Emma searched his face, but he didn't seem to be trying to manipulate her like Tristan used to do. His words were sincere, the bleakness in his eyes touched her in a way nothing ever had before. Without thinking, she took his hand. His fingers slid over hers as he rolled his hand beneath hers and grasped it in return. Unlike with Tristan, a sense of belonging stole through her whenever she was near him, and she felt as if whatever was missing inside her was finally found.
"I thought Tristan could make me feel normal, maybe I was missing a boyfriend, but I always felt as if I had to force it when with him. It never felt right. And he was a little unstable. I didn't know it while we were dating, but his issues became apparent when I broke up with him."
Ethan took another sip of his drink as he studied her. "What kind of issues?"
Emma frowned as she tried to decide how much to reveal to him. There weren't many people willing to date someone with an emotional basket case for an ex, but he didn't seem like the type to run for the hills, and she didn't see any reason to keep it from him.
"He became extremely possessive after the breakup, started following me, calling me all the time, and leaving me gifts. He appeared in my classes, classes that weren't his. He would sit in the back and watch me. His gifts grew steadily stranger, more disturbing, and more terrifying. The last one was a dozen black roses with a card I swear was written in blood, and it scared the hell out of me. I finally went to the police about him, but he disappeared before they could do anything."
Ethan kept his mouth closed as he fought to retract the fangs that extended while she spoke. He finally regained control of himself enough to talk again. "You haven't heard from him since?"
"Not in a year, and hopefully never again."
Ethan nodded but rage still simmered beneath the surface. That was a human he would gladly kill for frightening her if given the opportunity. He found it odd the strange behavior would abruptly cut off, but that kind of behavior wasn't something he understood. Her ex didn't sound like a very stable person. Maybe he killed himself, or maybe someone else did the deed.
"What about you?" Emma inquired though she wasn't certain she wanted to hear the answer. "Any serious relationships?"
"Nothing serious."
"Not the settling down type?"
He smiled at her over top of his glass. "I just haven't met the right one yet."
"Do you believe there is a right one?"
For him, it was a distinct possibility. "I do."
"So is there a string of broken hearts behind you?" It wasn't the subtlest way of asking about how many people there were in his past, but she wasn't exactly skilled at subtlety.
"None of those."
"I'm sure you've had lots of girlfriends."
"Five, and they were all aware it wasn't going anywhere before it started."
Emma frowned at him. He was gorgeous, she was sure a whole lot more than five women had thrown themselves at him over the years, but he spoke of his relationships as if they were business deals.
"You make it sound like they were an arrangement,” she remarked.
That's what they were to him, but she wouldn’t understand.
"Not really," he replied. "From the beginning, they knew it wouldn't be serious, and when it was time to part, we would do so amicably."
"How could you possibly know that at the beginning of a relationship? What if your feelings changed over time?"
"I just knew they wouldn't." She frowned at him in confusion, but he didn't know how to explain it to her, didn't know how to make her understand without turning her away from him. "You know how you said it always felt forced with Tristan, well that's kind of how I felt with them." It wasn't exactly the truth. Due to the way he'd grown up, he'd always known about the existence of soul mates, and he'd known going in none of those women were his mate. "I was never going to spend the rest of my life with one of them."
"Were they one-night stands? Never mind, you don't have to answer that, it's personal," she blurted after.
"I've never had a one-night stand," he told her. It was something he felt she needed to know, as he had every intention of pursuing something with her. "That's not my thing."
Her head tilted as a playful gleam lit her eyes. "You're just a romantic at heart."
Ethan chuckled as he leaned back in his chair. "I'm not so sure about that."
The waiter arrived with their food. He didn't require it to sustain him; in fact, he'd never eaten human food until very recently, and only when around her. He picked at the contents on his plate to avoid her suspicion. The raw steak wasn't overly bad, but it was the blood he sought as he put it in his mouth.
The bags of blood Isabelle stocked didn't seem to be doing the trick quite as well as they used to. It was Emma's blood he thought about when he consumed the bags now. He could try and find another human to feed from; it might satisfy him a little bit more. The idea of doing that was extremely unappealing to him, and if it wasn't Emma, he was feeding from, he knew there was a chance he might kill them.
Emma glanced surreptitiously up at him as they ate. She'd never met anyone like him. Most of the men she knew were good guys; they didn't purposely set out to hurt people, they weren't all nutball stalkers, but she'd never heard one of them say they entered into their relationships with the clear-cut understanding it was never going to go anywhere. She also
