"I hope you don't think this was too presumptuous," said Lucas as I picked my wine glass up.
My thoughts went back to the first day I was on the steps of the dating agency. This was what I had dreamed of. And of course marriage and babies, but I was so not going to weird Lucas out when he was being both normal and a gentleman. "No, this is wonderful." And it was. The wine was a deep bodied Pinot Noir and tasted delicious. "How'd you find this place?"
"My mother used to take me and my brothers here when my father would go out of town." A fond smile crossed his mouth. "Father hated crossing the barrier, but Mom always wanted us to have adventures. It was her way of subverting the rules just a little bit because it wasn't too far out, and we got to eat a delicious meal."
"Your mom sounds like a wonderful lady."
"She is. She has a spine of titanium, but she's fair. After she'd kicked me out of the family home, she'd come over to the place I rented with a truck load of furniture she'd bought for me. When she finished threatening me with violence if I ever told my father, she'd pulled me into a fierce hug, then left to let me unload everything myself."
What a great story. "I'm sure she loves you very much."
"She has to have a boat load of patience. Not only does she have four boys, we're all immortal and it takes a lot longer for us to grow up than regular humans."
"You should gift your mother well and often," I said.
"Yeah. You're right."
The waiter came over and told us the specials. I ordered the lobster ravioli and Lucas, unsurprisingly, ordered a rare steak and tuna tartare as an appetizer. I wasn't much into the raw stuff, so I wasn't going to touch that with a ten foot pole.
Our conversation was both sporadic and animated, and as the night went on, I realized, I really, truly liked Lucas Marsh. I mean, I already knew I was attracted to him, but once he'd gotten the chip off his shoulder, he'd really become quite the catch. A lump formed in my throat at that thought. If I thought he was a catch, so would other women.
Maybe I could sic Morgana Comey on them or start a rumor he'd gotten beat up by a girl. I felt my lips twitch at that one. Morgana was no girl. Lucas was lucky he had full use of his faculties after pissing her off.
Speaking of which...I was still a little disturbed by the love spell. Even though Morgana had given him a useless bundle of herbs, he hadn't known it was useless and still tried to use it on me. He'd apologized for a lot of things, but that one still got me. I understood his reasoning, especially knowing now what Marissa was up against, but it still didn't make it right.
"You look lost in thought," Lucas interrupted. "Everything okay?"
I blinked and shook myself out of my wandering thoughts. "Yes. Fine. I was just thinking of something."
"Whatever it was, it didn't look happy."
"Mmm," I agreed. "Tell me about Marissa. How did you meet and what did you think of her when you first saw her?"
His brow crinkled and I knew my subject switch hadn't fooled him, but he obliged and told me the story of Sikes introducing them for the first time. It wasn't exactly like at first sight.
Fortunately our dinner came just a few minutes later, saving me from Lucas bringing up my sudden earlier silence. I waited until the waiter left before I dug into my ravioli and almost moaned it was so good.
"Your mother has wonderful taste," I said after I swallowed my first bite.
"She's had plenty of time to explore," Lucas said with a chuckle. "It's hard to be immortal and not find all the good spots."
We ate in silence for a while, before Lucas sighed and put down his fork. "Tell me, Grace."
"Tell you what?" I didn't look up at him. I chose to focus on my ravioli which was suddenly super interesting.
"What's bothering you. You were fine and then you got this contemplative concerned look in your eyes."
"Nothing. It doesn't matter."
"Considering I'm pretty sure it was about me, I'd say it does matter. I could feel your nervousness when you were thinking. Your heartbeat sped up and I felt your hands began to sweat."
My lips twisted to the side. "That's a little disturbing, Lucas."
"What's more disturbing is that you appear to be frightened of me."
I set my fork down. "I'm not frightened. Exactly."
He tilted his head and studied me, his gaze roaming over my face. "It was the love potion."
