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"Jasmine," she said, not bothering with a last name either. “You’re hungry, I gather.”
“Ravenous.”
She motioned to the seat across from her. “Join me then.”
He quickly took his seat as if he was afraid that she might change her mind and take the offer to join her back.
The waitress came and took their drink order—glasses of water—and left menus with them.
“Since you’re so ravenous, what are you having?” Jasmine studied his aristocratic features. Stasio looked like someone who belonged here. He had an accent that sounded similar to some of the friendly Welsh people she’d spoken to at the airport. She figured she looked like someone who did not belong here—a tourist.
He was still looking at the menu, then closed it. “Prime rib, baked potato, and broccoli.”
“Hmm.” She read over the description. That sounded good to her. “Are you paying?” Jasmine earned good money as a rogue vampire assassin. She didn’t need anyone buying her meals, which was just the way she liked it.Normally.But she wouldn’t turn him down, if he chose to pay for her meal. Then it would look like they were really together, if Gareth should see her sitting with Stasio. Besides, she liked it when the guy paid for her meals as long as he didn’t automatically believe he got anything else out of the deal.
“I thought you were the kind of girl who would insist on paying for her own meal, no strings attached.” Stasio cast her a hint of a smile.
“If you paid for my meal, would there be strings attached?” She liked his humorous banter.
Stasio imparted the most devilishly, wicked smile with her.
“I’ll bite.” She hadn’t lived this long not to want to play with a vampire who appeared to be her age. “I’ll have the prime rib too.” She waved her menu to catch the waiter’s attention. Once she’d decided something, she was ready to get it done.
Stasio settled back against his bench seat, studying her, while she was glancing around at the tapestries of knights fighting knights on horseback, great battlefields in the surrounding lands, and shields and swords decorating the restaurant walls.
Once they gave the waiter their orders, Jasmine figured she had to pretend to take an interest in Stasio, partly because he seemed to be a decent guy and was buying her meal, but she needed to watch Gareth and not tip her hand so if he saw her, she would have to make this look good.
Stasio’s cell phone jiggled, and she smiled and shook her head. Was it his girlfriend checking up on him? What would she think if he was buying another girl a first-rate meal?
Stasio glanced at the phone, then said to her, “Excuse me for a second.” Then he said to whoever was on the phone, “I’m busy. I’ll text you.”
Too bad. Jasmine was curious as to who it was and what she, or he, wanted.
Jasmine sipped from her water and took a look in the direction of Gareth. His back was to her where he was sitting way across the restaurant, but even so, she knew he was a real danger to humans and vampires alike. Despite having been turned by the Black Death, which changed their lives forever, they had learned to cope with what they were. There wasn’t any reason for their kind to kill like they did when they first had been turned and didn’t have any other way to maintain their strength. They couldn’t die if they didn’t have blood. They would just wither away until they were emaciated. But once they had blood in their system again, their cells would inflate with the precious life source, and they would look just like they would normally.
“Sorry.” Stasio tucked his phone in his pocket. “My friend’s girlfriend was asking what I had ordered for dinner.”
Jasmine listened to his heart rate to monitor it to see if it had accelerated, indicating he’d told her a falsehood. But he hadn’t.
“Where are you from? You sound like you’re American. New York, maybe?”
“Upstate New York. What about you?” She had to admit thought she detected a Welsh accent, he had—maybe a Texas twang? Maybe a little Floridian in there? She just wasn’t sure.
“All over.”
Okay, that would make sense. He’d traveled some, probably had lived in different places for decades and would pick up new accents. “Where, most recently?”
“Florida.”
Again, not a lie. Her distrust of anyone was a hazard of the business she was in. She hated that part of the job, though it paid well, and she knew she was doing a great service for both humans and vampires alike. Some leagues didn’t like to police their own kind; some preferred hunters to terminate the rogue vampires. The hunters had been changed like they had, but didn’t have the whole drinking-the-blood issue—and most vampires didn’t care for them as a whole. Not when they could end up on one of their target lists, and who was to say the hunters didn’t make mistakes? Still, it was their calling. Some vampire advocacy groups were calling for a change in the ways things had been done for centuries. Specifically, vampire assassins would be hired to take out the vampire rogues. Let the hunters deal with their own rogues.
Not that the hunters were in agreement. Sure, they would take care of their own, when it suited them. But if they didn’t have contracts to terminate rogue vampires, what else would they do?
“Are you in college?” Stasio asked. “Or do you work at something?”
He would laugh if she told him what she really did. “I’m independently wealthy, good with investments.” His eyes widened almost imperceptibly. That gave her pause. Maybe he liked that she was wealthy. That he thought he’d hit the jackpot with meeting her. She shrugged. “I’m still trying to decide what to do with my life when I grow up. What about you?”
“Same.”
