Molly opened her mouth to answer, but a huge crash from the kitchen made them all jump. David made himself stay seated, but he was poised to jump up if necessary. Maybe the Russian had come back through the kitchen. Maybe…And then a laugh came from one of the servers, and an old man lightly slapped the back of the head of a boy who emerged from the kitchen, red in the face and ducking to avoid the swipe he obviously knew was coming.

All three of them seemed to relax.

“So you were sent here to cover fracking? What are you hoping to find out?” David asked as their food arrived.

“Someone’s going to make some big reveal about the relative safety and sustainability of fracking at the energy talks this afternoon. So my boss wants to be on the front line for that because there are planned fracking sites all over our region. Seemed like a good place to get it straight from the horse’s mouth.

“What about you? How did you two meet?” Her eyes sparkled as if she was expecting some scandal.

Molly smiled. “We actually met last year, but bumped into each other last night at the party. It was quite unexpected.” She reached for David’s hand, and he took hers, wondering at the normality of the situation. Molly was basically introducing him as a boyfriend. Equal measures of pleasure and anxiety fought for dominance inside him. As her eyes glowed, the former took control.

He squeezed her hand back. “A happy coincidence.”

“That’s so romantic,” Victoria said, half-whispering in what David could only describe as a wistful tone.

“What about you? Are you married?” he asked to deflect a little of the discomfort that inched down his spine at being the center of attention.

“Boyfriend. But really I’m too busy to commit to anything right now. After all, I’m here, and this is the third trip I’ve done this month. My job is not conducive to romance, I’m afraid.”

Molly tutted. “I can’t imagine anything more romantic than traveling the world, reporting like you do. It must be a dream job.” She smiled warmly at the other woman.

A tiny sliver of warmth penetrated David’s heart. He loved how Molly was trying to make Victoria feel better about her boyfriend situation, when other women—including several he knew personally—might not have been able to help themselves from giving self-satisfied advice.

“It is,” Victoria said, “at least…no. It is a dream job. What I do…it’s everything to me. So I don’t mind the lack of relationships, and the lack of sleep.” She laughed and speared a piece of chicken with her fork.

The conversation moved to more general things, but kept circling back to the shooting the previous night. He didn’t blame them for wanting to talk about it—it was a form of catharsis after all—but he for one would rather not tempt Molly into saying something she shouldn’t in front of someone they really didn’t know.

“So where did you two meet last year?” Victoria asked.

Uh-oh. Molly crinkled her eyes at him, and he tried to mentally warn her about saying too much.

“I was at an archaeological site last year, and we met for a few minutes only, really. Right?” She looked at David, although it was clear he wasn’t supposed to interrupt. “It was a really brief encounter. Barely anything, but then I saw him at the cocktail party and…” Molly sighed, a happy look on her face. “The rest is history.”

“So what were you at the party for?” Victoria asked.

David forced a laugh. “Is this for an article? Because I’d rather not be news fodder.” He smiled broadly to negate the lack of elaboration.

“A man of few words,” Molly said patting the top of his hand again.

“Well sometimes those are the best, am I right?” Victoria laughed.

“Sometimes,” Molly agreed. “Now what does your boyfriend do?”

Victoria’s face fell a little. “Urgh. Boring stuff. A policy wonk. We barely see each other.”

Molly leaned toward her. “Isn’t that nice though? I’ve often wondered about those kind of relationships. Long distance, maybe. Where you don’t get to see each other much, so you spend your time thinking about the other person until you meet again. Isn’t that nicer than seeing one another every day? I always thought it might be.”

David stared at her. Did she really think that? He guessed she made sense. God knew he’d spent more than fifty percent of his time thinking about Molly in her absence, and was already preparing mentally—or not preparing mentally—to be away from her again. Was that what she wanted? Or was she distracting Victoria from making them part of her story? He made a note to ask her about that later.

“I guess so,” Victoria said into her drink. She didn’t seem convinced.

“When are you heading home?” David asked, trying to get the conversation back on neutral ground.

“In a couple of days.” Her face brightened. “The scientist is giving his fracking talk tomorrow, I think, and then I’ll report on it from here, and then fly home.”

For a while they discussed the food, and Greece, and how they all wished they had a little down time there to vacation a bit. Eventually, a silence fell as they finished the last remaining morsels from their plates. David reached for his wallet, but Victoria held up a hand. “No, it’s okay. I’ve got this. Expense account. I’ll just say you’re informants. So you know, make sure you are!” She smiled and left a bunch of euro notes on the table. “I better get back. I’m meeting a new cameraman in twenty minutes. I have to break a new one in almost every trip it seems.” She smiled, squeezed Molly’s shoulder as she passed, and bid them goodbye.

As she left the restaurant, Molly leaned forward and gave him a kiss.

“What was that for?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

She looked bemused. “Because I wanted to. That’s okay isn’t it?”

He smiled in response, not knowing what the right answer would be. A guy had to keep some stuff back, if only for his own sanity. A “yes” reply would probably infer that they were in a relationship, and he wasn’t sure if that was true. Not exactly true, anyway. And a “no” might cause some kind of hiccup in their recent…physical activities, and he wasn’t prepared to put a stop to those, regardless of what the long-term situation could be.

“Want to get out of here?” he asked.

She raised one eyebrow. “Sure,” she drawled, ripe with meaning.

“I meant for coffee…but if you prefer…”

She laughed, as he’d meant her to do. “Coffee’s great too.”

Molly reached into her purse and brought out a five-euro note. “She didn’t leave enough for the waiter,” she said, as she took a few steps toward the bar at the back. She held out her hand as if to shake the waiter’s, but slipped him the banknote.

In an instant he remembered.

David was pissed. At himself, and her. As soon as he’d seen her pass the waiter’s tip, he remembered Molly doing the same to Doubrov. Fuck. He’d forgotten about that until he saw it again.

After about fifteen minutes of weaving around squares, street corners, and pedestrians, he found a café with chairs and tables in a square across the road.

She seemed normal, but man he wanted to shake her. Instead he pushed her toward some iron tables in the square. “Sit, stay.”

He heard her murmur, “I’m not a dog.” Before he disappeared into the shop to place his order. All the while the man was making their coffees he kept an eye on Molly across the small street. What was she up to? She kept checking her phone. Goddamnit. This made him mad. He’d been so wrapped up in her that he hadn’t even stopped to consider that she was up to her freaking eyeballs in this simply because she was really up to her freaking eyeballs in this. He was sure she was up to her neck in something she didn’t fully understand.

The Molly he’d met last year was an innocent. A bystander. But clearly that had changed. He just didn’t know if it was worth his own peace of mind to stand with her in whatever shit she’d fallen in. Every part of him wanted to protect her, but the voice of his work therapist telling him not to get involved with anything that wasn’t sanctioned also echoed. It was a compelling voice. It was on her say-so that he would keep his new job.