One To Watch (50 page)

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?”

“Does that happen a lot?” Bea laughed.

“You’d be shocked how often.” Lauren rolled her eyes. “But if you’re good, I think we’re just about ready to film?”

“Do you think I’m making the right choice?” Bea asked.

“Honestly? It’s not what I would do,” Lauren admitted. “But it’s your life, Bea. After everything, you deserve to be happy.”

Walking to the center of the bridge, her gown rippling in the breeze, the Île Saint-Louis rising to the east and a pink Paris sunset blazing in the west, Bea took a moment to breathe deeply. She wanted to remember exactly how she felt in this moment: flooded with joy, with warm, rosy sunlight, with the knowledge that, after the most difficult year of her life, everything was finally going to work out exactly as it should.

“Okay, Bea,” the field producer called. “We’re a go!”

She steadied herself and looked toward the edge of the bridge, where at this very second, in a perfectly fit tuxedo, Sam was emerging from his limo and making his way toward her, a beautiful, brilliant smile on his face.

BREAKING—
Main Squeeze
star
Bea Schumacher
has turned down not one, but TWO marriage proposals on tonight’s bombshell finale! After an emotional reconnection with ex-boyfriend
Ray Moretti
and a fairy-tale day in Paris with fan-favorite
Sam Cox
, Bea was ready to make her final decision—but in a twist no one saw coming, she chose herself!

Sam was the first one out of the limo—and as
Main Squeeze
viewers know, this always spells rejection—but Bea kindly broke the news to Sam before he had a chance to get down on one knee. As soon as he removed a ring box from his jacket pocket, she stopped him from going further, telling him that although she had grown to love him deeply as a person, she truly believed that they were helping each other along their path to find their futures. Sam was clearly devastated, but took the news with characteristic good humor and grace.

Not so Ray, who has proven a shocking and volatile presence from the moment he stepped into the kiss-off ceremony in Amboise. As the second man out of the limo, viewers at home presumed Ray and Bea would be getting engaged—as did Ray himself, when he got down on one knee and proposed using the three-carat cushion-cut diamond Bea had selected from celebrity jeweler Nils van der Hoeven earlier that day. But Bea told Ray that as much as she’d once dreamed of a life together, she now had other, bigger dreams—ones that didn’t include a man who’d hurt her so badly for so long. (And instead of calling her parents to announce her engagement, we got to see Bea call her best friend Marin to apologize and tell her she’d been right about Ray all along—a vindicating and relatable moment for best friends the world over.)

The response to the finale on Twitter was fast and furious, with fans and celebs alike weighing in to support Bea as the first
ever
female Main Squeeze to turn down both of her final two suitors. So what’s next for Bea? We’ll have to wait for next month’s live reunion special to get all the details, but
People
will bring you more news as it breaks. For now, we wish
Main Squeeze
’s most controversial leading lady all the happiness in the world.

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. 281,927 Likes

Oh hi there, OMBeauties! I haven’t seen you in a hot minute, and I’ve
missed you!!
So, tell me everything. How’s your spring going? You showing off your flirtiest little dresses? As for me, you know, not much is new. Okay, okay, just kidding, my entire life has been turned upside down and shaken miserably, gloriously around again, but after all that, I’m back home and thrilled to be here. It feels like everything is the same and absolutely nothing is, in the best, most exciting way—I can’t wait to tell you more about the projects I’m lining up next.

For now, I want to let you know that I’m going to be taking a little break from this blog. So much of what I do here is share the details of my life with you—my plans, my outfits, my hopes, my hottest takes. I have always considered it a privilege that you’d want to hang around with me for all that, and I can never express how grateful I’ve been for your support. Especially during the insanity of the last two months, knowing you were out there watching me, rooting for me, and sticking by me despite my (many) mistakes made all the difference.

Main Squeeze
was an intense experience, and sometime soon, I’ll figure out what I want to say about it, and how. For now, I’m excited to take a breath, to NOT have every second of my life available for public consumption for a minute, and to figure out what comes next.

Sending you all the love and sequins in the universe.

xoxo, Bea