Page 45 of The Butcher

I hadn’t eaten much the last few days, but talking to him had revved up my appetite out of nowhere.Yeah, that sounds good.

I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.

I quickly changed and put on makeup for the first time in days. I hadn’t even worn it to the bar, and it had impacted my tips. No one wanted a depressed bartender who barely had the energy to get out of bed to show up for work.

I stepped outside in my coat, and at that moment, a blacked-out SUV pulled up on the one-way street outside the café. It came to a stop, and Bastien stepped out and opened the door for me, wearing dark jeans and a long-sleeved gray shirt, and the color really brought out the blue of his eyes. His towering height was more apparent against the vehicle because he stood taller than the roof. And his handsomeness was apparent too when he smiled like that, like I was the only person he wanted to see.

He stepped aside so I could move across to the other seat, and I felt his big palm give my ass a playful spank before he sat in the chair beside me and closed the door. The car took off before our safety belts were fastened.

He didn’t make conversation, sat there with his elbow propped on the armrest, his fingers gently grazing the little bones in his jawline. When he felt my stare, he turned to meet my look. “Sweetheart?”

No man I’d been with had ever called me that before. Adrien never gave me a pet name. I imagined Bastien called a lot of women by the endearment, that it was a word he threw out to everyone, but I still felt warm when he called me that. “I forgot how hot you are.”

His smirk widened, the smile reaching his pretty eyes. “Then you need to take a picture so you don’t forget next time.”

Traffic in Paris was the worst in the mornings and early afternoon when everyone got off work. It was so bad that it was better to walk or bike, which was what most people did. But even now in the evening, the roads were congested. The restaurant was only a few miles away, but it still took twenty minutes to get there.

The driver pulled up toLe Relais de l’Entrecote,and Bastien got out first before he helped me out of the SUV. There was a line of fifteen people standing outside waiting for a table, but Bastien walked through the double doors and straight to the hostess desk. He had a quick conversation with the woman in the black dress, saying something about someone named Luca, and then we were taken right to a table…and we got a lot of dirty looks.

We were given a table by the window, and Bastien pulled the table out so I could squeeze into the seat against the wall before he put the table back in place and sat down. It was a famous restaurant in Paris that served only one thing—steak and fries. You could order as many servings as you wanted, and waitresses in maid outfits came by and refilled the plates with a new pieceof meat smothered in a sauce along with a new batch of fries. I’d been there once before, a couple years ago.

The waitress asked how we liked our steaks prepared before she fetched our drinks. Bastien ordered a stiff drink, as always, and I stuck to a glass of wine. Our food came as quick as our drinks, and the waitress piled our plates with meat and fries with a spoonful of gravy before she walked away.

Bastien cut into his meat and devoured his food like he hadn’t eaten that day.

“Did you have a reservation?”

“No.” He answered between bites, having manners despite his caveman attitude.

“Then how did you get a table so easily?”

“A friend of mine owns this place.”

“Nice. I need to make better friends…like ones that work at Versace and Saint Laurent.”

He gave a quick smile before he continued to eat.

I cut into my meat and felt my stomach clench because I was starving, the hunger pangs having been silenced by my broken heart for the last couple of days. I dipped my fries into the gravy, small and crispy, and then took another bite of my meat.

Bastien scarfed down his plate quickly, and the next time the waitress came by, she refilled his plate with another serving. It was like a buffet, except you didn’t have to get up and grab food from a communal table.

“Did you skip lunch today?”

“No,” he said. “Just hungry.”

I finished my plate and considered another serving, but I knew I didn’t need it. In a couple minutes, I would feel satiated. I wasn’t packed with pounds of muscle like Bastien, so I couldn’t eat all I wanted, even with the weight I’d lost over the past week.

He finished his second serving—and then ordered a third.

I shouldn’t be aroused by a man’s appetite, but there was something about his that got me going. The fact that he needed to eat thousands of calories a day because he had that much muscle to maintain, because he was strong enough to pick up a table and chuck it across the room like it weighed nothing.

I drank my wine, watched the cars pass on the road outside the window and tried not to stare at him too much because it felt rude. But he didn’t seem to care that he was the only one eating. Didn’t seem to care about anyone’s opinion of anything, frankly.

I liked that about him.

He finished his plate then took a drink from his glass.

“Gonna go for a fourth?”

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