“The ‘one last fling’ guy?” Lily asked. “That’s him?”

Eve nodded. “Charlie Templeton.”

“You dumped him for Matt?” Lily stared at her as if she’d just admitted to serving puppy fritters with kitten aioli to the customers. “Dweeby, whiny, needy Matt?”

“I didn’t know he was like that when I married him. He seemed-dependable. It was only after the wedding I realized he was looking for a mother, not a wife. And Charlie was everything a girl is supposed to be afraid of. After a month of nonstop sex, he told me he was going to be gone for six months. At the time, I needed a man who’d be there for more than a bi-annual sexfest.”

“Semi-annual,” Lily corrected. “And now he’s back.”

“Five years later. Five years and not a word. No phone call, no postcard. Now can you understand my decision?”

“Why do you think he came back?” Eve had a niggling suspicion. In truth, she wasn’t proud of what she’d done. And it had come after an other very expensive bottle of wine and an evening of feeling sorry for herself. She’d happened upon a Web site called SmoothOperators.com, a place where women could off-load all their dating horror stories. She’d been so fed up with men that night, she’d created a profile for every bad date she’d ever been on, full of all the tiny details describing the men who’d done her wrong. And Charlie Templeton had been at the top of the list. In many ways, she blamed him for her bad marriage and painful divorce.

Had he stayed, maybe just a few days more, even a week, she might have realized that marrying Matt was the wrong choice. She would have come to understand that passion was much more important than security.

“It could just be coincidence,” Eve murmured. “The last time he was here, I was just head chef. He doesn’t know I own the restaurant now.”

“Or maybe he does and he’s come to see you. You won’t know unless you go out there and talk to him.”