Page 42 of Eat Slay Love

“The other lesson I took away from my past marriage. . .”

I hung on the edge of my seat.

“I lost a woman from not being a good enough man.”

I blinked.

“I vowed to never do that again in my second marriage. It’s now been six years of my being single.”

“Oh.”

“My friends say I closed myself off, but I don’t like to rush the possibility of love. I always believe that therightwoman will show up when I'm the right man to love her."

I stared at him, stunned into silence. It wasn’t just the words—it was the way he said them.

The quiet conviction.

The raw honesty.

The surprising vulnerability.

I knew Fabien was cultured, refined in a way that made charm second nature. A man like him—wealthy, effortlessly smooth, steeped in the kind of confidence that only came from privilege and experience—could probably seduce any woman with a well-placed compliment and a well-aged bottle of wine.

And yet, what struck me wasn’t just the elegance of his words, the practiced cadence of a man who knew how to keep a conversation dripping with intrigue.

No.

It was the fact that he wasn’thidingbehind those things.

He wasn’t just leaning on charm or mystery to keep me interested—he was giving me something far more valuable.

Honesty.

He’d cracked himself open, just slightly, letting me peek into the corners of his past, his wounds, his healing.

A typical playboy would never.

A man just looking to fuck would never either.

This?

This was different.

Because for all his flirtation, for all his seductive teasing, he had just done something far rarer—he had made himselfvulnerable.

And that made me feel like maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t a passing amusement to him.

Maybe I was something more.

Someone he actuallywantedto know, not just seduce.

And God, that was dangerous.

Because for the first time in a long time, I felt the ground shift beneath me.

I swallowed. "And now you think you are therightman?"

Fabien’s lips curved into something faint and thoughtful. "I've been working on myself, doing the things people do to heal. Therapy. Meditation. Even did a trip with my friend to try Ayahuasca."

---