Encore – Steel Brothers Saga Read Online Helen Hardt

Categories Genre: Alpha Male Tags Authors:
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Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 78576 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 393(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
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I eye the plate of goodies, my stomach growling softly. “Yeah, I do actually. I haven’t eaten since dinner last night. Of course, I couldn’t eat once we got here after that plane ride.”

“Yeah, neither could I.” He shoves the plate of croissants toward me. “Please.”

I take one and smear some butter on it. Then I spoon some jam—it looks to be blackberry—onto my plate as well.

“Weird breakfast,” he says. “They don’t do the bacon and egg thing here.”

“It’ll be fun to try something new,” I say.

“Maybe for you.” He frowns. “I have to have some protein in the morning, or my energy is lacking.”

“I’m sure you can get some.”

“Yeah.” He signals to the server.

“Oui, monsieur?”

“S’il vous plaît, I was wondering… Le bacon?”

I sigh. I’ll put Dave out of his misery. “Do you have bacon and eggs?”

She smiles. “Oui, mademoiselle. Eggs…er…scrambled.” Her accent is heavy, but she got the message across.

I look to Dave. “Scrambled? With bacon?”

“Perfect,” he says.

“Right away,” the server says as she walks back.

“I love bread as much as the next guy,” he says, “but if it’s all I eat, I’ll crash in a few hours.”

“Yeah, simple carbs will do that.”

“But that’s all you’re eating.”

I shrug. “It’s all I want right now. I’ll get something else when I need it.”

He nods.

I pull my croissant into halves, spread butter and jam on one, and take a bite.

It’s warm and flaky, and the butter is delicious. Sweet butter, not salted like it is in the US. The jam isn’t too sweet either. It’s perfect.

“Good?” Dave asks.

“Yeah, delicious actually. Try it.”

Dave takes a few bites of his own croissant, washing them down with his café au lait. “It is good. Still, a man needs meat.”

“Here she comes now.”

The server sets a plate in front of Dave. It’s not bacon exactly, more like strips of ham, and two eggs, sunny side up instead of scrambled.

“Merci,” he says politely. Then to me, “I prefer them this way anyway.” He takes another croissant and dips it in one of the egg yolks.

The server raises an eyebrow.

“Sorry, do we not do that here?” Dave asks.

“Whatever you like, monsieur.” She smiles and leaves.

“They can always tell we’re Americans anyway once we talk. Even before we talk, they know us by how we dress,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

I point down at my sneakers. “You don’t see the French wearing shoes like these very often. They only wear tennis shoes for exercising, not for just walking. It’s kind of a tell.”

“How do you know? You’ve never been here, have you?”

“I did a lot of research before this trip,” I say. “I was so excited, and I wanted to know everything.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Brianna coming toward our table.

“Hey,” Brianna says. “You two are here early.”

I wait for Dave to respond, but he doesn’t.

“Just trying to put yesterday behind us,” I say. “Where’s Jesse?”

“He and Rory ordered breakfast in the room with the band.”

“So you won’t be seeing him today?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “They want to rehearse most of the day. He and I will have dinner tonight. Then he said he’ll be able to see some of the sights with me tomorrow. But he also said that you and I should go ahead and see whatever we want today because he knows there won’t be a whole lot of time tomorrow. He’ll have to rehearse during the afternoon.”

I nod. “What do you want to do today, then?”

“Let’s wait for Brock. Maybe we can all agree on what to do.”

“Speak of the devil,” I say.

Brock strolls toward us, looking like the spitting image of his father, only without the silver temples. All of the Steel men are ridiculously good-looking. Brock’s father, Jonah, is the oldest Steel brother. Brock has the same dark hair, same dark eyes, same muscular height and breadth, and same rugged good looks.

Dave’s handsomeness is more polished. But there’s no doubt—every Steel is runway model material.

“Hey,” Brock says. “Garçon?” He motions to one of the servers.

Brianna shakes her head at him. “That’s a woman. Garçon means ‘young man,’ and it’s outdated to use it for a server, even a male one. Please don’t try to speak French here.”

“I think they’d appreciate it.” Brock takes a seat after Brianna sits down.

“They do, if you can actually speak French.” Brianna laughs. “You, my good cousin, did not inherit the gift of language.”

“What’s that, amiga?” Brock smiles.

Brianna rolls her eyes at him. “English for you.”

“Brianna and I speak enough French to get by,” I say.

“Then I guess we’ll have to hang with you two today, right, cuz?”

Dave nods. “I guess so.”

I can’t tell if he’s happy about that or not. We certainly had a nice time last night. But he did say he was thinking about leaving.

Something is off with him—something that wasn’t that way when he first got here.



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