The Butcher (Fifth Republic Series Book 1)

Bastien’s driver took me home.

He pulled up to the building and let me out, and then I took the long walk up the stairs to my apartment. If Adrien was still watching me, and he probably was, he would know that I had been gone all night.

Which meant he was in my apartment right now, waiting to bulldoze me.

I got the key into the lock and stepped inside. When I walked to the dining table where I normally put my stuff because it was such a small apartment, I saw him on the couch, looking mad as hell. “This really needs to stop⁠—”

“We are still married.” He got to his feet, the volume of the choice making the glass shake. He was the maddest he’d been since the day I’d met him, his face red like a tomato. “You think I’m out fucking around?” He raised his left hand, showing the wedding ring he claimed he never removed.

“You were fucking around when we were married, so⁠—”

“Enough of this.” His hand tightened into a fist at his chest, doing his best to control the rage that enveloped him. “We are married, Fleur. Husband and wife. Till death do us part.”

“Our marriage ended the second you fucked someone else, Adrien. Just because the courts recognize us as legally married doesn’t mean our hearts are married. You can keep blocking the judge from granting the divorce, but that doesn’t mean a damn thing. We are done.”

“You said you would think about it⁠—”

“I said I needed space. Don’t twist my words around.”

He stepped closer to me. “You said you would think about it until this asshole showed up. Who is he?”

Like I would answer.

“Tell me his fucking name.”

“No.” I did not need two guys fighting over me like lions.

“You haven’t been out of the house for a month and you’re already moving on, but I’m the unfaithful one?”

“Adrien—”

“We are married.”

“You can keep saying that, but it doesn’t make it true,” I snapped. “It’s a goddamn piece of paper. Doesn’t mean a damn thing.”

“You think I won’t kill this guy?” he barked. “Because I fucking will.”

“When Cecilia told me you fucked her, do you think I went apeshit and threatened to kill her and all this macho bullshit? No. I said thank you for letting me know and walked away like a normal person. You act like this guy is responsible for our divorce, when I left you before I met him. You act like he’s the problem when you fucking someone else was the problem.”

He paused for a moment and dragged his hands down his face, like that was all he could do to stop himself from throwing a chair across the room. “I’ve been miserable these last four weeks. Fucking miserable. And you don’t seem all that upset to me.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” The nights I cried in my apartment alone, the raindrops pelting the windowpane and matching the drops on my cheeks, the days when I didn’t eat anything at all. The days when I couldn’t breathe at all. “You have no idea how much you hurt me because I won’t fucking show it. I won’t give you the satisfaction.”

“Satisfaction?” he asked incredulously. “I hate myself for what I did. Would do anything to take it back. Everything that made this marriage work is still here. You and I are both here. Just come home and make this work with me.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and stepped away, still smelling Bastien all over me, feeling his hands on my cheek and my neck. “I believe you’re sorry, Adrien. I believe you would take it back. But that’s not enough for me, not when I feel this way.”

“People make mistakes, Fleur. I’m not perfect and neither are you.”

“I know,” I said simply. “But this is one mistake I don’t want my husband to make.” I wanted a happily ever after. I wanted to be the only woman in his life, to know where I stood in his heart at all times. To not care when he was out late at night because I knew he was faithful to me.

Adrien started to pace slowly, his dark wedding ring still on his hand, his handsome face forlorn in defeat. He stopped at the window and dragged his fingers across his jawline. I expected him to say something else, but he didn’t. He just stared out the window I’d stared out so many times, and then he walked out.

Days passed, and the numbness in my veins continued to spread. Rejecting Adrien over and over had taken its toll. Even though I’d moved out because of his treason, I had been in shock for weeks. I’d sat by the window and cried my heart out. Sometimes I’d wondered if Cecilia was lying because she had an ulterior motive, but Adrien confirmed his infidelity, so it was true. The last person I’d expected to hurt me had hurt me the most.

And then I moved into the next stage of grief—anger.

It was easier to be angry than to actually feel the sting of his deceit. It was easier to hate him than to think about how good it felt for him to fuck her and think he got away with it. It was easier to be angry than to accept that my marriage had only lasted three years before it went to shit. It was easier to be pissed as hell than to admit that I really loved him…and that was why it hurt so much.

I was on the couch watching the rain hit the windows when my phone vibrated with a text. Adrien hadn’t contacted me since he’d left, so I suspected it was him, unable to maintain the silence a moment longer.

But I checked the screen—and it was Bastien.

You haven’t been at work.

The rush of passion I felt for him was dulled by my sadness. I’ve been off. That was a lie. I’d called in sick because I didn’t want to wait on people with a fake smile plastered to my face. The burglary had had no effect on my well-being, but this divorce had stripped me to the bone.

You okay, sweetheart?

How did he know? How could he possibly read my misery through a text? Why do you ask that?

Because I can tell you aren’t yourself.

I stared at his message over and over, unable to understand how he could read me so well. How he seemed to know me so thoroughly when he was still a stranger. When he was just a man who kept my bed warm and chased away the loneliness. I never responded to the message, unsure how to do so. Most of the friends I had were friends with Adrien, and while they thought he was an asshole for what he did, they all agreed I should give him another chance because he loved me. So I stood on the mound of my principles alone.

Let’s get a drink.

I’m not in the mood…but thank you. I set my phone aside then looked at the rain again, watched it hit the window and streak down. There was a heaviness to my heart, an anchor that would make it sink to the bottom of the river and remain there forever. I hadn’t felt this bad since the day I’d moved out of the house. Adrien had let me go, but he must have suspected it was temporary at the time.

Thirty minutes later, there was a quiet knock on the door.

My eyes turned to the hallway, unsure who would come to my door when I was on the top floor and Adrien just let himself inside whenever he felt like. It might be a solicitor, so I stayed on the couch and waited for them to go away.

Then the door opened, and Bastien appeared in my apartment.

I was in shock, so I just stared, unable to believe this gorgeous man had just let himself into my apartment like he had the key. He had a paper bag with him, and he placed it on the dining table without explanation. He was in sweatpants, sneakers, and a long-sleeved shirt, looking like a regular guy rather than someone who was insanely rich.

There were a lot of rich people in Paris. It was one of the most expensive cities in the world, so it was full of people who made their millions in all sorts of ways. Bastien was young, so I should be surprised by his hundred-million-euro house by the Seine, but somehow, I wasn’t.

He took a seat beside me on the couch, his arm resting over the back, leaving a foot of space between us. Then he stared at me, not seeming to care that I looked like shit after sitting on that couch for days, watching the world pass me by like I was no longer a part of it.

He continued to stare.

I stared back, and with every passing second, I felt better. Like the light from his eyes somehow healed me. I didn’t ask why he was there, didn’t ask how he’d gotten into the apartment, didn’t ask all the normal questions I would have asked someone else. When Adrien broke in to my apartment, it made me so angry. But with Bastien, I didn’t care.

He hadn’t blinked since he sat down, looking at me with such intensity it seemed like he might kiss me, even though I knew he wouldn’t.

I cleared my throat. “What’s in the bag?”

“Those pancakes you like.”

My eyes softened at the unexpected gesture, a gesture that a man like him seemed incapable of making. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know.” His fingers rested on the back of the couch, close enough they could touch my hair if they wanted, but they stayed put. “We can talk about it or not talk about it. I’m here either way.”

“I don’t understand…” I remembered our first conversation in that bar, remembered looking into those startling blue eyes like it had just happened. The way his voice had sounded over the quiet noise of the piano, his confident aura. “You aren’t a nice guy, but you’re being awfully nice to me.”

He didn’t say anything to that, just continued to stare at me like I’d never said anything.

I didn’t dig deeper. “He hurt me first, but I still hate hurting him.”

He watched me in silence.

“I’m not the one who cheated, but somehow I feel like the bad guy.”

He didn’t give advice or cast judgment. Just sat there and listened.

“He kept asking who you are.”

“Tell him.”

“You don’t need the drama in your life.”

“I’ll read him a chapter from Manhood,” he said. “He obviously hasn’t read it.”

“I’m really afraid he might try to kill you.”

He released a quiet chuckle. “That’d be fun to watch.”

I pulled my knees to my chest, circling my arms around them. “Everyone in our life is telling me to give him another chance. My friends are saying it was a mistake and he loves me. He keeps showing up at my apartment and fighting for me.”

His blue eyes turned serious as he stared at me, steady like a cliff that stood still when the waves broke against the stone. “You’re thinking about everyone else when you should be thinking about yourself. What do you want, sweetheart?”

My eyes flicked away, realizing he was right, that I was more concerned with everyone else. “What you said about trust being like broken glass, it’s really stuck with me. No matter how many times I sweep, I still step on shards that I missed.”

His eyes burned into my cheek, steady and true.

“What do you think?” I turned back to him.

He smirked. “You can’t trust my opinion, not when it’s so biased.”

“Why is it biased?” I asked.

He cocked his head slightly, his eyebrows furrowing in a form of confusion. He propped his closed knuckles against his temple as he continued to look at me, giving me a long and hard stare. “Because I want you.”

My eyes immediately dropped to shut out the sincerity of his stare. He’d told me he wasn’t a one-woman kind of guy, that he stuck his dick in lots of places so he wouldn’t settle down. I assumed that was still true, even now. But I felt doubts.

“Look at me.”

My eyes lifted to his again.

“I already gave my opinion on this. All a man has in this world is his word. If he doesn’t have that, then he doesn’t have shit. Your husband can look you in the eye and say it’ll never happen again, but because his word is worthless, it falls on deaf ears. But if you love him and want to give it another try, then you need to give him the opportunity to earn back that trust. And there’s no shame in that—if that’s what you want.”

I spoke to him like a friend even though I hardly knew him. Poured my heart out to him like we’d known each other forever. I’d never had another connection like that. When Adrien and I had started our relationship, it wasn’t nearly as natural. “What if this were you? What if your wife slept with someone and said it was a mistake?”

He inhaled a slow breath before he let it out, as if he’d just taken a puff of an invisible cigar. “That’s a hard scenario to imagine.”

“Because you’ll never marry?”

“Because I can’t see my woman doing that. Can’t imagine her seeking love and affection elsewhere when I’d already given her everything.”

“I gave him everything. The bedroom wasn’t dead. We were very happy when all of this happened, which makes it even more painful.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t,” he said gently. “Trust me, it’s hard for me to imagine a man preferring another woman over you. No amount of wine can impair you to that degree.”

That made me feel better—and made me feel worse. “You didn’t answer the question. What would you do…if that did happen?”

He took another breath as he considered it, his eyes drifting off elsewhere as he thought. “I’ve never loved a woman so I can’t definitively respond to the situation, but I imagine if I did…it would be hard to let her go.”

“So, you think I should give my marriage another chance?”

“Not what I’m saying at all,” he said. “The situations are incomparable—and hypothetical. I see that you’re searching for an epiphany, something that will help you understand which route to take, so let me tell you this…”

I stilled, knowing whatever he would say would be profound.

“You’re too fucking beautiful for this bullshit. Because if you were mine—” He shut his mouth immediately but kept his eyes locked on mine, like he wished he could take back what he’d said, but it was too late. “You wouldn’t have to make this decision in the first place.”