Page 130 of One to Watch

“I want to give you that, Bea,” Sam assured her. “I promise, I do.”

She kissed him gently and told him she believed him.

As day faded into night, their boat docked near the Louvre, and fireworks exploded in showers of sparks and color. Bea thought about the Fourth of July, about the fragile new connection she’d formed with Ray, and about how unknowable life was, how fleeting. In the end, she had only her choices. As she relaxed into Sam’s arms, she felt she was finally ready to make hers.

The next morning, Bea woke up in her beautiful suite for her final day of filming her season of Main Squeeze. After she’d been to hair and makeup, she donned a custom silk robe embroidered with her initials and met with celebrity diamond purveyor Nils van der Hoeven, who showed her a vast array of dazzling engagement rings. Per long-standing show tradition, Bea was meant to pick her favorite ring, and somehow, magically, in a highly produced segment, the man she’d chosen to be her husband would pick that very same ring to propose with later that day, proving just how well he understood his beloved’s heart’s desire.

Bea wasn’t even sure she wanted a diamond engagement ring, but Mr. van der Hoeven (“Please, you will call me Nils”) had paid good money to advertise his wares on television, so Bea oohed and aahed over his various gaudy confections, all of which were undeniably dazzling, but none of which were remotely her taste.

“I have one more case to show you,” he lilted in his accented English. “These are vintage.”

He opened a black velvet briefcase filled with twenty rings—mostly large Edwardian cuts, with a few vintage Deco settings thrown in. One caught Bea’s eye: The setting was rose gold and considerably less shiny than the rest; upon closer inspection, she saw it had been hammered and carved to resemble a tree branch. The main stone was a round-cut champagne diamond with a couple of obvious flaws, flanked on each side by triangles of three tiny opals that glowed white and blue and green. It was the most beautiful ring Bea had ever seen in her life.

“What’s the story with this one?”

“Ah, this is a very interesting choice,” Nils said, extracting the ring and holding it up to the light. “It was made for a famed heiress in the 1920s, but she called off the wedding—she never married, and the ring was never sold. I acquired it at auction some time ago, and it’s been in my collection ever since. I always wondered why no one snapped it up—but between you and me, I think most brides get skittish when they hear its history. They believe it must be cursed or some such nonsense.”

“Cursed,” Bea echoed, remembering the times she’d used that word to describe herself. “What happened to the heiress?”

Nils looked confused. “As I said, she never married.”

“Sure, but her life—did she do other things? Have a career? Travel the world?”

Nils shrugged. “No one has asked me this before—I would have no way of knowing. Would you like to try it on?”

Bea shook her head and said no, thank you. She told him she preferred a three-carat flawless cushion-cut diamond on a platinum band. He said it was an excellent choice.

After he left, Alison arrived in Bea’s suite for their final fitting together.

“I hope you’ll forgive me,” she said, “but I pulled this for you. We have other options if you don’t like it.”

She held up a long, flowing dress of soft blush satin with wispy sleeves, a deep neckline, and a dramatic slit, accented with strategic bustles embellished with crystalline camellias. Bea ticked off its flaws on her fingers.

“Unforgiving fabric, light color, no structure, and that slit will definitely show my thighs.”

“I know, I know, I know, you hate it. Okay, let me show you some others—”

But then she noticed Bea was cracking up.

“It’s fabulous.” Bea beamed. “Who made it?”

“Actually …” Alison said shyly, “I did.”

“What?” Bea was overwhelmed. “Alison, this is a gift. You’re a gift. God, what am I going to do without you?”

“Come on, you’re not rid of me yet, I’ll see you for the reunion show, all the red carpets in L.A., we’re going to be together all the time.”

“Promise?” Bea grinned. Alison did, and when she was done tucking and twisting the dress and sweeping one side of Bea’s perfectly formed finger waves out of her face with a beaded clip, Bea felt like the most delicate spring flower, ready to burst into bloom.

The proposal was the crown jewel of any season of Main Squeeze, and this year, Bea was forced to admit, Lauren had really outdone herself: The proposal was to take place in the middle of the Pont des Arts, the narrow bridge across the Seine where lovers affixed locks emblazoned with their initials to symbolize their eternal love, with a spectacular 360-degree view of Paris all around them. Bea waited at the southern end of the bridge with Lauren and most of the crew; Sam and Ray were stationed at the other end with their respective field producers, both in cars with darkened windows so that neither would know who was visiting Bea first to receive his rejection and who was about to discover he’d won the season—and Bea’s heart.

While the lighting and sound crews were getting ready to go (apparently shooting in the center of a bridge, while dramatic, posed a great number of technical challenges), Lauren approached Bea to go over their final shot of the season.

“Are you ready for this?” Lauren asked.

“I am, actually.” Bea looked down at her freshly manicured hands, her left ring finger notably bare.

“And you feel sure about your decision? No last-minute changes?”