eye in the tank. Alistair didn't stop smiling.

We had an early supper in a tiny restaurant with low lighting and the best wine I had ever had.

"So why is this your favorite city?" I asked as I swirled the wine in my glass before taking a deep sip.

"It's not very well known so it's very quiet, but it's very beautiful and it's close to everything. Poland is not that far, I spent a lot of time in Prague when I had the chance and that's just a day on the train away. Plus, it was one of the only places my parents let Jasper and me run away to without them. Government agents hiding out in a villa in Paris is nothing if not cliché in my world. This was always a safe place for us." He assessed me with a lazy grin, "What about you, what's your favorite city?"

"I fell in love with a place called Drumheller in Alberta." I answered, "It's got amazing landscape, so unlike anywhere else I've ever seen."

"And plenty of dinosaur fossils." Alistair added, "You can pretend to be into nature, I know you're just an oversized kid."

"Shut up." I said with a laugh. "I used to be a tremendously successful business woman; you can't go around making me sound like a child who is obsessed with anything colourful or things that glitter."

"Well you did dye your hair purple..."

I gave Alistair a mock glare, but otherwise didn't respond as the waiter served us.

I had allowed Alistair to order for me when he asked. I often hated it when other people ordered for me. I guess when someone controls your life so harshly you hate anyone controlling anything at all. But he was sweet enough to ask and I wasn't brave enough to pretend like I knew the language.

And I was so thankful that I had given him the reins. When my meal first came I stared at it blankly. It looked like something that I didn't want to put into my mouth and it didn't smell much better. But I watched the way that Alistair tore into his dish and decided to try a piece of the giant, pancake look alike that occupied my plate.

"My god, what is this?"

"Deep fired cheese." Alistair replied with a knowing smile.

I wanted to have a conversation, we had a beautiful day and I loved discussing it, but the food was so damn good I couldn't be bothered with filling the air with words. Alistair gave out a soft laugh when he saw how much of my food I had eaten in such a small period of time. With on smooth motion he pushed his plate towards me and retracted my own so we could split our meals.

The second dish was compiled of dumplings, some kind of cheesy sauce, bacon and potatoes. It sounded weird to me when Alistair explained it, but somehow, it tasted so good. And it paired beautifully with my sweet wine and even better with traditional beer. At the end of our dinner Alistair asked the waiter for a growler of the beer and two bottles of the wine after I gushed about how much I liked them.

We made it back home after a quiet train ride that was filled with hidden sips of wine. Alistair and I passed the bottle back and forth over the half hour and somehow didn't get caught. We laughed like drunken high school students every time an attendant passed. The majority of the tension behind us now and I was thankful for it. When we reached the house he didn't even bother to go to his bedroom or take off his jacket just yet. Before I could even think to say no Alistair opened the bottle of wine and gestured for me to sit with him in the living room in the two club chairs.

"You don't fit the beer drinking stereotype." I said with a laugh when he poured himself a glass of beer.

"No?"

"Absolutely not. No backwards baseball cap, no beer belly, no lifted truck. You seem more like the kind of guy who would sip scotch on the rocks and talk about golf and charity balls."

"How do you know I don't secretly have a lifted truck?" Alistair taunted.

"I don't think anyone with the name Alistair Kingsley would be able to drive anything other than a sports coupe or a luxury SUV."

"Well, I can't actively argue against that." Alistair admitted, "But your collection of cars was something I didn't peg as standard for a single woman."

"My dad was a car fanatic. He started his life as a heavy duty mechanic and through various turns ended up where he is today. But he was always a car guy at heart. And being his only child meant that I turned into a bit of a car person myself."

"And that's how you got into pigging."

I took a hefty drink before replying.

"A little bit. The oil industry is hated very much as a whole and people who hate things like to make it public. That means that there was a surplus of information online and in books. So I slipped into one of most hated industries. At first, I just did what I could to make money. Then I started being environmentally conscious. Massive companies will do anything to help their credibility in terms of the environment and I essentially had a monopoly on the market in that sense so I could price things as I saw fit. Making a nice profit, having happy employees and making a difference, even if it's a small one, turned out very well for me."

"So you came to Canada, researched something, and made a huge company out of. That's pretty wild, Camila."

"Not as impressive as what you do. You're only twenty three."

My eyes drifted over his muscular arms as he tugged off his jacket, but I snapped my attention back up to his face.

"I was groomed for this job my whole life."

"Do you ever wish you hadn't been?" I breathed.

"Sometimes." Alistair confessed, staring intently at his beer instead of making eye contact. "I think having friends that I've known forever and dating a typical girl in high school would've been nice. But I really would've liked being able to come home from school and not have to wonder if my parents were ever going to come back to me. And I really wish that I never had to deal with thinking that my own brother was dead. Sometimes I think it was unfair that my parents even had children, you know? It's rare that people in my kind of business even get married. It's bad enough worrying about yourself when you go on assignments. Then you have to worry about someone else and how they would take your death should anything happen to you. But at least they both had a conscious choice in it. I was just born and shoved into this life without any regard for what I wanted or what I could handle emotionally as I grew up." His green eyes were suddenly incredibly wounded and a rawness I had never seen seeped through. His gaze flickered up from his beer for a split second, "Sorry, it's not your problem." He muttered.

And just like that I could see the hardened layers rebuilding.

"Hey." I breathed. Wine in hand, I slipped off my arm chair and sat on the velvet ottoman in front of Alistair. I laid a compassionate hand on his knee, "I understand what you went through. And you're right, it's not fair. My parents used me as some kind of pawn when I was young. I wasn't smart enough to understand it, but it was happening. I did some of their dirty work and no one suspected me because I was young and good parents would never do that to their children. I mean, in a materialistic sense my parents were the best they could be. I had the best clothes, an amazing house, and a very expensive car. It was all I cared about when I was young. Then they pushed me towards Josh and I just... did what they said because I was too dumb to think that they would hurt me for their own gain."

"Josh was not your fault." Alistair's finger curled under my chin and carefully lifted my head so he could look at me. "You were eighteen when your parents pushed the engagement on you. When the whole country pushed the engagement on you. I know that both Josh and your parents did this because you were still young and impressionable. They thought if they went after you while you were young enough you would be manipulated in staying with him forever so they could have a better image and have no problems getting their blood money."

I flinched at his comment. I knew deep in my heart that my parents hadn't gotten their money from their work alone, but I had always wanted to believe it anyway. Having Alistair call them out so blatantly made me feel like a bad daughter. I didn't have a strong enough stomach to continue in their business but I was still too much of a coward to fully accept what my parents were. I was fluctuating in the middle and doing nothing about their awful ways.

"Camila, none of this is your fault." Alistair insisted.

"I thought I could make myself love him. And I thought that he would want to love me. That's all I ever wanted, Alistair. I just wanted to be loved by someone who didn't care about my money or the power I brought them. I just wanted someone who would go to Drumheller with me because they liked dinosaurs or someone who thought a lazy Sunday with pizza and boxes wine was the best date in the world." I blubbered drunkenly, feeling tears roll down my cheeks.

"Someone will." Alistair soothed.

His large hands rubbed my arms and that only made me cry harder.

"You don't know that." I denied.

"Yes, I do Camila." He whispered.

The hands that were so tenderly trying to calm me down drifted upward to my face. One hand cupped my tear covered cheek and the other attentively brushed away some stray hairs. The sweetness of his gesture surprised me and I peered up at him through my eyelashes just as he was leaning forward. I could see a flash of uncertainty then he shut his eyes.

My eyes closed just as our lips met.