As Aidan and Dana moved away, Sergio waved them over to a table in the corner with romantic lighting and plants that partially hid them from the others’ view.
Aidan held Dana’s chair for her, then seated himself across from her.
Sergio handed them each a menu and vowed to return in a moment.
Dana’s eyes twinkled with amusement as she opened her menu and studied him above it.
Aidan offered her a sheepish smile. “Apparently surrogate family members can embarrass one as much as blood relatives can.”
étienne, Krysta, and Sean laughed, their preternatural hearing allowing them to catch the comment.
Dana smiled. “I take it some of the others were the brothers you mentioned you work with?”
He nodded. “étienne, Krysta, and her brother Sean are part of the private security group I work with. Out of the lot of us, I think Krysta and Sean are the only ones amongst us with family still living. So Evie and Martin have sort of adopted the rest of us. They treat us all like kin, mothering and fathering us every chance they can get.”
Dana smiled. “And you all love it.”
“We eat it up like candy,” Aidan admitted with a grin.
“I envy you that. I lost my parents in a car accident several years ago and really miss all the worrying and butting in—the telling me not to waste my time with this guy or that one—that drove me crazy when I was in high school and college.” Her eyes darkened with sadness, then lit up again. “Ooh. I bet my mom would’ve been able to answer all your questions. Her psychic gift was much stronger than mine.”
“Your mother was psychic, too?” Aidan asked with interest. One of the oddities he’d come to understand about gifted ones was that they didn’t always share the same gift their mother or father possessed.
Dana nodded. “So was my dad, if you can believe it. They used to joke that they never bothered to date anyone else because they knew years before they met that they would end up together.”
Both parents had been psychic gifted ones? No wonder her gift was stronger than he had expected. Many gifted ones born in recent decades possessed gifts that were so muted by thousands of years of gifted ones DNA being diluted with ordinary human DNA that they didn’t even realize they were different.
Aidan opened his menu and perused the offerings. “Anything look good to you?”
Dana eyed the menu. “Are you kidding? Everything looks good to me.”
He set his menu aside. “In the movies, the man sometimes orders for the woman, but I’d much rather you choose what you want yourself. If that’s everything”—he smiled—“then I’ll have Sergio bring us a little bit of everything.”
She stared at him a moment, then lowered her menu. “May I ask you something personal?”
“Of course.”
“How long has it been since your last date?”
He laughed. “Longer than I care to admit. It shows, does it?”
Her slender shoulders lifted in a slight shrug. “Maybe a little.”
“And here I was hoping to make a good impression.”
“You are. A very good impression. But more than once you’ve referenced what you thought men were supposed to do on a date instead of just sort of going with what you’ve always done, so I thought maybe it had been a while.”
Far longer than a while.
“Which I find very hard to believe,” she continued, “because—with your good looks and charm—I would think women would fall all over themselves to get your attention.”
In the rare instances he followed vampires into bars or clubs, women could be quite bold in their pursuit of him. But Aidan wasn’t looking for an easy lay. He’d had his fill of women who could make him hard but otherwise bored the pants off him. He wanted someone who could hold his attention when they weren’t in bed. Someone with whom he enjoyed talking. Someone who made him laugh. Someone who challenged him intellectually. Someone who made him feel young again.
Sergio returned with a waiter who placed two glasses of water and a basket full of bread on the table. The waiter took their order, then left.
Sergio migrated over to étienne’s table, asking if everything had met their expectations as the group prepared to leave.
Aidan and Dana waved as the group exited.
“I hope I didn’t make you feel self-conscious or anything,” Dana said, a question in her pretty hazel eyes. “I haven’t dated in a while either.”
“Because of your gift?” he guessed.
She nodded and toyed with the basket. “When guys find out what I do for a living, they tend to assume I’m nuts. The few who don’t usually consider me a tool they can use to win the lotto or get rich playing the stock market.”
“Imbeciles, the lot of them,” Aidan declared.
She smiled. “Thank you. But even those who accept it, or at least appear to…” She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s hard for them, I guess, my knowing things about them that they would rather keep hidden. It makes them uneasy. Sometimes it makes them angry.”
“Or afraid?”
“That, too, though they would never admit it.”
“And I’m guessing your gift often lets you see things you really wish you hadn’t.” He sure as hell saw a lot in people’s thoughts that he would rather not. But when he was tired he sometimes couldn’t block them.
She grimaced. “That, too. Being psychic makes dating pretty hard.”
“I understand.”
She cast him an uncertain look. “It really doesn’t freak you out, even a little bit, knowing I can see things from your past, present, and future? Knowing that the more time we spend together, the more I’ll see and the more I’ll know about you that you may not want me to know? Because I will see stuff you don’t want me to, Aidan. I always do. And it always ruins things.”
Leaning forward, Aidan crossed his arms and braced them on the table. What he contemplated was no doubt very unwise, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from saying, “It doesn’t freak me out at all, Dana, because I’m in the same boat.”
Chapter Four
Dana frowned. “What?”
Aidan took one of those pauses that made her think he questioned the wisdom of speaking. “I’m in the same boat,” he repeated. “I haven’t dated in a long time because I was born with gifts similar to yours that tend to make others uncomfortable.”
Disappointment filled her. Seriously? He was mocking her?
“You look a bit like you want to hit me over the head with the breadbasket,” he stated, brow creasing, “so—to keep you from thinking whatever it is that’s making your eyes flash with fury—I’ll tell you that I’m telepathic and can prove it if you’ll give me permission to read your thoughts.”
Hell yes, she was furious. This was Jason all over again. That asshole had pretended he had psychic abilities like hers in a lame attempt to get into her pants. He hadn’t realized she actually was psychic and would see through his bullshit.
Dana leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “You’re telepathic?”
“Yes.”
“Prove it.”
“I can read your thoughts?”