And I looked back.
The first hour was the hardest.
Every time she glanced up from her canvas, our eyes met. Electricity arced between us—not quite sexual, not quite innocent. The particular intimacy of sustained attention, of being truly seen by someone who was paying attention.
Her brush began to move.
I watched her work, even as I worked myself. The way she held the brush—loose but precise, the muscle memory of someone who'd done this for years. Her lower lip caught between her teeth when she concentrated. Her brow furrowed at some challenge only she could see.
I tried to capture it. The furrow. The caught lip. The particular intensity of a brilliant mind fully engaged in creation.
But my hands kept wanting to paint other things. The collar at her throat. The flush on her cheeks. The way the afternoon light turned her hair into something golden and warm.
Silence stretched between us, broken only by the soft sounds of brushes on canvas.
She looked up. Caught me staring.
"Your nose is wrong."
The words broke something open. The tension dissolved into laughter.
"What's wrong with my nose?"
"It's too small. You've made it—" She gestured at her own face. "Diminished. I have a perfectly good nose."
I examined my canvas. "It's artistic interpretation."
"It's artistic flattery." But she was smiling now. "Also, you've made my eyes too big."
"Your eyes are exactly that big."
"They are not. I look like an anime character."
The banter continued. Easy, playful. The particular shorthand of people who were comfortable with each other, who could tease without fear of wounding.
"You've given me villainous eyebrows," I accused, leaning over to peek at her canvas.
She blocked my view with her body. "No peeking!"
"I saw dark slashes. You're going to make me look like a crime lord."
"Youarea crime lord."
"I prefer 'intelligence specialist.'"
Her laugh was bright. Unguarded. The particular sound of someone who'd forgotten to be anxious.
We painted on.
The hours passed strangely. Time went soft around the edges, the way it did when I was deep in a surveillance pattern or a complicated forgery analysis. Just the work. Just the looking. Just the two of us, trading glances across the space between our easels.
But something shifted as the afternoon wore on.
Her eyes stayed on me longer. I noticed it first in the way she mixed colors—how she'd look up, study my face with an intensity that made my skin warm, then return to her palette with some new understanding.
She was really seeing me.
Not the Fox. Not the Besharov brother, the intelligence officer, the man who'd killed and stolen and lied for his family. She was seeing something else. Something I wasn't sure even existed until she started looking for it.
