Page 105 of A Chef's Kiss for Christmas

“I haven’t changed. I’m still not outgoing, and I think it’s safe to say I’ll never be the life of the party.”

“I don’t care,” he said, a brittleness to his voice. “I really don’t.”

“You didn’t want to be with me because of my personality,” she said, unable to hide her bitterness. “And to make that point even clearer, you then dated a bunch of women who were everything I’m not…”

“Anna,” he pleaded, but she didn’t let him speak.

“And you paraded them in front of me as though hurting me once wasn’t enough. You had to keep twisting the knife.” Tears filled her eyes, and she hated them.

“None of them could even come close to comparing to you.” He reached across the table, but she didn’t want his comfort. Not now. “Maybe to start with, I brought a date to annoy you. I thought if you got jealous, maybe we could figure things out. Which I realise is pathetic. But it was even more pathetic because it seemed as though you didn’t care. After that, I felt I had tobring someone so no one would notice what a mess I was without you.”

“Apparently they all noticed, anyway. Everyone but me, who genuinely thought you were having the time of your life.”

“You always seemed fine with it.”

“I wasn’t,” she admitted sadly.

“I’m sorry.”

She wiped a tear that slipped from the corner of her eye. “It doesn’t matter any more.”

“It does,” he said. “I hate that I hurt you.”

She huffed out a humourless laugh. “So what are you thinking – that we’ll call it water under the bridge and get back together?”

“I’m not saying it would be as easy as that.”

“But you want to get back together?”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to fix things with us.”

The desire to laugh was almost overwhelming. It was only the earnestness of Hayden’s gaze that prevented her.

“You broke things off because of my personality,” she said again.

“That’s not…” He closed his eyes briefly, apparently searching for an answer when they both knew there wasn’t one.

“How could we make that work?” she asked, reaching for his hand and covering it with her own as all her anger disappeared. “I’d just be waiting for you to get bored with me again.”

He shook his head, but clearly thought better of arguing.

“If it’s an option, I think we could be friends.” She squeezed his knuckles. “Properly friends, not just because we have mutual friends.”

“I don’t know if I can do that. Not now, at least. Not when you’re seeing someone.” He paused. “You are still seeing Warren?”

“Yeah,” she said hesitantly.

He raised an eyebrow, and she realised it would be cruel to leave him with a spark of hope.

“Things are a little complicated…”

“Complicated like you might ditch him and sort things out with your ex?”

The joke only narrowly covered his vulnerability.

“No. Things are complicated, but…” Her stomach fluttered wildly. “I’m excited to see where it goes.”

It took Hayden a moment to speak. “It would have been better if you’d chosen someone easier for me to hate.”