She nodded. “Of course.”
“We would like to be seated outside.”
My smile jumped up a notch. I would have kissed Damien if I had been braver or if I had been comfortable initiating anything with a man like him, but I wasn’t. So I squeezed his hand to let him know how happy I was.
He turned toward me, his dark eyes taking me in, putting me completely under his trance.
The hostess cleared her throat, and I pulled back slightly. We silently followed her, Leo still a steady presence at our backs.
We sat at a small corner table for two, and as the hostess placed our menus down, Leo sat about five tables away from us. Close enough to see us but not close enough to hear what we were saying.
At least we had some privacy.
I opened the menu and looked inside. There were so many choices. I had never been given many choices in life. My wardrobe, the food I ate every day, and even my schedule for my day-to-day life had been dictated by Father.
I found the food choices here overwhelming but in a completely different and pleasant way.
I looked up, wanting to ask Damien what he planned on ordering, and found his eyes on me, his menu still on the table, closed. He hadn’t even looked at it.
I tipped my head to the side in question.
“What are you hungry for, pet?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. There are so many choices.”
“You can order one of everything.”
My eyes widened before I let out a soft chuckle, only to realize he was serious.
My lips lifted in a small bewildered smile. “I don’t think I could finish that much food.”
He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “We could box the rest to go.”
I shook my head, letting out a small laugh. He was looking at me with an unusual and incomprehensible expression on his face.
I knew my eyes were soft as I returned his gaze, and my shoulders relaxed. “That’s okay.”
A waiter came to our table, a young man probably older than me by a couple of years. He was taller than average, with lean muscles and kind brown eyes. He looked like he had grown up in a nice, normal family.
He smiled at me, then turned to Damien, pausing a beat and moving back half a step.
I turned to Damien, only to find him glaring at the man.
I frowned.
“Uh, what would you folks like to drink?” the waiter asked, a slight shaky quality to his voice.
Damien looked over at me and, probably sensing I wasn’t comfortable speaking just yet, he said to our waiter, “A black coffee for me. A coffee for the lady with cream and sugar on the side, two glasses of water, and one orange juice.”
He turned away from the man, already dismissing him, and drew his eyes back to me. I blinked at him, waiting until the man left before I said, “You didn’t have to order me three different drinks.”
He shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal. “Now you can decide what you want to drink.”
I looked down at the wooden table in front of me. There were a few scratches here and there, and on the edge were the initials E.A. + J.R.
I wondered if E.A. and J.R. were still together.
“Thank you,” I said softly after a while.