Page 87 of Expecting an Argument
As lucky as I am, you have ruined me. You unspooled me little by little and wrapped me around your finger, but I have no intention of ever untangling myself from you.
You won, Olivia. You will forever have all of me.
Consider this as my complete and unconditional surrender. Accept me, reject me, do whatever you wish, but if you want me to be part of your forever, just come home. I’ll be waiting on bended knee for the rest of my days.”
My heartbeat pounded against my brain as I read the last line over and over.
How could he? I made it damn clear to him that I couldn’t be with him, but he was still trying to win me over! What would I have to do to make him give up? How much more did Beau want me to hurt him?
Pain flared through my abdomen again, but I beared down, staring at Beau’s letter like I could have burned a hole through it with the intensity of my gaze. Beau Fontaine was an incomprehensible ass, impossible to reason with, and the most stubborn man to walk the planet, but hewould notget me to break.
A footstep on the creaking floorboard behind me forced me to tear my eyes away from Beau’s letter. Tyson stood in the curvedarchway between the kitchen and the living room, a cold bottle of blue Tigerade in his hand.
“Thought I heard a truck in the driveway,” Tyson said. “Did someone come by?”
My trembling hands made the notebook paper crinkle, but Ashley’s lilting voice remained calm. “Beau Fontaine left presents on the welcome mat.”
Presents? Oh, right! Something had been under the note. I turned from Tyson back to Ashley, and my breath caught in my throat when I saw the tiny leather box resting in the palm of Ashley’s hand.
He didn’t. He fucking didn’t.
I shook my head, but Ashley’s brows softened and she nodded in response. She slowly held out the box.
“Should I kneel?” Ashley asked.
“N-no…” I stammered, but my shaking hand floated up to take the box anyway. “No…howdarehe? I’ll kill him. I’ll…”
But all my words failed when I opened the box. Sitting in a cushion of white velvet was a ring that I instantly clocked as being an original Art Deco piece. The central round diamond sparkled like rainbow fire under the living room lights. Eight emeralds shaped like tiny fans surrounded the center stone amongst the metalwork, creating the illusion of a flower in the abstract. I gently plucked the ring from the velvet, holding the platinum band between my fingers as the ring sparkled.
“Oh!” Ashley cooed. “It’s beautiful!”
“He left that on the porch?” Tyson said incredulously.
“Beau might be too much of a coward to propose in person,” Ashley said as she peered at the ring, “butdamndid he drop a dime on that ring.”
Beau could have purchased any ring in the world, but he didn’t buy this one. A sharp pang flared between my heartbeats when I finally placed where I had recognized the ring—his great-great grandmother Adelaide.
It was the wedding ring earned from ten years of patience.
My head swam. I slowly put the ring back amongst the velvet and lowered the box on a nearby credenza.
I told Beau that we weren’t together and he responded with a marriage proposal.
If he truly loved me, he wouldn’t torture me like this. I tried to give us a clean break and starve him of me so he could find happiness elsewhere, but just like at every juncture of this damn pregnancy, he had to barrel in and smash all my efforts to bits.
He called his proposal his unconditional surrender, but asking me to marry him requiredmysurrender. Did he think I was so weak-willed that I would bend at the glitter of the most beautiful piece of antique jewelry I had ever seen? That I could forget everything I was and become the Fontaine wife he wanted?
No matter how much he wanted to keep me, I was still me. Did he want every day to start with an argument? Did the former star athlete want to resign himself to rotting in bed and watching murder shows with me? Did he want to hate me during football season when our alma maters went head-to-head? Did the man who owned a damn helicopter want to share his life with a woman who still stopped at weekend garage sales?
How could Beau have spent all those months with me and still want me? He had no idea how big of a mistake he made by leaving that ring on the welcome mat.
I hated him for ignoring my boundary and for giving me emotional whiplash, but most of all, I hated him for how badly I wanted to say yes.
“I can’t…” I whispered to myself. “I…”
Searing pain tore through my belly like I was being split in half and I gripped the wooden edge of the credenza to keep from falling. I gritted my teeth as my body shook.
Footsteps pattered over the pounding in my ears as Ashley and Tyson both ran to my side.
