One To Watch(117)

“First off, Bea, same question I asked Luc—have you two been in touch since the show finished filming?”

“No,” Bea said at the same moment Ray said, “Yes.”

“Well, this is interesting. Ray, you’ve contacted Bea?”

“Yes, I’ve texted and emailed her.”

“Bea, have you seen those messages?”

“No, um. After the show finished filming, I reached out to Sarah, Ray’s ex-fiancée, to apologize for my behavior, and for contributing to a situation that must have been really painful for her on a lot of levels. I never heard back from her—not that I expected to, she certainly doesn’t owe me anything—but sending her that note really solidified for me that it would be best for everyone if Ray and I sever ties for good. So I blocked his phone number and set up a filter to send any emails from him straight to spam.”

“You did?” Ray looked genuinely hurt.

“Ray, I can’t keep doing this with you. It’s been too many years. I need to move on.”

“But you’re the one who rejected me,” he said, almost whining. Bea had to remind herself not to feel sorry for him.

“You’re not good for me, Ray.” She forced the bitter words out of her mouth. “You say you didn’t really know how you felt about me when we lived in L.A., but you knew well enough to get drunk and kiss me. And you knew well enough to sleep with me when you were engaged to someone else.”

“Then why did you kiss me in Paris? Why did you make me think we could be together?”

“I was reeling. I was so hurt by Luc and Asher, and there you were, showing up to declare your love for me like I’d always dreamed you would. I wanted to believe that maybe after everything, we could be each other’s happy ending. Except you were still the same person who spent all those years hurting me. The same person who wasn’t brave enough to date me when you could have, when you wanted to, because you couldn’t picture getting serious with someone who looked like me.”

“But I got over that!” Ray protested. “I went on television to tell the whole world I love you—doesn’t that count for something?”

“My body isn’t something you ‘get over,’” Bea said coolly. “I have no intention of devoting the rest of my life to a man who’s ashamed of me.”

“I know I’ve given you reason not to trust me,” Ray pleaded. “But Bea, I promise, I won’t hurt you again.”

“I know you won’t.” Bea’s tone was sad but resolute. “Because I’m not going to let you. All these years, you put your needs above mine—which is exactly what you did when you showed up in Paris, by the way—and I couldn’t see it, because I idealized you as the perfect man. But I see who you are now, Ray. And I know that I deserve better.”

The audience applauded heartily, and Johnny took them to commercial. A sound guy came to collect Ray’s mic, but Ray told him to hold on just one second before turning back to Bea.

“So that’s it?” he demanded. “We’re just never going to speak again?”

“Yeah, Ray. I think that’s it.” Bea fought to maintain composure as Ray’s face crinkled and cracked.

“We love each other. I know we do.”

“Maybe,” she whispered. “But I want more than you can give me.”

The sound guy tugged on Ray’s arm, and he turned to go—watching him leave was awful. Bea took a deep breath, and Alison swooped in for one last touch-up, giving her hair an unnecessary zhuzh.

“You’re doing great,” she whispered. “Keep going.”

Bea nodded, and when the show started back up and Johnny welcomed Sam to the stage, it all felt so much easier.

“Hey, beautiful.” Sam hugged Bea warmly, and seeing him was pure joy, same as always.

“God, I was an idiot to let you go.” She smiled, then turned to the audience. “Wasn’t I? Wasn’t I just the worst to turn him down?”

“YES!” came the resounding cheer from the crowd, and everyone laughed together.

“Why did you, then?” Johnny pressed. “I know for me, and for a lot of the audience, it came as a real shock. You and Sam seemed like a perfect couple.”

“I hope it’s clear to everyone that I think Sam is an absolutely amazing man, and he was nothing but wonderful to me. And in some ways, that’s why I knew we weren’t meant to be together.”

“That sounds a little twisted.” Sam made a face at Bea.

“Ha, I know, my mother would be screaming about my tendency to self-sabotage, but that’s not what I mean. It’s more that—there was something not quite real about our relationship. We had a great rapport, great chemistry, but we never really argued or had any conflict, and I think that’s because we never connected at that serious a level. So for me, at the end of the show, the question was what would happen if we took away the fantasy of Main Squeeze, all the travel and limos and hot-air balloons.”

“To be real clear, I could have lived without the hot-air balloons.”

Bea laughed. “See? Dating Sam, that seemed like a perfect fantasy. But in the end, I finally had to be honest with myself that we weren’t right for each other in reality. I couldn’t shake the idea that I was helping Sam on his journey to meet his future wife, but that that person wasn’t me.”