Epilogue #2
When the photographer’s camera clicked on our wedding day, I felt like I had finally won that last football game or crossed the graduation stage with a gold medal. It was the portrait of a perfect ending, I had thought, but the conversation with Tyson scratched at the back of my mind.
Maybe the portrait hadn’t been an ending after all.
I ruminated on the thought as the party wrapped up and the manor slowly quieted. After we kissed the twins goodnight, Olivia sat on the edge of our bed and stared at her slippered feet for far too long.
I sat down next to her just as I heard her first sniffle.
“They’re getting too big, aren’t they?” I said.
She looked up with me with glassy eyes. “Did you know they aren’t infants anymore? We have toddlers now.”
I folded my arms and chewed on the inside of my cheek for a moment. “Feels like we’re at an ending, doesn’t it?”
Olivia took in a ragged breath and nodded.
I looked out the open door into the hallway. Our new bedroom suite was mere steps away. The only lock on the door was a flimsy promise to the TV producer that Olivia wouldn’t see the room until they could film the “big reveal.”
But what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
I stood up and took Olivia’s hands. “What do you say we break in a new bed?”
That got her to smile. She followed my lead as I guided her into the hallway.
“But Beau,” she said in a conspiratorial whisper, “we promised—”
I flashed her a wicked smile as I grabbed the doorknob. “My manor, my rules.”
Olivia peeked around me as I pushed open the bedroom door.
She gasped and gently brushed past me to explore the room.
I leaned on the doorframe, admiring her as she ran her fingertips down the mahogany bedpost of the custom bed.
She moved on to fluff a decorative pillow made with the exact fabric she had put in her “inspiration” file and then smiled when she glanced at the floor beneath the bed.
“The damage from the ax is gone!” she remarked.
When Ashley had asked me on camera what made the deep gashes in the wood, I made sure to stare directly into the lens and let my pointed silence choke the air. Let Elren come up with stories behind a new mystery at Fontaine Manor. They needed something new to gossip about, anyway.
Olivia’s eyes glittered as she surveyed the room. The floral wallpaper had been her choice. The carved wooden dresser? Another find from her inspiration file. Everything in the room had been carefully crafted to be entirely “hers.”
Well, except for my one small contribution.
Olivia turned around and her hand flew to her mouth. “Beau, is that…?”
I slowly walked into the room as we both admired the antique couch.
“It’s newly refurbished,” I explained. “A rescue from the dusty attic of an old department store.”
Olivia tentatively approached the couch. “I’m almost too afraid to, but I can’t resist.”
She slowly sank down onto the center cushion, waited a moment, and then bounced.
She could bounce on that couch all she wanted—it wouldn’t break again. Tyson Copeland really could fix anything.
Olivia sweetly looked up at me. “Thank you. This is a wonderful surprise.”
“Who said I was done?” I walked over to the armoire and retrieved a black shoebox. “It’s the one-year anniversary of you braving that surgery and becoming a mother. Did you really think I wouldn’t get you a present too?”
I handed my wife the box and she eagerly opened it. She unwrapped two high-heeled shoes with red paint shining on the soles. The leather was a princessy pink and they had silk ribbons instead of straps or buckles.
“I figured you might enjoy those when you go to court against your old firm next week,” I said.
Olivia’s brows knitted as she admired the shoes. “These aren’t from the Spring collection.”
“I know,” I said with a smile. “They’re custom made.”
She squealed in gratitude as I knelt in front of her.
She kicked off her slippers and I slid the new shoes onto her feet.
I wrapped the ribbons around her left ankle and tied it off in a bow, but when I moved to her right ankle, I couldn’t help but let my eyes wander up her bare legs.
She wore that lacy little nightgown that barely covered her thighs—the one that never stayed on her body for very long.
I held her right heel in the palm of my hand after I tied off the silk bow and gently placed a kiss on her ankle. Then my mouth worked its way up the inside of her calf, kissing her smooth skin, before she kicked out of my grip.
Olivia pressed her foot into my shoulder and pushed me away, the point of her stiletto digging into the muscle of my chest, right over my pounding heart.
God, she was so pretty when she looked like she was about to kick my ass.
She looked down at me. “I caught you making eyes at me from across the pool, Mr. Fontaine. Are you making a move for more children?”
I smirked. “The prospect did cross my mind.”
Her face was still all iron. “Did you know that once a woman has twins, her odds of having another set of twins shoot up by thirty percent? Do you really want to do all of that again?”
“Again?” I repeated. The word bounced around in my head and crashed into my jumble of thoughts from earlier, clicking into place amongst the chaos like the final puzzle piece.
“You know, when you think of life in terms of achievement, every milestone feels like an ending,” I said. “You rush to the finish, celebrate the end of some sort of struggle, but then what? You move on to a new struggle and the process repeats into eternity.”
Olivia canted her head. “So, you’re agreeing with me?”
“Not at all, let me finish.” I ran my thumb across her ankle, right beneath the ribbon.
“But you don’t triumph every time, do you?
Sometimes the struggle wins. Sometimes you’re up against an unbeatable opponent like time, or fortune, or death.
And when you’re so focused on those endings, you end up mourning what you’ve lost.”
I looked up at her. “Like just now—you were mourning that our infants have disappeared and babbling toddlers have taken their place. You’re also probably mourning that the birthday party you spent months planning is over.
Margot is going to clean everything up tomorrow and put all your pretty decorations in the trash. ”
Olivia folded her arms. “Wow, Beau. You’re really killing the mood.”
“Only if you’re focused on the ending,” I said. “For way too long, I was focused on endings. I wasted years mourning what I lost and clinging to the pieces left behind. Hell, I thought I lost you, and yet I get to wake up to you every morning.”
Her hard facade broke with a smile. The pressure of her foot against my shoulder softened and I dared to lean closer. Her leg yielded to me as I rose onto my knees and rested my hands on the couch cushions on either side of her body, bracketing her with my arms.
We were eye to eye, a mere breath apart.
“Why mourn the end of a first birthday party when you get to do it all again for their second birthday? Then their third? And their fourth?” I said.
“Why miss our tiny babies when we still get to wake up as Annie and Brady’s parents again and again?
Why grieve the end of our wedding day when I marry you again every time I come back to bed after an argument? ”
She leaned in closer, her eyes half lidded. “Get to the point, Mr. Fontaine.”
“There are no endings, Mrs. Fontaine,” I whispered against her lips, “only beginnings—because everything good in my life I get to have again and again.”
I kissed her, long and slow, savoring the taste of her mint toothpaste.
She slowly wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me in closer, but I broke the kiss, just for a breath.
Her eyes fluttered open as she looked back at me.
A warm flush was spread across her cheeks.
She was perfect, completely perfect, and somehow completely mine.
How lucky can a man get, indeed.
I glanced at the old couch beneath us. “You ask me if I want to do this all again, but I’m not sure if we ever stopped.”
“We’d lose nothing, but could gain so many new beginnings,” Olivia said wistfully. “More first steps, more first Christmases, more new adventures.”
“I knew you’d catch on.” I reached up and gently held her chin as she looked me in the eyes. “You always were the smartest person in the room.”
A beautiful smile played on my wife’s lips before she leaned in and kissed me, again and again.
I really was the luckiest man alive.