Igor threw his shirt away and jumped in the water head-first. The loud splash startled Iris and she couldn't help but chuckle at the man. He emerged, his dark hair wet, clinging to his neck.

"Give me the bottle!" He shouted.

"What? How?" Iris's brows furrowed in confusion. "You can't carry the bottle all the way to the shore!"

The dark-haired man chuckled, "Watch me."

Iris grabbed the bottle and lowered it into his hands, "What about the glasses?"

"Give one to me and jump in." Igor grinned. "Come on!"

Iris gingerly handed the glass to Igor, their fingers touching for a split second before he pulled away with the wine and the glass. She took off her dress, enjoying the fact his gaze slid over her body. She placed the second cup near the edge and began lowering herself in the dark water.

Despite the falling night, the air outside was still unbelievably warm and the water was refreshing. A sense of calm washed over Iris as her body gradually felt the water. Her hair spilled all over the surface and she breathed in with ease, she was finally refreshed. She stretched her hand over the edge of the boat and grabbed the glass. A scattered laugh escaped from her lips.

"Come on!" Igor swam ahead, holding the bottle and the glass above surface. "It's not far."

Keeping the wine glass above the surface proved to be harder than she thought, especially since the remains of the wine still danced inside. Without one hand, swimming was harder. The fact Igor swam without any hands as he desperately tried to keep both the bottle and the glass above surface made Iris laugh.

"You're good at this!" Iris shouted.

Igor turned his head around, the water reached all the way to his chin, "Do you think this is my first time carrying wine over a body of water?" The rim of the glass almost touched the surface.

"You're gonna get sea water in the Muscat wine, that's basically a crime!"

"Life is messy, Iris!"

She let out a laugh and almost drowned, desperate to keep the glass above surface. Laughing made it even harder to swim.

"Alright, I can stand." Igor let her know while she struggled to swim with one hand.

"Good for you, I'm drowning!"

"Do you need a hand?" Igor grinned mockingly.

"Don't you damsel-in-distress me!"

Iris put all her determination into reaching the surface. She lapped with her free hand, glad no sea water entered her glass of beautiful, sweet wine.

Igor laughed, "You look like an angry puppy."

"Yeah, well, I feel like a wet dog." Iris finally reached the point where she could stand and gave the glass to Igor.

And then she threw herself back in the water, free, unburdened. She could feel her hair gently sliding against her shoulders and back. Igor got out and made himself comfortable on the pebbled beach. Moonlight fell over his strong torso and Iris admired him from a distance.

She liked him a little bit. There was something unapologetically sincere about him. The way he handled himself, in his silly flip-flops, with his black shirts and shorts, told a story of a man who didn't really care about others' opinions. Iris appreciated that.

"Why'd you bring me here?" Iris swam closer to him, reluctant to leave the water.

Igor spread out his hand and handed her a full glass of wine, "You deserved to see this beauty," his gaze drifted around the beach until it eventually landed on her, "and this place deserved to see this beauty."

Igor stared at her while she sipped the wine and she couldn't quite calm her heartbeat which thudded under his protruding gaze.

"Why me?" Perhaps it was a stupid question, but she wanted to know anyway. "Why not Lora? She would have gone for you if you'd shown interest."

That was the truth.

"My father taught me to stir clear from women like you." He lifted his glass towards her. "But what's the point of living if you never do anything you'll later regret?"

"Do I smell a tiny bit of destruction underneath the calm?" The question surprised him slightly and Iris smiled.

"After being a businessman for as long as I have, you learn how to be calculated." Igor said. "But in my core, I consider myself a bit whimsical, too."

"So I'm a whim?" Iris didn't mind. If anything, it made her feel better about genuinely liking him.

"I'm a selfish man." Igor shrugged. "If I see something I like, I go for it."

Selfish. A flaw. A destructive, unlikeable flaw which they both shared. Iris considered herself selfish, too. So selfish she wanted to leave her dead fiancé because she couldn't handle it.

"You don't seem that way, you seem like the giving type." Iris remembered all the tips and the car he's given to his driver.

"I don't mean selfish in terms of money." Igor said while Iris sat in the shallow water and enjoyed the slight waves touching her skin. "I want everything this life has to offer, I want to enjoy it, revel in it."

Iris felt that statement deep in her bones, in some primal, carnal part of her that wanted to revel in the same types of pleasures. The rush, the adrenaline and even a little bit of danger. The reason why she chose this job. Igor spread on the pebbles and put his hands under his head, his muscles tensing.

"My mom got pregnant when she was sixteen." Iris said suddenly, deciding he's given her enough honesty to give some back. Igor lifted his gaze.

"With you?"

Iris shook her head, "My sister. Her father left my mom the moment he found out. All I know is that he was older than her, passing through town. She barely managed to finish high school."

"A single mother at sixteen," Igor mumbled, "that had to have been tough."

"She never talked about it. I think she even resented my big sister. Anyway, she found another man a couple of years later, my father. He was good enough, but he was set in his ways. My mother never got the opportunity to see anything, experience anything. She had three more kids after, including me."

Iris felt the lump in her throat tighten. She told this story on rare occasions, when she was drunk on wine, when she felt like explaining why she was the way she was.

"Years later, she finally decided to go on a trip to Mexico with her friend and they ended up in a car accident. The car was wrecked, but they survived. Still, it changed her." Iris took a sip of her wine, enjoying the serene scenery, which contrasted her disturbed heart.

"In what way?"

Iris let out a sigh, trying to put her thoughts into words, "She turned gradually more anxious. She was eventually diagnosed with a panic disorder with agoraphobia. Barely leaves her house at this point."

Igor's eyes brimmed with curiosity, "You're the youngest, aren't you? You were the one most exposed to it all."

"That's why I dropped out of college." Iris shrugged. "And because I have a problem with authority. Or the problem with authority is the result of my mother's tragic life, I don't know." She shook it off with another shrug.

Igor nodded, "I understand. You said your mother never experienced anything and in return, it made you afraid of commitment. It was commitment that screwed your mother over, after all. Am I right?"

"It also made her frustrated." Iris added. "And lonely. And sad."

"And it made you cherish freedom above else." Igor sipped his wine.

If only it were only the idea of freedom that haunted her. Iris knew the problem was rooted deeper than mere desire for freedom, it was in a much darker place. A selfish, destructive place she feared to enter.

"I suppose." She nodded.

Igor quietly assessed her and Iris kept her eyes on his face. She realised why he called her here after all. It wasn't merely desire, or lust. It was curiosity. Something he probably rarely found in women. She was a riddle to him. As far as he was concerned, she was working in a finance department, a boring, mundane job. But her personality didn't match and he was determined to dig out the lie.

The tactic was close to Iris's heart. She often searched for mismatched information in people's lives and tried to find out what exactly they hid.

"Well, Iris, if you stick around, I can show you true freedom."

An invitation. He did not get what he was looking for. He still found her a riddle after everything she's revealed about herself.

And yet, the invitation filled her up with excitement and adrenaline. It was a challenge in and of itself.

"And what might that be?" She let her flirtatious side show, because above all other tactics, seduction always worked best. Especially once she found out what floated this particular man's boat.

Igor sauntered into the water, a gleam forming in his eyes. He jumbled his wineglass gently and chuckled for himself; a realisation he was not inclined to share.

"True freedom," he mumbled, "means letting go of everything and going for whatever your heart desires."

The hot air, the cold water and the dark man's stare mixed into tangible tension. She's been wanting to let go since forever, but she desperately held onto anything stable. The idea of knowing no boundaries seduced those darkest parts of her.

"Let's do it, then." Iris cocked her head to a side, a coy smile dancing on her lips. "But it goes both ways. If you do it, I'll do it."

Igor came closer to her and returned the enigmatic smile, full of secret agendas and dangerous games. His body radiated heat that should not have been possible to distinguish from the hot air. Yet Iris felt every burning molecule lick her skin.

"Usne ptice rugalice, a u oku tajac."

A loud ringing sound broke the tension and caught Igor's attention. It was his phone, forgotten somewhere on the boat. A bunch of emotions crossed over his face, the most prominent one being anger edged with shock.

"Fuck." He grunted and looked at Iris, regret and dissatisfaction awaiting in his eyes. "I have to go."

Without further explanations, he grabbed the bottle and the glass and swam ahead. Iris wondered what happened as she followed, her spy brain running wild.

But she could not fit into role entirely, for her own brain replayed the sentence he had uttered. For a moment, she felt understood. And the understanding did not send the man running away from her. Whatever he found out about her, it was too close to the parts she kept hidden, where truth about her character lay.

He guessed it, he knew it.

Usne ptice rugalice, a u oku tajac.

Lips of a mocking bird, but silence in the eye.