She headed back to the living room, only to discover Elena had cleaned up the place. Her stackable washer rumbled in the background, Elena obviously washing the blanket since it was nowhere in sight. She’d also swept the minimal food wrappers away and lit a candle. But best of all were the plates on Anna’s coffee table.
Two enormous burgers with all the condiments and a generous stack of fries greeted her like a long-lost friend. Two containers with slices of cake decorated the corners of the table. The smell filled the apartment, and for the first time since she’d gotten home, Anna’s stomach growled with a genuine hunger.
Elena bustled out of the kitchen with a wine glass in each hand, put them carefully on the table, and dropped onto the couch. She patted the seat next to her. “Have something to eat. You’re so pale.” It didn’t matter that she and her friend had disagreed during their last phone call, Elena’s voice still held raw concern.
Anna sat down next to her and reached for a plate.
“TV or talk?” Elena asked.
Anna bit into the burger. It was perfect—medium-well with sweet onions and the homemade ketchup that Elena made in huge batches at the restaurant. It flooded her mouth with something like comfort. “Talk,” she said around the food. Of course Elena would wait patiently until she was ready to explain, but waiting seemed worse than getting it out in the open. Far worse. “Obviously, I’m back in town.”
“Obviously.” Elena ate a few bites of her own burger. “What happened?”
Anna’s chest squeezed. “Well, I didn’t tell you the whole story about the holiday vacation.”
Elena made a noise. “I figured as much.”
“The reason I went is that Gabe asked me to pose as his fiancée.”
“He asked you to do what?” Elena exclaimed, the burger only making it halfway to her mouth as she froze, her eyes wide in surprise.
“We’ve been working together for a while and he took me out to celebrate the success of the conference.” That night at the Top of the World restaurant seemed like a million years ago now, but it hadn’t been. “While we were there, he got some bad news about his grandmother—who raised him. Cancer. She wanted everybody home for the holidays, and he didn’t want to show up without proof that he would be all right in the future. That he was happy and in love, something his grandmother desperately wanted for him. So, he asked me to pretend to be engaged to him for the holidays.”
“And you said yes?” Elena shook her head.
“I did say yes. I like Gabe and his family owns a luxury ski resort that goes all-out for Christmas.” This earned her a smile from Elena.
“What, my little fake tree doesn’t do it for you?”
“I wanted to see what it was like.” Anna swirled a fry in a pool of ketchup and popped it in her mouth. “It was gorgeous. I mean—really, absolutely gorgeous. The winter isn’t like anything we have here in the desert. It was like something out of a movie. Even the way I... started to fall for Gabe.”
“Oh, Anna.” Elena bit her lip. “You didn’t.”
“I did. And Gabe fell for me, too. It was so easy because we had to do all these things to make it look right—we had to hold hands, pretend to be in love, and then behind closed doors—”
“He was good behind closed doors, too?” Elena asked, seizing on the comment.
“Very good.” Anna’s face heated. He’d been better than any other man she’d ever been with. Gabe was on another level and she craved more time with him even as she sank into the sadness of never being able to see him again. “But then Freddie showed up.”
Elena did a double-take. “What? At the resort?”
“Yeah. For a vacation with his family and his new girlfriend. Everything blew up in my face.” Anna took Elena through the reception desk scene, feeling like she was living through it all again. It wasn’t any better now. “Gabe asked me to stay, but I left. It was too embarrassing..”
“But if he asked you to stay...”
“We spent the whole time working on things with his family.” Anna’s throat went tight, but she thought it through. “Gabe had spent all his life thinking he wasn’t good enough, and nothing he did would be good enough, but while we were there, I think he...he came to see that wasn’t right.”
“What about you?” Elena said pointedly.
“What about me?”
“Did you figure out that you belonged there, too?”
Anna shot her friend a look. “I don’t belong there. Never will. My dad—”
Elena shot her a sharp gaze, her brow furrowing with intensity. “Your dad what? What your dad did doesn’t have to define everything for you,” she ground out.
She put the burger down. After Gabe had found out about her dad, he’d hesitated. Hadn’t followed her out when she left. Hadn’t spoken to her since. Gabe might have had issues with his family. Who didn’t? Not even money could buy your way out of some family drama. But he’d tried to help her and show her he cared. And he’d protected her.
Anna had been so aware that their arrangement came with an expiration date that she hadn’t been able to see the situation clearly. Gabe’s painful expression when he found her packing made her believe he cared, but it didn’t change anything. He’d let her go.
“Yeah,” Elena said softly. “See?”
“I’m a little annoyed at you for pointing it out,” Anna said, but it wasn’t Elena she was irritated with—it was herself. How long was she going to fixate on the things her dad had done? She could leave those things in the past, where they belonged, and keep living the life she’d built for herself. In fact, that was her only option.
The one thing she couldn’t do was turn back time and fix things with Gabe.
“You can be mad at me.” Elena popped a fry in her mouth. “I know you’ll get over it when you taste the cake.”
“Speaking of cake...” Anna held out a hand, and Elena passed her one of the containers. Chocolate cake—her favorite. The thin layer of white icing on the top would burst on her tongue with so much sweetness it brought tears to her eyes. Anna scooped up a fork from the table and stabbed it into the dessert. Cake, unlike herself, never let her down. Cake was always there for her. “What am I going to do?”
“What do you want to do?” Elena blew out a breath. “I’ll be behind you, no matter what. I know I was...maybe unnecessarily harsh during our phone call, and I hope you know I’m sorry for that, and I’ll support you with whatever you want to do.”
Anna reached out and patted her friend’s hand. “I do know that. You were worried, and you had every right to be. It did turn out to be a disaster.”
“Disasters can be fixed,” Elena said briskly. “You can clean up and start again. Starting with the icing on your face.”
Anna used her finger to wipe off the icing and then licked it off her finger, not wanting to miss a single drop. Somehow, half the cake had disappeared without Anna realizing it. “Even with people, though?”
“Oh, please. You work with disasters all the time. I’ve never heard of a situation you couldn’t fix.”