She started crying.
“I hope you didn't see those pictures,” she sniffled, trying to ease the pain with humor.
“You looked amazing even then.”
“You said you were a photographer. You lied.”
“I specialize in surveillance.”
“Oh, pardon me. You twisted the truth till it was unrecognizable. Completely different, I apologize.”
“I had to -,”
“You asked about school. You asked me so many questions. So many things you pretended not to know. You pretended. I feel so stupid. You were just pretending. You said I looked like a dancer, when we first met. I am such a sucker. You already knew. You just said it cause you knew it would work, you were just pretending, because you already knew,” she babbled.
“Mischa -,”
“Were you 'assigned' to me? To run 'surveillance' on me?” she asked, lifting her head to look at him. He looked awful. Almost as bad as she felt.
“I was assigned to the case. You were part of the case. I wasn't necessarily supposed to make contact. That wasn't part of the job,” he said quickly.
“Oh sure. God, I am so stupid. So fucking stupid,” she hissed, pressing the heel of her hand into her forehead.
“Stop it.”
He always knew where she was, he always knew how to find her. “Come find me”, their special phrase. But he'd always been cheating. That's how he'd known her phone number, that first time he'd called her. That's how he'd known where her office was, when he'd surprised her. That's how he'd known what restaurant she was at, when they'd had sex in the bathroom.
I'm gonna puke. Hopefully all over his lying face.
“That's how you knew, that's how, that's how, that's how,” she whispered. “That's how you knew how to find me.”
“I'll always know how to find you, Misch.”
“Of course you will! You're a secret fucking agent! That's why, isn't it!? All those times! You were distracting me! God, so many times. What did you do!? Fuck me while Ruiz was sneaking into the office? Breaking into Peter's hotel room?” she demanded.
Tal suddenly stood up and walked across the room. He began messing with a lamp, and she thought he was trying to turn it on, but it never lit up. He pulled his hand out from under the shade, pinching something between his fingertips. Then he walked over to a night stand and reached underneath it, pulling out an identical object. He fiddled with them, then went into the bathroom. She heard the sound of the toilet flushing.
Oh. My. God.
“I just wanted to make sure we had comple-,” he began as he came back out.
“You bugged my hotel room!?” she demanded. He nodded.
“I had to. If there was a chance Sotera came in here to talk to you, a chance he would say something, we had to catch it. I had to, Misch,” he stressed. She started breathing heavily and pressed a hand to her chest.
“Oh my god. Oh my god. Positano. You just showed up. You knew exactly where I was, even what floor, even though I switched rooms,” she gasped for air. He shoved his fingers into his hair, scratching back and forth.
“I had to see you. The only way I could get them to let me go was by convincing them there was a chance Sotera might show up, might use his old room, might call you, something. I had to be with you again, I had to have an excuse to come back,” Tal said quickly.
“That room … oh my god … that room was bugged, wasn't it? And the other room, in Rome,” she was almost panting.
“Yes. Before you even checked into the hotel in Rome, we swept that room and put in surveillance,” he said softly.
“They saw everything?” she squeaked out.
“No one was watching, Misch. There wasn't a van down the street, or anything.”
“But there's a recording. Somewhere, some fucking security company has a 'greatest hits' reel of me cheating on my husband, breaking up with my husband. Fighting with you, fucking you, oh my god, I'm gonna be sick,” she groaned, bending forward and putting her head between her knees.
“Baby, I swear, no one will see them. Sotera never came in your room, there won't be any reason to watch anything,” Tal said, squatting in front of her again.
“I don't care. They exist. You used me. You used me,” she cried, putting her hands on the back of her head.
“No. I compromised the mission, almost lost my job, for you,” he told her.
“Fuck you! You should've told me! You had so many times you could've told me! On the beach! Why didn't you say anything!?” she was shouting at him as she rocked back and forth.
“I couldn't, baby. I couldn't,” he whispered.
“You could. But you didn't.”
“I didn't.”
“I was a job to you.”
“No.”
“A fucking job.”
“No. You weren't, baby, really. I tried to shield you, tried to keep you out of it. That's why I got you out of certain situations.”
“That's why you didn't want me to come to Turkey … I would've found out.”
“No. I didn't want you to come for the same reason I didn't like you working in Rome – it was dangerous. Sotera's a dangerous man. That's why I was always trying to get you to skip work,” Tal reminded her.
Silly me thought it was because he just wanted to spend time with me.