He smiled. "Doesn't every teenager want to be part of the in-group?"
"Maybe. But you don't seem like someone who is concerned about peer pressure or being liked. Unless you changed…"
"I had to change schools a lot. Every time my mom got a new post, I had to start over, and it was never easy. That school, filled with all those rich kids, was definitely one of the harder groups to break into. But when Dominic befriended me, my life got easier. And I was always grateful to him for that. But I could see through him better than others could. I could see the vulnerability, the insecurity."
"Where did that come from?"
"His father. He was hard on Dominic, always disappointed in him. Whatever Dominic did wasn't good enough. That attitude drove Dominic to higher heights than he would have reached if he hadn't had a father like that. Dominic has always had something to prove to his father."
"Is his father still alive?"
"Yes. He lives in London, and even with all of Dominic's success, the man still asks him when he's going to do more for the world and not just for himself."
"Is that why he's investing so much in Tajikistan and other countries?"
"I think so. And it's also why he wants the press to cover his philanthropy. He wants to make sure his father knows without having to tell him."
"So odd that Dominic would still care so much about impressing his dad."
"His father is a narcissist. He's never going to be impressed by his son. He's never going to give Dominic the validation he craves. But even if Dominic logically knows that he can't stop trying."
"I guess I can understand that. The need to be seen by the people you love can be powerful." She paused. "What about you? Did your parents push you?"
"No. My parents were very involved in their own careers, not that they didn't care about me, but they weren't all that concerned with how I was doing in school or what I wanted to be when I grew up. They just told me I should find my passion and follow it."
"But you didn't start at the CIA. You worked as a journalist, right?"
He smiled. "I almost forgot you looked me up."
"Why did you want to be a reporter? And why did you stop wanting to be that?"
"I'd been traveling the world my entire life; I figured I'd just keep going, be a foreign correspondent. I had some language skills, and I couldn't see myself behind a desk working a nine-to-five job, so that's where I started."
"And the CIA recruited you? Or…was the reporting job always just a cover?"
He smiled. "It was an actual job that I did for almost two years. But I got tired of showing up after the damage had been done. Filming the aftermath, interviewing the survivors, documenting the destruction." He picked up his beer and took a swig. "One day, a guy approached me in Istanbul. Said he worked for the CIA, that they could use someone with my access and my cover. Someone who spoke the languages, understood the cultures, and had the State Department connections. It felt like a chance to be more proactive, so I took it. Occasionally, I still used the cover, but I had other covers as well."
"And you liked it for a while?"
"Almost ten years," he said.
"And you got to see a lot of the world."
"Too much of some places," he said, a little darkness leeching into his voice.
She immediately frowned. "Like…"
"I think we've had enough honest talk for a while. I'm hungry. Do you want to order a pizza?"
She thought about that for a moment. "You could just go home and eat."
"I have nothing to eat at my apartment."
"You live above a restaurant."
"And I need a change from dumplings. You don't feel like cooking, do you? And I suspect you don't want to go out, so let me buy you a pizza."
"Only if we can keep talking about Dominic. I can't just do nothing the rest of the evening."
