Gabi looked hurt. ‘You don’t think he’d want to propose to me?’

‘Oh, Gabi!’ Anna pulled her into a large, rustling hug. ‘Of course I think he should want to propose to you! He’d be lucky to have you.’ Really lucky. ‘But do you think you’re ready? It’s still quite soon to be thinking about marriage.’

And, she didn’t want to add this, she wasn’t one hundred per cent sure Lee was ready either. Not that he didn’t look very invested in Gabi whenever Anna saw them together. It was just a feeling she’d had for a while, fuelled by something that had happened at salsa the other week when Gabi had an evening shoot and hadn’t been able to go.

Anna had left the hall just as the social dance part of the evening had started, heading for the Ladies, when she’d spotted Lee and the girl with the swooshy ponytail together in a corner of the winding corridor. They’d been standing a respectable distance apart, hadn’t even been touching, but something about it had made Anna feel uneasy.

She pulled back and made eye contact with her best friend. ‘This is big, Gabi. Huge. We’re talking about the rest of your life.’

Or his, Anna added silently, unable to stop thinking about her own marriage.

‘Didn’t you once tell me that you knew you were going to marry Spencer after your third date?’

Ah. There was that. Past Anna had kind of sabotaged Present Anna’s very sensible point, hadn’t she?

‘Is it that you don’t think Lee and I are good together?’ Gabi asked, brows pinched together.

‘No, it’s not that…’ And it really wasn’t. ‘I just don’t want you to jump in with both feet and get hurt.’

‘You did – with Spencer.’

‘I know,’ Anna said, her heart sinking like a lead weight. She returned Gabi’s anxious gaze. ‘And look how that turned out.’

‘But not because he didn’t love you enough.’

‘No,’ Anna conceded. ‘Not because of that. But it didn’t make it any less painful when it all came to an abrupt end.’ She paused, finding her throat too tight to continue for a moment. ‘I just don’t want you to have to go through anything even vaguely resembling that.’

Gabi kind of wilted at that point and all the fight leached out of her. She pulled Anna in for a one-armed hug and kissed the side of her head. ‘I get it now. Thank you. But…’

Anna gave her a squeeze and pulled away to look at her. ‘But…?’

Gabi’s expression became determined. ‘But you can’t go through life avoiding love on the off-chance that it all goes horribly wrong at some point.’

Can’t you? Anna thought. In that moment, it seemed a terrifically good idea. Could she even do it all again? Now she’d paid that price once, she knew just how high and devastating the stakes were, and Anna had never been much of a gambler.

But if she really thought that, what was she doing even dating Jeremy, knowing he was looking for something serious ultimately? There had been one more oh-so-casual dinner last Saturday night, and tonight they were due to go out for their third. She’d thought she’d been ready to at least start down that path, but it seemed her true feelings about long-term relationships – the feelings she’d just splurged all over her best friend – were contradicting her.