Page 71 of Midnight Surrender to the Spaniard

‘I got to hold her!’

Emily was both smiling and crying when Anna took in the completed blanket.

‘I actually feel like a mother now.’

‘Of course you’re a mother!’ Anna hugged her friend.

‘Alejandro is going to hold her tomorrow. It’s too much for her to have us both all in one day,’ Emily explained. ‘How’s Willow?’

‘Wondering why there are so few photos of you,’ Anna admitted.

‘I’ll put some make-up on and we can go outside and call her.’

‘Thank you.’

Emily was brilliant with Willow, never letting on about the drama in her heart, and Anna loved her friend so much for that.

‘She’s certainly enjoying Scotland,’ Emily said as they stood outside for a moment longer, enjoying the breeze and the sun. And then she looked properly at her friend. ‘You look different...’

‘I’ve been lying in the sun,’ Anna said.

‘No, it’s more than that...’

‘I got my hair done.’

‘I know—Carmen told me. You just look so...’ Anna watched her friend as she struggled to place what was different.

Everything was different.

She had fallen for the very man Emily had warned her about. She’d been told it would hurt, and it did.

Maybe it was good that she was leaving on Sunday, Anna thought. Time was passing fast. And now this odd wall had gone up between them and she didn’t know how to push through.

She and Emily told each other so much, but Anna did not want to share this. Emily knew her well, and would know she’d be hopeless at a casual relationship.

Emily would tell her what she knew already—that Sebastián was a playboy...that he went through women like most men went through socks...

And she didn’t want future visits in Spain to be uncomfortable.

So she didn’t tell her friend what was going on.

More than that, Anna was trying not to admit to herself what was going on in her heart.

Certainly she could not tell Sebastián.

She didn’t want it to be Friday already, and yet it was.

They met at the marina, where they sat watching expensive cars and gorgeous people descending upon the hotspot.

‘Are you looking forward to tomorrow?’ Anna asked as she twirled the straw in her glass.

‘It’ll be like herding cats...’

Anna laughed and waited for him to elaborate.

He did not.

And so they finished their drinks and wandered the streets. She peered in designer shop windows at Fabergé eggs and all things incredible...

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