Page 104 of A Chef's Kiss for Christmas

“Do you really think you might open your own flower shop?” he asked once the food arrived. “At the Christmas party, I got the impression you were thinking about it seriously.”

“I don’t know. It’s something I think about from time to time. But more like a pipe dream, I suppose.” She took a bite of fish – tasty, but the batter wasn’t as good as Warren’s. “I’ve been thinking about it a bit more seriously, but I still don’t know. It feels like a risk.”

“What would you do, take a loan from Lewis?”

“If I were serious, I’d make a business plan and see if I could get a bank loan.”

Hayden took a swig of his Coke. “I guess it might feel weird to borrow from your brother,” he said with a questioning lilt.

“Lewis would give me the money regardless of whether he thought it was a good business idea or not. That would feel weird. And if it turned out not to be a good financial decision and I couldn’t pay him back, I’d feel terrible.”

Hayden nodded. “I suppose that could be uncomfortable.”

“Anyway, I’m fine as I am for now. It can stay a pipe dream until I get fed up with working for someone else.”

They finished their food in silence, and Hayden waited for the waitress to clear their plates before he gave her that look that Anna knew too well. The look he had when he wanted to say something serious. He’d had the same look when he’d told her he didn’t want to be with her any more.

“It’s good to catch up with you,” he said, then exhaled a sigh. “I really missed this.”

Anna fixed him with her gaze, and any apprehension she’d had about having this conversation completely left her. “Why did you want to meet up? It wasn’t just to catch up on each other’s lives, was it?”

“No.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “What I said to you at the party the other week…” As he trailed off, Anna found herself amused that he was the uncomfortable one for a change.

“When you said you wished we’d never split up?”

“Yeah. I know this is unfair of me, but you said things weren’t serious yet with Warren… so I thought I should say something before it got serious.”

“Say something about what?” Anna’s emotions were all over the place as she waited for him to say the thing she’d wanted him to say for the last two years.

That he missed her, and he loved her, and that he wanted them to get back together.

“I miss you,” he said, reaching to take her hand.

“Do you?” she asked, anger seeping through her.

“I missed you almost as soon as I broke things off.” With his free hand, he wiped at his brow. “I thought I wanted something else, but I was such an idiot.”

Anna nodded, agreeing with him on that.

“But you didn’t want something else,” she said, not bothering to remove her hand from his, partly because she was intrigued that the contact meant nothing to her. “You wanted someoneelse.”

“I didn’t cheat on you,” he said quickly. “I know it probably seemed as though I started dating other people really quickly, but I swear there was no one else when we were together.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She pulled her hand away and clasped it in her lap. “I meant you didn’t want to be with me.”

He tugged at his earlobe. “I don’t understand?”

“You said you didn’t want to be with me because I was too shy and quiet, and that when we were out together, you had to look after me, and it annoyed you.”

He had the decency to look remorseful as he shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“It was true, though,” she said through a lump in her throat.

“Ithoughtit was true. But I was wrong. I don’t care that you’re not as sociable as I am. It doesn’t matter. We always made it work somehow.”

“We made it work because one of us always compromised,” she pointed out. “I forced myself to go to parties that I had no interest in, and you forced yourself to have more quiet nights at home than you really wanted to.”

“I liked it when we just hung out at home, too.”