Page 69 of Expecting an Argument
Beau would have danced in the town square wearing a clown costume if it gave him a tax write-off, so why wouldn’t he try to buy the table as a business expense?
My thumb brushed over the words on the folded cardstock sign. Apparently, business was the last thing on Beau’s mind tonight.
Footsteps approached and I quickly shoved the sign into my clutch. Beau placed a plate full of pasta, salad, and rolls that glistened with butter in front of me.
I glanced up at him. “You look like a waiter.”
Beau shot me a sly smile as he took his place at the table next to me. “Well, if the feds seize all my assets, I know what my next career move is. Although your child support payments are goingto suffer.”
“I’m still a lawyer, you know.” I laughed as I stabbed my fork into my salad. “If yourdazzling charmandcutting witdoesn’t score thousands in tips every night, I’ll payyouchild 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 Fontaineis 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 thisher?
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 onmehand-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 beforethe 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.
