Elaine struggled to act blasé. She reminded herself of the way things had ended between them—or failed to end, depending on how you looked at it. They’d been Romeo and Juliet without the messy final act.

Hardening her heart, she said, “You wouldn’t have. He’s nobody.” Even as she said the words, her throat went tight. Nobody but the only guy who had ever convinced her that magic was real. Nobody but the guy who, on the night she’d gone to offer her heart to him, had stood her up.

“He looks like somebody to me,” Melanie said. “I can’t quite place him.”

“Maybe he’s a movie star,” Bobbi suggested, reaching across the table to snatch the cherry from Mel’s drink.

“If he was a star, we’d know who he is.”

“What’s he doing?” asked Bobbi.

Holding a clipboard with a pen attached, Tony Fiore moved to another table and greeted the people seated there. Again, everyone turned to him, and their faces lit up as though he’d flipped a switch.

“Maybe collecting pledges or donations,” said Jenny. “Who cares? Look at him.”

He set down the clipboard, bracing his hands on the table and bending slightly to lend someone a pen. They could now see the reflective lettering on the back of his bulky parka.

“Well, how about that,” said Melanie. “He’s a cop.”

Elaine stared at him. A cop? He was supposed to be a hockey star. That was the only way she’d made sense of what had happened to them. She’d assumed he’d realized he wouldn’t be able to juggle a professional athlete’s career with falling in love. Now she was forced to consider the idea that he’d thrown her over for the dubious glories of being a cop.

Bobbi shifted in the booth and fussed with the pashmina bunching in her lap. “He’s coming this way, isn’t he?”

Before anyone could reply, he approached their table.

Oh, that smile, Elaine thought, suppressing a groan. Those eyes, the color of melted chocolate. This man, she realized, had a face she couldn’t seem to stop dreaming about no matter how many Christmases had passed.

“Afternoon, ladies,” he said. That voice was another haunting memory that wouldn’t leave her alone. It was deep and self-assured, faintly brushed with the real-world tones of his native Brooklyn.

Elaine fixed a smile on her face, though everything from the neck down froze in panic. “Tony Fiore. It’s been a long time.” She wondered if he realized that tonight was the anniversary of their doom.

“Six years tonight,” he said, staring down at her with appreciation.

Well, thank God, she thought. If he’d failed to remember her, she would have died, right in the middle of Fezzywig’s. But the warmth in his eyes, the extra layer of color in his face, confirmed that he had not forgotten her.