Page 54 of The Carver

“I can’t eat both, and I’m not sure if I’m offended or pleased that you think I can.” I set the menu aside.

“Take one to work tomorrow.”

“I already sit on my ass all day. I can’t sit there and eat pasta.”

“You can sit on my face all day if you want.”

I smiled at the joke.

But he stared at me like it wasn’t a joke at all.

The waitress came over, and the second she got a full view of Bastien, she hesitated before she spoke, like she was blindsided by a man so good-looking. Her eyes were wider than they should be, and she fumbled for her pad in her apron.

I couldn’t be angry, not when I understood all too well.

“What can I get you?” she finally said.

“We’ll take a bottle of the Bordeaux,” Bastien said. “I’ll take the chicken, and she’ll have the margherita pizza and the baked ziti.”

Did he really just order both for me?

“Of course.” She took the menus and left.

“How did you know I wanted the margherita pizza?” I asked.

“Because you seemed to like it when Gerard made it for you.”

He paid that much attention? That was something Adrien never would have remembered. “Our waitress must be judging me right now.”

“Who cares if she is.”

Probably wondering what a man like him was doing with a girl who ordered two entrees.

She came back a moment later, uncorked the wine, and filled his glass first, and when he gave a nod, she poured the rest and walked away.

The restaurant was only half full, quiet because it was early for the dinner rush. Bastien and I normally had dinner much later in the evening, but now that I had a job that required me to be behind the desk by nine every day, that had changed.

He drank his wine, licked his lips, and then relaxed in the wooden armchair, his arm over the back of the chair beside him.

I was perfectly content sitting in silence, enjoying the sight of this beautiful man across from me. Beautiful wasn’t even the right word, because a rose in a garden could be beautiful, and this man was hard as stone and rugged as a tree trunk.

He held my stare like he was even more comfortable with the silence, could sit in it for hours.

“How was your week?” I asked.

After a long pause, he gave a slight shrug. “Same as always.”

“What do you do, exactly?”

“On the first of the month, tariffs are due. The weeks leading up to that are spent policing production and distribution, having unscheduled pop-ins to keep everyone on their toes. There are meetings with dealers and investors. And then my obligations to the Senate and President Martin.”

“You sound so busy, I don’t know how you have time for me.”

“I don’t have time for you,” he said. “Imaketime for you.”

I looked into those confident eyes and felt myself float.

“You’re my priority, and it’s my job to make you feel like a priority.”

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