It also doesn’t escape my notice that, like the hotel bar, it’s not the sort of place where he’s likely to be recognized.
“It’s perfect,” I reply.
I walk ahead of Nick, waiting while he speaks to the maître d’. With a handshake and a green president passing between them, we’re whisked to a table in the back with dim lighting and a red leather booth in the shape of a clamshell. A squat candle in a glass votive flickers and sputters atop the cream tablecloth.
I remove my coat for the first time since Nick has seen me, handing it to the waiter hovering nearby.
Nick’s gaze rakes me from head to toe.
I slide into the booth first, nerves filling me once more.
Once Nick sits next to me, the space feels much smaller.
The waiter hands us two leather-backed menus.
“So how are you?” Nick asks after we’ve perused the menu, after the waiter has taken our orders and retreated to one of the restaurant’s dark alcoves, reappearing for a brief moment to set our drinks in front of us before disappearing once more. “Has your trip to New York been enjoyable?”
“I’m not sure ‘enjoyable’ is the word I would use. Hopefully, it has been productive, although it’s probably too soon to tell.” I hesitate. “How much do you know?”
“Enough.”
Between his role in the Senate and his family’s connections, I’m not entirely surprised, but it is a bit unexpected. There are players in the game unknown to me. Do I have a codename somewhere at CIA headquarters? Do men in suits discuss me: my family, my potential relationship with Fidel, my motives?
“I have a knack for getting into trouble,” I admit.
Nick doesn’t respond as he sips his scotch, his gaze steady on mine.
His fingers are bare. Is he married now or still engaged?
“Beatriz—” Nick’s voice breaks off and he swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“I don’t think I’m the only one who has a penchant for getting into trouble,” I say, acknowledging the utter impropriety of us being alone together.
“Touché.” Nick raises his glass, clinking it against my champagne flute. “To trouble.”
“To trouble,” I echo, taking a sip of my drink. I study him over the rim of my glass. “I thought senators were supposed to avoid the appearance of trouble.”
“That’s what they tell me.”
The waiter interrupts us, setting our appetizers in front of us. He’s gone without a word.
“You were upset in the hotel bar earlier,” Nick says.
“I—it’s complicated.”
“You’re in trouble.”
“It isn’t anything I didn’t go looking for, and it isn’t anything I can’t handle.”
“I know you’ve lived through a lot in Cuba. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you to experience the revolution up close. The briefings we’ve received on the situation paint a dire picture. But be careful. These men you’re involved with aren’t always who you think they are, and their motives aren’t always what they seem.”
“Don’t worry, this arrangement is convenient at the moment, but I have my eyes wide open.”
For a moment, he looks like he’s going to argue the point, but before he does, I can’t resist asking the question that has been running through my mind for months.
“Are you married now?”
There’s no ring on his finger, but not all men wear them, and while a wedding such as theirs would have likely caused a stir in the world of polite society, when you live on the fringes of such things, you do miss quite a bit.
He blinks, as though my question has caught him off guard. “No. I’m not married.”
Relief fills me.
“Soon, though?”
“We haven’t set a date yet.” He gives me a wry look. “You can just ask, you know. Friends ask each other about the details of their lives.”
“So we’re friends now?”
“Something like that.”
“Why the delay then, friend?”
“She wants a long engagement, a break before assuming the responsibilities that will go with our marriage. Can’t blame her for that. There’s some pressure, though, too, from both our families. At some point, it becomes as complicated as a merger between two entities.”
My parents’ marriage was conducted in a similar fashion. When you have a great deal of money, there is much more at stake than one’s affections.
“My family wanted me to propose earlier, so we could be married before the election,” he adds. “Voters tend to look favorably on married politicians, and ones with families even more so.”
Don’t do this. Don’t go down this path. It’s beneath you.
“Why didn’t you propose earlier?”
“It turns out I have an inherent dislike to being maneuvered into anything I don’t want to do.”
I laugh. “I understand.”
He makes a face. “I have a hard time imagining anyone maneuvering you into anything you don’t want to do.”
“And yet, they still try.”
“Is that why you haven’t married? The reason all those proposals never became engagements?”
“Just how much have you learned about me?”
“Not nearly enough. I used to think patience was one of my virtues, but I found myself unable to wait for answers about you.”
“Why?”
He takes another sip of his drink, meeting my gaze once more.
“Because I wanted to know if you were with anyone. Even though I had no right to be, I found myself quite jealous of the man who might hold your affections.”
I open my mouth to speak, and immediately close it; I don’t have the words for such conversations, lack the experience to conjure a witty response. There’s flirting, and then there’s this, and there’s not a hint of humor in his expression, nothing to suggest the earnestness in his voice and in his gaze isn’t the truth.
He shakes his head. “I shouldn’t say such things. I’m sorry. I—”
“No, you probably shouldn’t.” I take a deep breath. “I wondered about you, too. Constantly.”
His hand pauses in midair, the glass halfway to his lips.
“Beatriz.”