Free Beautiful Stranger by Zoey Dean

believer in mixing business with pleasure whenever possible. And while he’d been showering and packing, she’d gotten a terrific idea. In fact, she’d already made a few phone calls to put that idea into action.
    “You know, I’m not doing much over the next few days,” Sam said casually. She hoped he’d invite her to go with him. She hadn’t been in Manhattan since the previous fall for a film festival at Lincoln Center, and she loved it there. What fun that would be, and so romantic: in New York City with her new fiancé. And if she booked a suite at the Hotel Gansevoort down in the old Meatpacking District, there’d be plenty of opportunity for pleasure.
    “Well, hang out with your friends,” Eduardo suggested. “And work on finding the right script for your sensational movie.”
    Either he hadn’t gotten her hint or he hadn’t
wanted
to get her hint. No, that was impossible. It was the former, not the latter. Either one had the same operative effect: He was going alone. Then he gave her a quick kiss goodbye, said he’d call when he could, and was out the door. Sam padded back into the bedroom with his untouched coffee and sprawled out on Eduardo’s bed. She felt disappointed, slightly ticked, and—okay, she had to admit—somewhat anxious. Her brand-spanking-new fiancé had just taken off for the other side of the country, and he hadn’t even thought of inviting her to go along.
    “Me? I am the last person in the world who should give you guy advice. Because if someone were grading me, I’d flunk.”
    Anna stirred some milk into her pot of English Breakfast tea as she spoke. She and Sam were sitting at an outdoor table at the City Bean coffee emporium, on Lindbrook Drive near UCLA. Each of them had chosen a jeans/T-shirt combo. Even though it was early August, the Westwood district was bustling with students—almost as bustling, Anna thought, as Bleecker Street back home in New York. Sam had called an hour earlier with the news that Eduardo had had to leave on a last-minute business trip to New York, and hadn’t even considered inviting her along. She needed help figuring out what it meant.
    But that hadn’t been the shocking news. No, the shocker was the late morning sun sending glimmers of refracted light off the rock on her left ring finger. Anna had already said the requisite “I’m so happy for you.” And she certainly was happy that Sam was happy, especially because Anna really liked Eduardo.
    But
engaged
? Sam? It seemed so out there, so … so premature. Anna wondered—though she didn’t dare say it—if Sam hadn’t said yes because she was afraid of losing Eduardo. If that was the case, it seemed like the wrong way to be betrothed.
    Betrothed. Was that even a word that anyone used anymore? And what insight could she possibly offer into the Eduardo-asked-me-to-marry-him-one-day-and-took-off-for-New-York-without-me-the-next crisis? She herself had barely slept the night before because of her fight with Ben. They’d argued before, but this was different. He’d said horrible things designed to cut her. She felt as if she’d been bled out; used up, empty, and fragile. She was the last person on the planet who could help a friend figure out the mind of her newly minted fiancé. Wasn’t that supposed to happen
before
two people got engaged?
    They were sitting close to the low-slung redbrick building, behind a short red wooden fence that separated the café seating from the sidewalk. Anna looked around. Every table was taken—didn’t anyone in Los Angeles work during the day? To Anna’s left was a young woman who carried a small white Pomeranian with an emerald collar. She was bellowing into her cell phone at a volume that could be heard in San Diego, ignoring the older woman—her mother, most likely—with whom she sat. To their right was a twentysomething couple who were clearly in the throes of lust. They had matching short punk hairdos and matching nose rings. As they held