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“I give up.”

He reached down to adjust the cuff link his brother had given him years earlier. She watched him so intently, a lesser man may have been discomfited by her scrutiny.

“Have dinner with me,” he said. An impulsive invitation, to be sure, but it would help him learn if Lawrence was telling him the truth or simply attempting to delay the inevitable. “You can keep guessing tonight,” he said. “I will pick you up at seven.”

“You will . . . I didn’t say yes yet. And you don’t know where I live.”

He stood. “When you do agree to dinner, I will discover on my own where to find you.”

He didn’t have to wait long.

“I suppose—”

“Good. I will see you tonight.”

He turned to leave, thought better of it, and spun back around.

“And just in case you were curious, I very much enjoy rewards too.”

He told himself the shiver that ran through him had everything to do with what she was and nothing to do with the anticipation of seeing Alessandra Fiore again that evening.

After seven hundred years, he should have been better at lying to himself.

* * *

She triedto pick up her book, but Alessandra’s hands were trembling. Ever so slightly. She’d been asked out on many a date, certainly. But never quite like that.

In many ways, Kenton was everything she despised in a man. She’d always said there was a fine line between cockiness and confidence, and Kenton, high-handed and autocratic, skirted that line just a bit too much.

And yet, there was something about him. An invisible, undeniable pull that had been apparent the night before and was even more so now. She knew nothing about him aside from the fact that he was English and had once lived in London. Still, she got the sense that he was well-read, and his speech definitely lent him an air of . . . sophistication . . . beyond his years.

He needs me.

Alessandra pushed aside the absurd thought the moment it popped into her head. He was clearly very rich, likely powerful, and most certainly he did not need her.

Oh yeah, and he was hot. Like the hottest guy in the history of mankind. How could she have missed his eye color the night before? Granted, it had been dark. But they were as ice blue as Lawrence’s were green.

Yeah, super hot.

And sexy.

And mysterious.

Someone is watching me.

The thought was so powerful Alessandra turned in her seat and glanced around the room. Ah. He wasn’t looking at her now, but sure enough, Lawrence sat alone at a high top table on the other side of the coffee shop. Gathering her things, she noticed Kenton’s abandoned cup. Picking it up, noticing the scent that identified it as another chai latte, Alessandra walked it to the trash before making her way to Lawrence’s table.

“So we meet again?”

He looked up from the paper he’d been reading.

“Good morning, Alessandra.”

Though it was very likely a coincidence—there weren’t an abundant number of coffee shops to choose from in town—she couldn’t let it go.

“We’ve met like this two days in a row. No, three.” He’d been at the bar too. Stone Haven was small, but it wasn’t that small.

He didn’t answer. Instead, the newcomer watched her, no, inspected her. She would not squirm under his scrutiny, but it struck her that the man in front of her was a far cry from the affable jogger she’d met the day before. Or the easygoing stranger who’d joined them at the concert.