Chapter 12 #2
The dossier photo had been her CIA badge picture.
Flat lighting, the kind of expression people wore when told to look at the camera and not smile.
It hadn’t prepared him for the woman who stood in the doorway shaking rain from a dark blue umbrella, scanning the room with quick brown eyes that missed absolutely nothing.
She was smaller than he’d expected. Five-five, maybe five-six in the low heels she wore under dark jeans and a fitted blazer.
Sable brown hair, damp at the temples, pulled back in a way that was professional but not severe.
No flashy jewelry—just small gold studs and a watch that looked practical rather than pretty.
She spotted him.
And smiled.
Not coy. Not performative. Just—warm. Open.
Something shifted in his chest. Subtle. Involuntary.
He stood. Extended his hand as she reached the table. “Sophia.”
“Alan.” Her grip was firm, confident, her palm cool from the rain. “You’re taller than your photos.”
“You’re prettier than yours.”
“Flattery already?” She hung her umbrella on the back of her chair and sat, one eyebrow raised. “We haven’t even ordered bread.”
“I believe in getting an early start.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “Good to know.”
The waiter arrived—young, tattooed, a Georgetown kid working the dinner shift. Sophia ordered the house red without looking at the wine list, which told him something. She knew this place. She was comfortable here.
He ordered the same.
“So,” she said, settling in, elbows on the table in a way that was slightly unladylike and entirely charming. “Alan Martin. You’re not catfishing me.”
“Nope.”
“I wasn’t sure. Your profile was very . . . curated. Private security consulting. Well-traveled. ‘Looking for someone who can hold a real conversation.’” She tilted her head. “That last part either means you’re genuinely interesting or you’re very good at seeming interesting.”
“Can’t it be both?”
She laughed. A real one—surprised out of her, short and bright. “We’ll see.”
The wine arrived. She swirled, sniffed, sipped, all without pretension—just a woman who liked wine and knew what she liked. The house red was a Montepulciano, and it stirred up memories that he dashed in a second.
“Your turn,” he said. “Government consulting.” He made a face. “That’s even more curated than mine.”
“Occupational hazard.” She took another sip. “I work for a federal agency. It’s not exciting. I sit at a desk and analyze data and write reports that may or may not be read by people who may or may not care.”
“And yet you love it.”
She paused, the glass halfway to her lips. “What makes you say that?”
“Your profile. You mentioned wanting your work to matter. People who don’t love what they do talk about their hobbies. People who do talk about purpose.”
A beat. She set down her glass, studying him with those quick analyst’s eyes. “That’s . . . perceptive.”
“I have my moments.”
“Clearly.”
The waiter brought bread—warm, olive oil on the side, rosemary baked into the crust. The smell filled the space between them. She tore off a piece and dipped it, and the gesture was so simple, so unguarded, that it caught him off balance.
Timea used to do that. Tear bread instead of slicing it.
Stop.
He reached for his own piece and tore it.
“Okay, my turn,” Sophia said. “Private security. That covers a lot of territory. Bodyguard? Cybersecurity? Corporate espionage?”
“Mostly risk assessment. Companies hire me to evaluate their vulnerabilities—physical infrastructure, personnel protocols, travel security. I tell them where they’re exposed, and they pretend to listen.”
“And then something goes wrong and they call you back.”
“That’s the business model.”
She grinned. “Cynical.”
“Realistic.”
“Same thing in this town.”
They ordered. She chose the cacio e pepe without hesitation—a dish that was either perfect or terrible, no middle ground, which told him something else about her. She didn’t hedge. He went with the branzino because he didn’t actually care about the food.
The conversation moved easily. She talked about growing up in Seattle—the rain, the coffee snobbery, a father who rebuilt old radios on the weekends and a mother who ran the local library book club.
She’d wanted to be a journalist first, then a diplomat, then realized she was better at finding patterns in data than patterns in prose.
She asked about his travels. He gave her the sanitized version—Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia. Business, mostly. She asked what countries had surprised him most, and he said Hungary, which was true, and the word almost stuck in his throat.
“Hungary? Really?” She leaned forward. “Why Hungary?”
Because a woman in Budapest taught me her language and then taught me how to be human again. Because for two years I had a home that wasn’t a hotel room or a safe house. Because I was going to be a father.
“The architecture,” he said. “And the food. Best goulash in the world.”
She laughed. “That’s a very safe answer.”
“I’m a very safe man.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
Dinner arrived. The cacio e pepe was clearly perfect, based on the small, involuntary sound she made on the first bite. He filed that away—not for the op, just . . . because.
Stop it.
“Can I ask you something?” She twirled her fork. “And you can absolutely tell me it’s none of my business.”
“I’m an open book.”
“Liar.” But she smiled. “Why the dating site? A guy who looks like you, who’s traveled the world, who can actually hold a conversation—you’re not exactly hurting for options.”
Oh. And he couldn’t bear the real reason, so he swallowed and asked, “Honest answer?”
“I’m only interested in honest answers.”
He turned the wine glass between his fingers.
Chose his words. “I spent a long time not letting people in. Work made it easy—always moving, always on the next job. But somewhere along the way, I looked up and realized I’d built a life that was very efficient and very empty.
” He met her eyes. “The site felt . . . intentional. A choice to try something different.”
The silence between them changed. Thickened. She searched his face for something—the lie, maybe, or the truth underneath it.
The worst part was that most of what he’d said was real.
“I know what you mean,” she said quietly. “About the efficient and empty part.”
“Yeah?”
“This town runs on purpose. Everyone has a mission, a cause, a five-year plan. It’s easy to fill your life with things that matter on paper and still come home to an apartment that feels like no one lives there.
” She ran her thumb along the stem of her wine glass.
“I got on that site because a coworker told me I was becoming my job. And I couldn’t argue with her. ”
“Sounds like a good friend.”
“She’s insufferable. But Ruby’s usually right.”
He laughed, and it surprised him—not the performance of laughter, the real thing, pulled from somewhere he’d forgotten existed.
She noticed. Tilted her head again, that analyst’s gaze sharpening. “You’re very good at this, you know.”
His pulse ticked up. “At what?”
“At making people feel like the most interesting person in the room. You ask questions. You listen. You remember details and weave them back in. It’s . . .” She paused. “Most people don’t do that.”
The air between them went still.
He held her gaze. Didn’t blink. “Maybe I’m just interested.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t look away either. “Or maybe you’ve had a lot of practice being interesting.”
He could deflect—a joke, a redirect, the charming pivot that always worked on people who weren’t paying close enough attention.
But Sophia Randall was paying attention. And the deflection would tell her more than the truth.
“Both,” he said. “I’ve had practice. But tonight, with you—I’m not practicing.”
She held his gaze for another second. Then nodded, slowly, as if she’d weighed his answer on some internal scale and found it—not convincing, exactly. But worth another chance.
“Okay.” She picked up her fork. “Then tell me something true. Something you wouldn’t put on a dating profile.”
Something true.
He reached past the cover stories and the operational parameters and the careful architecture of who he was supposed to be tonight, and found something small and real, lodged deep where he kept the things that hurt.
“I had someone once.” The words came out lower than he intended. “A long time ago. She was . . . she was the only person who ever made the world feel quiet.”
Sophia set down her fork.
“I lost her. And after that, I told myself the work was enough. That staying busy was the same as being alive.” He lifted a shoulder. “It’s not. But it took me a very long time to admit that.”
The restaurant hummed around them—silverware clinking, the students arguing louder now, the waiter uncorking a bottle two tables over. Outside, the rain had picked up, drumming against the windows, turning the Georgetown streetscape into streaks of gold and shadow.
Sophia’s eyes had softened. Not with pity—something else. Recognition, maybe.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Simply. Without the performance of sympathy.
“It was a long time ago.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
And right there—in that single sentence—she cracked something open.
Because she was right. It wasn’t a long time ago.
It was every morning when he woke up alone.
Every Christmas standing in the snow outside a Budapest window.
Every time he forgot, for just a second, that Timea was gone, and then remembered.
His throat tightened.
Change the subject. Now. “Your turn,” he said. “Something true.”
She held up her wine glass, considering. “I got into government work because I believed I could help protect people. Make the world a little safer.” A pause. “Some days I still believe that. Other days I read the intelligence reports and think we’re all just rearranging deck chairs.”
“On the Titanic?”