“Always.”
“There’s a diner on the corner.”
“Goodie!” She held her fists up like an excited child. “Always wanted to die in a diner.”
“You mean dine, right?”
“Sure. I like your optimism. I’ll go with it. I wonder if the diner has failed the same exact health codes as the bar, or if they found new ways to make their clientele sick.”
She was so strange . . .
Hadrian hesitated before he led her toward the restaurant. He’d never met anyone quite like her. ‘Course this was probably the longest he’d ever spent with anyone other than Nero and his foster parents.
He flinched as he remembered their deaths. And all because they’d been Trisani, harboring one of their own. While he had no real memories about the deaths of his parents and siblings, he fully recalled the assassins that had found them.
The debt he and Nero owed them for hiding him so that he wouldn’t be gutted, too.
Damn . . .
Everyone close to him died.
That was a fact that made him wonder if he hadn’t been born cursed.
But at the moment, it was hard to consider himself cursed while standing next to the sexiest woman he’d ever seen. She was exquisite. Especially the way she walked.
Confident. Slow and seductive.
The funny part was that he knew she wasn’t even aware of it. She wasn’t paying any attention to the number of heads that turned her way. Or how people watched her.
She just was.
And she stirred thoughts in him that he knew better than to have. Dangerous thoughts given his status and history.
Don’t get involved with anyone.He could hear Nero in his head, shouting at him.
His brother was right, even though it galled him to admit it.
Trying his best not to think about that, he followed her into the diner.
There were several aliens who watched them with a gleam in their eyes that said they recognized her. Although, from their thoughts, he knew they, too, mistook her identity.
Poor Jayne.
He’d give her credit though. Jayne caught on to what they were doing. She eyed them as she walked slowly past their table, then took a seat so that she could keep them in her line of sight.
Then, he saw it. That same hopeless desperation that haunted him. It was plain and clear in her light eyes.
And it reached out to him as he understood better than he wanted to.
Hadrian didn’t speak as the waitress came over. Not until Jayne ordered Tondarion Fire. “Make it two.”
The fuchsia-skinned alien eyed them. “You got the money?”
Jayne reached for her pocket.
“I got this.” He pulled out the creds and handed it to her. “Bring the bottle.”
Jayne inclined her head. “Thank you.”
