Ch19_EAA_EBOOK #2
“I’m still a lawyer, you know.” I laughed as I stabbed my fork into my salad. “If your dazzling charm and cutting wit doesn’t score thousands in tips every night, I’ll pay you child support.”
He picked up his fork and winked. “Good to know you’ll always take care of me.”
After we ate, he headed to the bar to get us drinks and I took the opportunity to visit the bathroom.
After I banished four goblets of water from my body, I stood at the sinks and touched up my lip gloss.
A beautiful woman wearing a bright green dress stood at the mirror next to me, wiping away mascara fallout from beneath her eyes.
The bathroom door burst open and another woman in a yellow gown rushed toward the woman in green.
“Tiffany, oh my God,” the woman in yellow said. “You’ll never believe it—Beau Fontaine is here!”
My hand froze, the lip gloss wand pressing into my lower lip. Slowly, I kept applying my gloss so it wasn’t obvious that I was eavesdropping.
Tiffany rolled her eyes and opened her clutch. “You’re right, I don’t believe it.” She pulled out a tube of champagne lip gloss and swiped it across her plump lips. “No one has seen him in the city in years.”
The woman in yellow folded her arms and leaned against the wall. “Oh yeah? Do you know anyone else who is tall, blonde, and orders Old Fashioneds like they’re prescribed to him?”
Tiffany’s eyes widened as she dropped her tube of lip gloss into her clutch. “We have to tell her—this is her chance.”
Her? Who was this her?
The two women left the bathroom as I twisted the lip gloss tube closed tighter than it was designed to go. I eyed “The Fontaine Family” sign at the bottom of my clutch, but I tossed my lip gloss in and snapped it shut.
Just because Beau lived with me didn’t mean I had any claim to him.
So what if those women were excited to see him?
They were the kinds of women he was going to end up marrying, anyway.
Hell, the future stepmother to my children could have been outside enjoying the gala and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.
I shoved open the bathroom door and made a beeline for the table. I sat down just in time to spot Beau heading toward me with an Old Fashioned in one hand and something fizzy and red in the other.
He sat down and handed me the red drink. “They call it the Cherry Blossom. No alcohol, of course.”
I gave him a tight smile as a thanks and took a sip from the straw.
Cherry syrup flooded onto my tongue like a sugary punch to the mouth.
I stirred my straw to mix the syrup with the soda when I spotted what looked like a tiny stick amongst the ice.
Carefully, I plucked out the stick only to find that it was a stem—a cherry stem.
I laughed. “Would you look at that.” I pointed to the two cherries hanging from the short stem. “They’re twins!”
He rested his cheek on his fist. “Fitting, and adorable.”
I held out the cherries and a naughty gleam crossed his eyes. Instead of just taking the cherries from me, he leaned forward and bit the fruit right off the stem.
A giggle burst out of me. “Damn it, Beau, I wasn’t trying to feed you!”
He shrugged as he swallowed the cherries. “My mistake. After that child support comment, I thought you were waiting on me hand-and-foot for once.”
I rolled my eyes and took another sip of my drink as I looked around the room for the women in the yellow and green dresses. Maybe they were off in a corner with their mysterious friend, plotting a way to approach Beau and secure a proposal before the night’s end.
If they were willing to put up with his sassy ass for all eternity, they could have him.
As I scanned the room, my eyes caught a familiar face at one of the back tables—one of the partners at my old firm. In fact, the whole table was full of people from my old firm.
I stared at them until I locked eyes with the gray-haired asshole who fired me. Emboldened by my pregnancy super power of not giving a fuck, I raised my drink in acknowledgement. Flustered and embarrassed, he looked away.
Cowards, all of them. Good luck ever getting a $98 million verdict again.
I turned back when I spotted Tiffany and her friend sitting at a table. They whispered to a woman with golden hair twisted in an elegant chignon and all three women glanced at our table.
The blonde woman’s eyes widened as she looked past me to find Beau and—oh.
Oh my God, it was Katie.
I stared down at the black tablecloth and sucked down my drink, wishing more than ever that I could have actual alcohol.
Of course Katie would be at the gala. Of course she was still interested in Beau. Of course she was wearing a slinky periwinkle dress that showed off just how slim and perky she still was.
If I wasn’t sure Beau and I weren’t going to end up together before, I was absolutely certain now. The man still kept photos of Katie in his room, for God’s sake. He could lament over her breaking his heart and having no integrity, but he’d been secretly wanting her to come back all along.
I swallowed my last sip. There was no way he hadn’t seen her by now.
I had left him to drink his whiskey and let his eyes wander.
The strange relationship purgatory that Beau and I had lived in for the past few months would end tonight.
In five minutes, he would make an excuse to get up and go find her.
No, I couldn’t wait five more minutes. If I saw him looking at her the way he used to, I’d know where his heart was.
I took in a deep breath and held it, refusing to let myself breathe again until I took the plunge and confirmed my suspicions. As my lungs tightened, I forced my eyes to flick to the side and I caught him.
Beau had his hand wrapped loosely around his drink. His eyes were soft and his jaw was relaxed—like he was gazing at the moon.
It was the exact look he had given Katie in their engagement photos, only he wasn’t looking at Katie.
He was looking at me.
My cheeks flushed as my eyes met his, but I turned my head to the stage as the music changed from soft jazz to a gentle, romantic beat.
Beau got up and held out his hand. “Time for your exercise for the day.”
I held my breath as he helped me out of my chair and led me to the dance floor to begin a slow waltz. I followed his lead, just like when we had practiced back at home, but I couldn’t focus on dancing.
Why had he been looking at me? Were his paternal instincts just that strong? Everything Beau had done for me was to keep me happy and healthy for the good of the twins, but Annie and Brady gave him no reason to look at me like…like that.
Beau slowly spun me and I forced myself to come back to earth as he pulled me into his chest, the front of my belly resting against him.
I looked up at him. “You paid the band for this, didn’t you?”
He smirked. “Of course I did.”
“Do you even know this song?”
“No. Do you?”
I shook my head. He glanced back at the band before looking down at me. “We’ll just call this one ‘ours,’ then.”
Other couples joined us on the dance floor as I retreated into myself.
What did ours even mean?
Ashley and I had anthems we would belt in the car, songs that I would definitely call ours. The time we both went viral in college was ours. We had jokes that were ours, memories that were ours, and sacred gossip sessions that were undoubtedly ours.
Beau and I had spent so much time together that we would inevitably have things that were ours, too. I supposed a slow waltz was just the first one either of us would name.
Beau was my friend, just like Ashley was.
But Ashley had never looked at me like Beau just did.
And as Beau gently led me around the dance floor with my pregnant belly pressed against him, I didn’t think anyone watching us would say we were just friends.
My back started to ache, giving me the perfect escape that I needed.
I swallowed and my eyes flicked up to meet his. “I think I’ve given this all I can handle.”
He spun me once as the song ended. “As long as you got what you wanted out of tonight, we can end it early.” He held his arm out for me to grab. “Do you want me to get you a dessert plate before we head up to the room?”
I smiled as I wrapped my hands around his bicep. “Is that even a question?”
Beau had booked a king bed suite on the top floor of the hotel.
I sat on my usual side of the bed in my baby blue nightgown, the eucalyptus smell from the hotel shower gel still lingering on my body.
My e-reader rested on top of my bump as I read a very spicy dark romance and listened to the gentle rainfall sound from the bathroom as Beau took his shower.
Just as the dark-hearted hero was about to chase the heroine through the woods, my e-reader wobbled. Annie and Brady were awake.
The heat drained from my cheeks—suddenly my book seemed much too vulgar now that I had company.
I lifted my e-reader and looked down at my bump. “There was a content warning at the beginning of the book, you know. Nothing in this story is appropriate for babies, so settle down!”
The bathroom door opened, sending wisps of steam toward the bed, and Beau strolled out as he towel-dried his hair. He hadn’t bothered to put on his usual sleep shirt and the pajama bottoms I had gotten him for Christmas rested low on his hips.
He tossed me a look. “Do your dark and twisty little books have you talking to yourself now?”
I scoffed and set my e-reader on my nightstand. “No, the children are just being rambunctious.”
“And who do you have to blame for that?” Beau said with a smirk as he put the towel back in the bathroom.
“I don’t know,” I said as I took off my glasses and placed them on top of the e-reader. “Probably the parent who spent time in jail.”
Beau sank into the bed beside me and rested his cheek on his fist. “Fine, deny any responsibility. I’ll just update my will in case you go off the wall and make me the subject of ‘Murder in the Heartland’ season three.”