Reaching the pavement in front of the pub, Brand stopped and turned to look in the direction Elsa walked. He saw her a short distance away. She must have seen him because she waved. He waved back, enjoying the sight of how she moved as she came closer.
“Hi, Brand,” Elsa said once she stood in front of him. “Did you just drive by me in a silver Lexus?” He nodded. “I thought that was you.”
“Shall we go inside?”
“Sure.”
With a hand on the small of Elsa’s back, Brand guided her to the entrance and into the building. Her scent wrapped around him. The small contact made his blood flow hotter, rushing to fill his cock. He’d never thought he’d get to touch Elsa in any way or spend one-on-one time with her. For the first time since he’d found her, he actually had hope that she’d be his mate.
Inside the pub, Brand guided Elsa over to one of the tables at the back of the room. He sat so he faced toward the front of the building, which gave him a good view of the entrance. He never left himself in a position where someone could sneak up on him.
After the waitress took their drink order—a glass of white wine for Elsa and a dark ale for him—Brand turned his attention on Elsa and found her staring at him. He gave her a questioning look.
She smiled. “Sorry, I don’t mean to stare, but I still think you look familiar. As if I should recognize you from somewhere.”
“As I said before, we’ve never met. Maybe I just have one of those faces that everyone finds familiar, and they seem to think they know me.”
Elsa shook her head with a chuckle. “I doubt that. You’d have to be pretty average-looking if that were the case, and you’re far from it. You’re too good-looking.”
Brand smiled, liking that his mate found him attractive. “Thanks for the compliment.”
“I bet you have women telling you that all the time.”
He reached across the table and captured Elsa’s hand. “If they do, I really don’t pay much attention to it. Right now all I care about is what you think of me. Your opinion is more important.” Brand watched Elsa’s cheeks darken to a pretty shade of pink.
She looked down and then back up at his face. “All I can say to that is, wow. You must hold me in high regard, even though we just met. You barely know me. What if I turn out to be a big bitch?”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Oh, I know you aren’t.”
The waitress returned and served them their drinks. Once she left them alone, Elsa said, “So you figure you already have me pegged, do you? Do you have some kind of psychic power that you haven’t told me about?”
Brand shook his head. “No, but I’ve been around enough women to know when one isn’t the type of woman I want to be with shortly after I meet her.”
Elsa took a sip of her wine. “Really? It’s too bad I don’t have that talent, or I might have saved myself a lot of trouble when it came to Teddy.”
“Were you two together long?” Brand already knew the answer, but he still needed to ask the right questions, or Elsa would wonder if he let something slip by accident. She was smart and would pick up on anything she considered out of the ordinary.
“Long enough. In total, it was just over a year.”
“Did you love him?” Brand held himself completely still as he waited for Elsa to answer.
She sighed. “Now that I reflect back on it, probably not. I think I was more in love with the idea of being in love, if you know what I mean. In some ways, Teddy breaking off the engagement was the best thing he could have done for me. At least he didn’t dump me and go back to his ex after we were married. That would have been worse.”
And Brand would have made sure Teddy paid for it, considering what Brand would have given up for the other male to marry the woman who was Brand’s.
“So you’re over Teddy then?” he asked.
She snorted. “I’m over the ‘love’ I had for him, but not over the anger quite yet. The man’s a rat. He could have ended things better than he did. Instead the idiot told me exactly why we were over. His ex-girlfriend had taken him back, and he’d already asked her to marry him. He’d said they couldn’t make it official until he ended things with me. He’d even had the audacity to ask for the ring back that he’d given me so he could give it to his new fiancée.”
Brand suddenly had second thoughts about letting Teddy walk away without facing some kind of consequences. Yes, the other man’s leaving left everything wide open for Brand to claim Elsa as his, but Teddy had insulted Elsa.
“I should pay Teddy a visit,” he said. “Make him squirm a bit.”
Elsa looked solemnly at Brand and then burst out laughing. Brand’s brows furrowed in confusion. She held up a hand, her laughter slowly fading. “I’m not laughing at you. I promise. I just had the mental picture of Teddy pissing himself and screaming like a little girl if you were to show up on his doorstep. The man’s a wimp. He’d probably faint at your feet if you so much as lifted a fist in his direction. You saw today how he couldn’t get away from you fast enough.”
“Well, if he bothers you again, I won’t let it go.”
“If he does, you have my blessing to scare the shit out of him. The fuckwad—as my sister calls Teddy—would deserve it.”
Brand barely managed to hide the smile that tugged at his lips. His mate had a bit of a potty mouth, and he liked it. That meant she wouldn’t hold back if they ever had an argument. She would give it to him with both barrels, which was a good thing. He was the first person to admit he tended to have a domineering personality. If Elsa were the type of woman to sit back and let him do or say anything he wanted, they’d never last. And if he had his way, they’d be together forever.
“Enough about Teddy,” Elsa said. “The more I talk about him the more pissed off I get. So what do you do for a living, Brand?”
“A little of this and that. Nothing you’d consider a real job, I’m sure.” Watching over Elsa had become his day job while hunting werewolves was his night job. He couldn’t tell her about either of those things though.
She took another sip of wine and twirled a lock of her hair between her fingers while she looked at him. Brand itched to reach out and touch the silky mass that fell over her shoulders. He wanted to bury his face in it and just breathe Elsa in.
“Judging by the car you drive,” she said, “I’d say money isn’t a problem for you.”
“No, not really.” Being immortal and having lived for over a thousand years, he’d had plenty of time to amass a fortune. “What do you do?” He’d followed her to work once, but he really didn’t know exactly what her job was.
“Nothing exciting. I’m a bookkeeper at a smallish roofing company. I went to the University of East Anglia for accounting and finance.” Elsa smiled. “Most people think my job is boring, pushing numbers around all day, but I like it. I could have taken my education further to certify myself for something higher. I didn’t. I prefer just being a bookkeeper. Not as much stress.”
Brand stroked his thumb across the back of her hand. He liked listening to Elsa talk, especially about herself. He wanted to learn everything there was about her. “Nothing wrong with liking what you do, no matter what type of job it is.”
Elsa shifted her hand under his and linked their fingers together. “I think we’ve talked enough about me. What about you? Have you always lived in Norwich?”
“Yes. I was born here and can’t see myself ever leaving.”
Back during the time of his birth, it hadn’t been a city, just a settlement called Northwic, which had eventually grown, merging with others until it became the largest walled town in all of medieval England.