Free Beautiful Stranger by Zoey Dean Page A

hand’s across the table, they had eyes only for each other. Their full cappuccinos sat untouched.
    She and Ben had been that way once.
    “When I asked Ben and Caine to date me … at the same time,” Anna began, “was that when I wrecked everything? I really want to know.”
    “Maybe.” Sam sighed. “Of course, if Cammie were here, she’d say definitely. But what I wanna know is, would Eduardo have invited me to New York if I’d said no to his marriage proposal? Let me answer that. Maybe. Maybe now he doesn’t even think he needs to make an effort?”
    “Maybe.” Anna sighed. A lot of maybes. At least Sam wasn’t sugarcoating the bad news for her, so she wasn’t about to sugarcoat it for Sam. She’d felt so strong when she’d asked Ben and Caine to take a step back and date her. It had seemed like such an independent, powerful notion. Something that an active heroine would do. But look where it had led. The truth was self-evident: Both guys had dropped her.
    Sam said she was hungry, and a waitress with butt-length platinum blond hair, whose fat-injected lips were spackled with strawberry lip gloss, came to take their lunch order. They both ordered chicken Caesar salads. Not that Anna had any kind of an appetite—she could never eat when she was upset, even though she knew Sam was just the opposite. As if to illustrate that, Sam called the Donatella Versace lookalike waitress back and added a side of fries.
    “The Caine thing doesn’t really hurt,” Anna mused aloud when the waitress had gone inside to place their order. “Except for my ego, I mean. But Ben—”
    “I don’t get why you did what you did. You’re in love with the boy and you pushed him away.”
    “Because it all happened so fast—”
    “Oh, please.” Sam waved a dismissive hand. “Look how fast it happened between me and Eduardo. When it’s right, it’s right.” She downed the café Americano she’d ordered when they arrived. “God. Sometimes I wish I smoked. This would be a great time for a cigarette. Of course, you can’t smoke in public anymore, anyway. Where was I? Oh yeah. Maybe I don’t get this little New York wrinkle, but I’m wearing his engagement ring. I must be doing something right.”
    Anna didn’t necessarily agree, but there was no point in saying so. Nothing felt right anymore; not the California sun slanting down, not the crystalline blue sky, not the smell of the salty ocean just a few miles away, not the pouty-lipped waitress or the movie-star-handsome valet she saw getting into the cherry red Lamborghini as its balding fiftysomething owner flipped him the keys.
    She recalled Caine telling her that she didn’t belong with Ben, that he was a Beverly Hills kid and “that’s just not you.” Maybe it was West Coast Ben who hadn’t fit with East Coast her. Maybe this whole experiment was a failure. Maybe she didn’t belong here at all.
    “I’m ready to go home.” Anna felt the words spill out of her.
    “I hear ya,” Sam agreed with a brisk nod, dumping a packet of Equal into her steaming coffee. “But stay with me. If I eat french fries alone, I’ll never forgive myself. And I’ll never forgive you if you don’t eat half of them.”
    “I don’t mean home to my father’s place,” Anna said slowly, stirring her tea as the idea began to form itself more fully in her mind. “I mean … home to New York.” She looked up into Sam’s surprised eyes. “Yale starts in three weeks anyway. What’s the point in hanging out here now?” She shrugged and put her spoon back down on the table. “I should just pack my stuff and go back to Manhattan.”
    “Um … me?” There was a palpable edge to Sam’s voice. “You’ve got a job with my dad’s company helping me read scripts, remember? We’re looking for one for me to direct too?”
    “I can do that from New York. You can just FedEx me scripts and—”
    “How about a little thing called friendship?”
    Anna saw the hurt in Sam’s eyes and