by Lovell, Dani
Daniel pours thirteen glasses of champagne, leisurely, and walks around the huge table, setting them down in front of each of us, before calling in Pam and his housekeeper and returning to his place next to Bea. I watch them interact for a while, smiling at each other and speaking quietly together. They gaze into each others eyes, lovingly, and it's only then that I realise... I have what they have. Wow.
Daniel kisses Bea and stands with his glass, "Everybody, I'd like to say a few words before dessert, please." The room calms for Daniel to continue. "As you all know, this is our first Christmas together, and I'd like to thank you all so much for being here. I know how badly Bea wanted her friends and family to join us, as did I, and as usual I have my family and best friend here, to celebrate the festivities, too. We are both very excited to be able to spend the festive period with such a fantastic group of people."
"Here, here," Edwards calls, eliciting a hum of agreement around the room.
"So, I would like to first make a toast to Pam and Marsha for the delicious feast that they have prepared for us this evening. Thank you so much, it has been outstanding." We all agree, and raise our glasses to Pam and Marsha. I don't take a drink, of course.
"I would also like to make a toast to you all. We will of course be doing this again tomorrow for our main celebration at Alexia's house, but, since we're in our home now, I think it only right that we thank you all for coming. To our guests."
Bea stands to join Daniel, "To our guests, welcome and thank you."
Bea sits after the toast as Daniel continues, "And lastly, I couldn't possibly make toasts, without making one to my beautiful Beatrice."
Clare sighs, drawing my attention, and I smile as she gazes as Daniel, watching as he looks at Bea, admiringly; she looks like she'll cry any second. Oh Clare, you really need some romance in your life, you poor girl.
"Bea, you are my world, and I'm not afraid to say it in front of all of these people. I love you more than life itself, as you well know, I tell you at least fifty times a day." Everyone in the room chuckles, warmly. "I don't know how I ever lived without you, and I never want to find out again. Merry Christmas Eve, baby."
Bea raises her free hand and holds his. "Merry Christmas Eve, darling," she says with a huge grin.
"I feel like the luckiest guy in the world right now, I've never been happier than when I'm with you, so I think this would be the perfect moment to ask you something." Bea looks up at him, her face straight. Clare gasps and the tears are already streaming down her face. I look at Emily, who is looking at Edward in question, he simply shrugs with a huge grin on his face. I can't believe we're about to witness this! I grab hold of Luke's hand and stare at the beautiful couple in front of us.
"You know what I'm going to ask you, right?" he asks, grinning.
"Uh... I, er..." Bea stutters, and Daniel chuckles.
"Well, you should, baby, because there'd be no doubt that I would need to ask you this, I couldn't ever live without you."
"Fuck, dude..." Luke whispers beside me and holds my hand tighter as he leans forward on the table, grinning.
"Please, please..." he says, as he sinks to one knee beside her and pulls a sparkling diamond from his pocket, "would you give up being my beautiful girlfriend, to become my beautiful wife?"
Daniel's mum shrieks loudly and stands, her hands covering her mouth. Bea laughs as the tears pour down her cheeks by the bucket load, she looks at the ring and back at Daniel, before grabbing hold of his face and kissing him over and over. "Oh my god!" she cries, "I... oh my god!"
Daniel laughs and wipes her cheeks with his free hand.
"I love you so much," she says, weeping and wrapping her arms around his shoulders, pressing her face into his neck.
"So, that's a yes, then?" he asks, holding her tightly.
Bea giggles and nods, "Uh huh, absolutely, definitely, yes."
It takes a moment to realise that I, too, am crying my eyes out. Not only was that the most amazing thing to watch, my wonderful best friend is getting married! I am so thrilled for her. I release Luke's hand to wipe my face with my fingers and instantly feel his arm around my shoulders. He looks down at me and I up at him.
"Amazing."
I nod, smiling, through a small sob, and he tightens his hold, pulling me into his side. The whole room is laughing and crying, it's such a wonderful moment. I will remember this forever and it wasn't even me getting proposed to!
"Let's go congratulate them, hmm?" he asks, squeezing me against him and I nod.
As we make our way around the table, we hold hands, smiling, excited to get to the happy pair. I wait as Bea finishes her hug with Daniel's mum, hers in floods of tears, cuddling her dad, and soon I am in front of her.
"Bea..." I say with a teary smile.
She bursts into tears again and hugs me tightly. "You're crying!" she says through a giggle.
"Yes, alright, I'm getting emotional in my old age. God, Bea, I knew this would happen but I never thought I'd get to see it! This is wonderful, I am so happy for you. Congratulations, darling. I love you so much."
"I love you, too," she says, sobbing. I take her hand and look at the beautiful ring. It's breathtaking. It has a very large, rectangular diamond in the centre, surrounded by hundreds of tiny diamonds that continue around the band. It looks antique.
"Bea! Darling, this is stunning! You lucky girl! It's so you."
"I know, I need to sit down and just stare at it for a while. I'm still so utterly shocked!"
I give her another long, hard hug and slip out of the way to let Clare in for another emotional embrace.
I watch as Daniel and Luke have their moment, and it's not your average, slap on the back 'dude-like' man hug; it's a big, arms-wrapped-around-each-other hug. Luke's hand is on Daniel's head and Daniel fists at Luke's shirt. This is full on, best-mate emotion and it's almost impossible to watch without getting teary eyed again. Daniel's mum is also watching, crying her eyes out. They exchange some whispered words and grin at each other, before embracing again. Gosh, what an experience - to witness all of this.
I am suddenly ridiculously overcome by emotion, and to save myself too much embarrassment, I make a mad dash to one of the downstairs bathrooms.
I can't hold it in as I approach and sob loudly before attempting to open the door. It's locked. Oh shit. The door suddenly opens and to my relief, it's Clare, also sobbing.
"I thought I heard you crying, come in..." she says, with a tissue held to her nose.
I enter, put the toilet seat down, and sit with my head in my hands, crying like a baby. What the fuck is wrong with me? I don't even know why I'm crying!
"Come on... stand up," she says, holding her arms open and I throw myself at her, as we cry together.
"Clare, I don't know why I'm crying! It just keeps coming out and won't stop!"
She chuckles slightly, "It's your hormones, darling, and you have so much going on, you're about to break some big-old news to your man, you're scared... as soon as something emotional like this happens, you're bound to have a little episode."
I nod in agreement. It's probably true. "Are you okay? I know you're a crier and everything, but you seem sad?"
Clare shakes her head. "I'm okay. I suppose I'm just happy for you both, I found out two giant bits of news within a couple of days about my two best people in the world. I'm happy, excited, scared for you. And to be honest, a teeny bit jealous. But I'm okay... Listen, Tilly, I'm not going to go crazy again, but please accept that there is nothing going on with me and Oliver. There really isn't. I would love to have a boyfriend right about now, but I don't. And that makes me a bit sad. Okay?"
Oh my darling, Clare. I'm so sorry. "Okay, I'm sorry. I won't say anything again, it just looked that way, that's all. I'm sorry. We'll find you someone, I mean come on, there's no way Luke and Daniel don't have an ideal man tucked away somewhere for you."
"Good. Can we find him now please?"
"Yep, I'll get right on it."
"Love you," she says, and I respond with the same. How anyone can function without friendship like this, I just don't know. I feel like I have had them all of my life, I don't know how I'd cope if I lost my best friends.
Luke meets us in the hall on the way back to the room. "Oh, hey, I wondered where you went, I was looking for you," he says as he wraps his arms around me. Clare smiles and continues back to the other room.
"I just went to the loo with Clare."
"Great news in there, I can't believe he didn't tell me first!"
"I'm surprised he didn't actually."
"He said he felt that if Bea was going to get married, other than her dad, she should probably know about it first."
Wow. That hits closer to home than I'd have thought. "Well, yes, I'd agree with that. So he picked the ring on his own? That's amazing."
"Yeah, but he does seem to know what she likes."
"He does, you're right."
"So you'll marry me one day, right?" he asks and I burst out laughing.
"What an amazing proposal, thanks!"
He laughs with me. "I'm not proposing, baby, but I wanna know that you'll always be mine."
I smile and stare into his eyes, "Yes, one day, I'll marry you."
"Good. Let's get back to the party. How's your stomach?" he asks, and reaches to touch it again. I scoot away and he immediately holds out his hands and frowns again, "What the heck is it? What's wrong with your stomach? Why can't I touch it?"
Fuck, fuck, fuck. "Nothing, I told you. I'm bloated, it's uncomfortable."
"Shit, since when does it hurt to stroke a bloated belly? Are you like..." Oh god, oh god, oh god... "getting your period or something?" Oh thank fuck.
"No." I could say 'yes', but that would be lying even more than I already have and we're going to be having the 'talk' later anyway. "Let's just get back. We can talk later, okay?" I ask, rubbing his arm, affectionately.
"Are you sick, or something? Are you okay, baby?" Oh no, not his concerned face...
"I'm fine, Luke. Don't worry. Come on."
I take his hand and pull, encouraging him to drop the subject and get back to the table.
~~~~~~~
The rest of the evening was such fabulous fun. Daniel chose the dessert, apparently; we had a delicious choice of warm doughnuts and chocolate sauce (I assume Daniel doesn't know that I know what this represents), and key lime pie. I remember them eating that in Los Angeles, too, I wonder if they did anything dirty with that one...
We retired to the sitting room for after dinner drinks around the fire. Bea and Daniel sat on the floor in front of the fire together, with Bea in between his legs, resting against him, whilst the rest of us sat on the sofas. I curled up with my man, thoroughly tempted to fall asleep in his arms, right there.
When it was time to leave, we all offered another round of congratulations to the happy couple, and headed out to the limo to return to Alexia's house. As we pull up outside, Luke helps me out of the car and slowly walks up the steps, holding my hand.
"I know it's late, Princess, but I really want to share something with you."
"What's that?"
"Well, you haven't been up to the hot tub yet, it's incredible at night and I think it'll finish off the evening perfectly. Will you take a hot tub with me? Please?"
I smile, he's so cute, and I think a hot tub sounds amazing, right about now. Just as I'm about to agree, I suddenly remember that I am pregnant! Apart from the fact that I don't want to expose myself, I'm also not supposed to use hot tubs or jacuzzi baths, according to my pregnancy manual... not sure why not. Oh bugger, now I have to think of another excuse and see that disappointed face again.
Oliver opens the door and we follow him inside. "I really don't feel like it, darling, but you go ahead. I'm just so tired."
He nods, quietly before responding, and I feel awful. "Okay. No, I'll come to bed with you."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I want to hold you. We can do it another night, maybe have a Christmas soak."
My stomach churns as we go up to his bedroom, the nerves of what I'm about to do, the amount of dinner I have eaten not sitting right in my belly, Wriggler having a wild old time in there. It's enough to make me feel really rather sick.
As we step through the door, Luke walks to the balcony again and opens the door wide, sending a freezing breeze through the room, and I stand still by the bed. As he turns back, he looks at me and frowns, "Are you okay? You look... pale, you look sick, Princess." He reaches for me and I run, fast, bashing the en-suite door into the wall on my way in and bend to vomit violently into the toilet. OMG, couldn't I have done this a little less dramatically?
It keeps coming and all I want is to close the door and shut the fuck up. There is nothing more revolting than hearing someone being sick. And to my absolute horror, he appears next to me. "No..." I mumble and he ignores me completely, holding my hair back and putting his hand on my forehead, under my fringe.
"It's okay, baby," he says, gently, "just let it out."
As more of the poison leaves my body, I start to cry, I hate being sick, I hate that he is hearing and watching me, and I love him so much for not caring.
"Don't cry. It's okay, you'll feel better in a minute. Just let your body do what it has got to do."
I whimper and then sob. "But..." I wail, "you're here, you can hear it..."
"I know, it's okay. I have seen and heard it plenty times before. It's not going to stop me loving you, sweetheart."
I sob again. "But... it smells of sick... I smell," I cry, mortified.
"It really doesn't. Calm down, stop worrying."
I flush the toilet when my stomach seems to have let go of everything it needs to. And I stand, hunched over, and make my way to the sink to clean my teeth. There's no way I can look at him and talk with sick breath.
He holds my hips. "Is that a little better?"
I nod as I start to brush. I look in the mirror and my face is flushed, mascara running down my cheeks and my eyes red. Wow, I guess this is what Luke's going to have as the memory of being told he's going to be a dad.
When I finish, he leads me out to the bed and starts to undress me. "No, I can do it."
"No, let me. I want to." He reaches for my waistband and I jolt back, away from him. I look up at him, knowing what's coming and a tear falls slowly down my cheek. This is really going to happen.
"Okay. You won't let me see you naked, don't think I haven't noticed, and you won't let me touch you now. You're going to tell me what the hell is going on, and you're going to tell me now." His voice is strong, stern, masterful. Shit, I really shouldn't be turned on right now.
I put my face in my hands and nod, preparing myself. I take a long, deep breath in, and exhale slowly. "Okay."
"So what is it, Til?"
My voice wobbles as I ask, "Will you close your eyes? Please?"
"What? Why?" he asks, bewildered.
"Please?" I plead, my voice becoming more of a whimper.
"Okay, okay. Calm down." He closes his eyes and I begin to undress.
"Please stay that way, I will tell you, I promise."
"Okay, my eyes are staying firmly shut, until you tell me I can open them."
"Thank you."
I continue to remove my clothes until I am fully naked, and I tentatively step over to where he is standing, at the side of the bed. Tears fall down my face, my heart races and my skin prickles from the goose bumps as the breeze flows through the room. "Keep them closed," I ask and he nods as I take his hands and slowly move them to rest on my ribs. I sniff, and blink the tears from my eyes as I direct him. "Move your hands down, they're on my ribs. Touch my tummy." I wipe the tears from my cheeks and fresh ones replace them in seconds.
"Tilly, I don't understand, sweetheart."
"Please?
" I ask, crying, "Please just slide them down."
He slowly glides his hands down my body and I sob as he reaches my little bump. He slides over it and stops. He goes back up and repeats the process and as he reaches the bump again, he pauses and opens his eyes. He looks directly into mine and all I can do through the tears is frown and silently beg for his acceptance. His face is serious, not an emotion on display. He blinks and his eyes shoot straight down to his hands. And Wriggler.
One hand immediately leaves me to cover his mouth and his eyebrows shoot up. "You're... you..."
I cry and hold his hand to my tummy, desperately needing the contact.
"Shit, Tilly, I... I'm so confused. You're pregnant?"
I nod, petrified of what comes next.
"And this is my baby, right? I mean, you're not gonna let me fuck you with some other guys baby in there?"
"Yes, it's your baby, Luke."
He sits on the bed and looks blankly at the door to the en-suite. "So... so, you knew? You've known? All this time?"
"Oh god, Luke, I'm sorry. I wanted to tell you when I first saw you, I really did but then it got all sexy and then we got all 'together' and everything and I was scared that I'd lose you. Please don't be angry with me." I weep, begging for his forgiveness. I crawl onto the bed next to him and clutch his arm. "Please?"
He looks at me with a frown. "Baby, calm down. Come here." He pulls me onto his lap and I break down again, holding him tightly so he can't let go. "Shh, calm down. I'm sorry, Tilly, but this is all a big shock to me, I don't really know how to react right now. I... I'm, I am a little angry, actually. You should have told me."
"I know. But I was so scared. Are you going to leave?"
"No, we need to talk, I'm not leaving."
"No, I mean, are you going to leave me?"
"No... I... Jesus, Tilly, you're pregnant?" he asks again in disbelief.
I nod, silently.
"How? I mean, when? Oh..." I see it registering, "the pool?"
I nod again. Wiping my cheeks, shaking.
"Til, you're freezing, get into bed please," he says, dominantly.
