“You come in here with your perfect little fairy-tale life and me, I’m everything you despise, the Hollywood man with connections to people that you believe to be the scum of the earth!” He took a ragged breath, running his hands through his hair in frustration. Then, dropping his hands to his side, he pleaded with her. “Angel, I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you, but I was afraid you wouldn’t marry me if you knew. I don’t want to argue.”
* * *
She stood in wide-eyed wonder. He thought she had a fairy-tale life? Where did he get that idea? There were still some things he didn’t know about her. She felt a moment’s shame for being angry with him when she had her own shortcomings. He still didn’t have all the details concerning the paparazzi and the crazy stories they published.
His eyes raked over her body, taking in everything, the pulse at her throat beating double time, the erratic breathing of her chest. Her body tingled from head to toe, aching for his touch. She shook her head, trying to clear the confusion. “I feel like I don’t know you, Kevin. What do you want from me?”
He put his hands on his hips and looked at the floor, perhaps trying to find the right words. When he found them, he turned back to face her. “I want…more than anything else in this world, to make love…with my wife.”
She hadn’t expected that. The tension she felt changed and morphed into something else, something completely different. Without a word, Angel pulled his mouth down to hers, greedily drinking in the taste of his lips.
Kevin wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. The way he ran his hands over the curves of her body told her how much he wanted her, and her warm body responded so readily to his touch. Slowly he backed them over to the bed and eased her down onto it, never once breaking the kiss.
When he was settled beside her, he stopped for a moment, catching his breath. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered, looking down at her. Reaching out, he caressed her cheek, looking as if simply being pressed up against her body wasn’t enough for him.
Impatient to feel the heat of his body, his skin against hers, Angel reached up and pushed his jacket off his strong, masculine shoulders. He readily shrugged out of it and threw it aside before returning to kiss her again. Then, as he kicked off his shoes, she reached for his shirt, fumbling with the buttons. When his shirt was discarded, she reached for his pants, getting them unzipped as fast as her trembling fingers would allow. Then she reached for him, sliding her fingers inside his boxers and down the already hard length of him. Kevin gasped, then moaned. He leaned in closer and nuzzled warmly into the crook of her neck, teasing her with delicate kisses there. Then she pushed him onto his back and together, they slid her dress up to her hips for her to climb on top of him.
When she was settled, she reached back and slid her heels off her feet, letting them fall to the floor with soft thuds before turning her attention back to the man underneath her. Pausing for a moment to study him, she reflected on the past couple of weeks. She could envision him working with her side by side on the mission in Villa Mendoza, playing with her girls at the dolphin park, giving Isabel a wildflower and wiping away her tears when she’d fallen. Even feeding Lucia at the orphanage and holding her brother Pedro as they read a bedtime story. There was so much more to him than she was giving him credit for. She loved him and he loved her. Maybe that was enough.
She leaned down to kiss him. Softly, slowly, she teased his mouth open, slipping her tongue inside, tasting his warmth. He took his time in responding, leisurely sliding his tongue in to meet and play with hers in a slow, erotic dance. Did she know what she was doing? She was replaying the events of the first time they had sex, but she was playing it out the way it should have gone. She was putting all the love and tenderness that should have been the cornerstone of their first union into every nuance, every fiber of their coupling.
* * *
With one hand on her hip, he slid his other up the inside of her soft creamy-white thigh to find the way inside the leg of the silky nude-colored panties she’d worn underneath her wedding dress. Turning his hand palm up, he teased and taunted her flesh until he made her squirm over him and she pushed her hips against his hand. “Please,” she begged in a barely there whisper.
“Please, what?” he asked softly.
“Please…I need to feel you inside me.”
“Do I need to ask if you’re ready for me?” Kevin asked teasingly, sliding his fingers over her sensitive swollen flesh, still covered by her panties and wedding gown. Then he stood her up and turned her away from him. He slowly eased the zipper of her gown all the way down to her hips, letting the dress slide to the floor in a puddle at her feet. As she turned back to him, he drank in her sweetness, the taut pink areola, the creamy skin of her feminine curves, too beautiful for words.
She arched towards him as he reached out and caressed her stiff, swollen nipples with the pad of his thumbs, her body responding to his every touch. He eased her back down onto the bed and knelt at her feet, dipping his head to let his tongue follow the same trail, lavishing attention to her engorged breasts.
She giggled wickedly. “I think I’m past ready.” Her head rolled back, and she moaned as the pleasure of his tongue and lips began to take over her senses again.
“I agree.” He grinned slightly and mumbled against the swell of her breast before easing her back onto the bed and sliding up beside her.
* * *
Angel let herself get lost in the feel of his body, thigh to thigh, hip to hip, chest to breast and mouth to mouth. For a split second, she thought of their previous union under the jungle canopy and started to pull away.
“Oh no you don’t,” he said.
“What?” she asked when he pulled her closer to him.
He brushed his fingertips against the pale curve of her cheek. “I’m not letting you revisit that nightmare. This is our night, our life, our new beginning. I want this to be a night you won’t ever forget.”
“I believe we’ve already accomplished that, don’t you think, Mr. Famous Actor Man?” She cocked an eyebrow his way.
Kevin sat up and pulled her onto his lap. “Angel, I’m sorry for what happened to us in the jungle and I’m sorry for misleading you on my real identity, but I’ll never be sorry that you got to know me as just Kevin.”
Angel looked up into his gorgeous blue eyes.
“Then I won’t be sorry either,” she said, wrapping her arms around him and kissed him teasingly once again.
One week later, Angel awoke to find Kevin standing by the window of their hotel suite, a towel wrapped around his lean hips, his muscular chest still gleaming with a hint of moisture. She wrapped a sheet around her naked body and moved across the room to join him. He placed an arm around her and pulled her close, kissing her tenderly on her forehead. The clean scent of soap and water on him smelled delightful. “Hmmm,” she murmured under her breath. “You smell delicious. Good morning.”
“Good morning, honey.”
She felt, rather than saw, the tension around his mouth. She looked up and saw the frown on his face and the apprehension in his eyes. “What is it sweetheart?” she asked cautiously.
Kevin nodded out the window. “It’s starting already.”
“What’s starting?”
“The never-ending circus that is my life,” he answered flatly.
Angel looked down the four floors to the street below them. The mob was starting to build momentum and getting louder by the minute. She saw all the typical signs and posters that always seemed to follow the rich, famous, or notoriously crazy. One in particular stood out. DID SHE OR DIDN’T SHE?
A chill ran up her spine. “Oh God, no,” she whispered to herself.
Kevin turned her to him and rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “Now, Angel, it’s going to be okay. I don’t want you freaking out over this, but we do need to get out of here as soon as possible, before things escalate. We don’t have any access to security, so it’s gonna be tricky. How fast can you g
et ready?” Bewildered as she was, she stood there for a moment with her mouth slightly open, not saying a word. Kevin shook her slightly. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”
Angel blinked and looked up into his eyes, tears starting to fill her own. “I think I should tell you something.”
Kevin looked at her and pulled her close. “Sweetheart, whatever it is, it’ll have to wait until we get to a safe place, okay?” He pulled back and wiped the tears from her face, then kissed her gently on her lips.
“Okay.” She nodded, then turned towards the bathroom. “I’ll hurry.”
Minutes later a limo pulled up, and the people outside the La Isadora Hotel went wild. The manager of the hotel had most of his staff posted at the front door, creating a wall of safety from the main entrance to the car. A couple could be seen inches inside the hotel doorway, the man with a nondescript white baseball cap low on his forehead and the woman with a black scarf over hers, and both hidden behind large dark sunglasses. They shot out of the hotel and into the limo, which took off for parts unknown with the mysterious couple inside while the crowd cheered and cameras snapped pictures.
Meanwhile, a bellboy stuck his head out of the service entrance and watched the old, beat-up van pull up to the door. “It’s clear,” he stated in perfect English.
Kevin and Angel peered outside and then took off for the van. Kevin thanked the bellboy and his friend who worked in the kitchen of the hotel and slipped each of them a hundred-dollar bill for their help. He climbed into the driver’s seat and they took off, their luggage having already been put in the back by the kitchen staff.
Right before they reached the corner of the building, Angel spoke. “Kevin, stop.”
Kevin put on the brakes and waited. “What is it, honey? Did you forget something?”
She nodded. “I owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
“For not being completely honest with you.”
“About?”
“That crowd out front?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s not all about you.”
He arched an eyebrow but said nothing.
“Some of that is my fault.”
“How so?” he asked.
“Did you see the sign that said, ‘Did she or didn’t she’?”
He nodded.
“I’ve been seeing signs like that on and off ever since I got a check from my husband’s life-insurance policy. I took the insurance money and bought a house out of town and started the Angel’s foundation. Some of the media seems to think that I shouldn’t have taken the money because of the circumstances of his death. Some of them think that maybe his death was my fault.”
“That is ridiculous. How could you be responsible for his heart attack? He’s the one who set all that in motion. Not you.”
Angel shrugged. “The media…sometimes they see only what they want to see.”
“Well, the bottom line is that it’s nobody’s business but yours.”
“And yours,” she added.
“Okay,” he agreed. “It’s nobody’s business but ours.”
She bit her bottom lip and looked unsure of herself.
“Is there more?” he asked.
She shook her head no.
“Then what is it?”
“Aren’t you gonna ask me how much?”
“No,” he answered.
“Oh. Why not?”
He pulled her to him and kissed her sweet mouth. “Because it doesn’t matter.”
Kevin put the van into gear and drove off. Angel peered back and saw the mob start to disperse. Sitting back in her seat, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God. Now what?”
“Well, I think maybe it’s time we head back, pick up our kids, and head home. What do you think?”
Angel smiled. “I think that sounds like an awesome idea. There’s only one problem.”
“Oh yeah. What’s that?”
“Just exactly where is home?”
Seven months had gone by since their honeymoon, and things had settled down considerably. Angel had given up her part-time job so she could apply herself more to the children and the work of the Angel’s Foundation. She and Kevin had bought a new home closer to Kevin’s family in Philly as well as one in Beverly Hills to allow Kevin to be close to his work when he needed to be, and Angel kept the home in Tupelo so they could visit her family as much as possible.
Two and a half months after they’d left Mexico from their honeymoon, they all returned for the next mission trip, which included the wedding of Diego and Savannah. The wedding was a beautiful affair held in the same church where Angel had first held Kevin’s hand as the minister prayed. The reception was held in the community center basement of the Villa Mendoza Dental Clinic, which was as it should be according to Manuel and Luisa, Diego’s parents. The place was filled to overflowing.
Business was booming for Kevin’s friend Miguel Morales. He’d managed to hire several new pilots and office personnel, including an office manager, which helped to free up some of his time to help Brandi with her mission work at the orphanage. At their last visit to Mexico, Miguel had announced his intention to wed the exquisite Brandi Lacy before the year was out.
Isabel’s mother, Nina, died two days after Diego and Savannah’s wedding and was buried next to her husband and father in her hometown. She’d died with Angel’s arms wrapped around her while taking her last breath. Her last words had been, “I’m at peace. I know you will take good care of my baby.” Angel never forgot those words of confidence.
Angel gave Isabel a picture of the three of them standing on the front porch at the ranch. It was from when they’d first come to the clinic. In the picture, Angel held Isabel in her arms, and Isabel had an arm around both Angel and her mother, unknowingly trying to hold them together with all her might. Her mother looked thin but happy. She also gave Isabel a picture she had found in her mother’s things. This picture was of Isabel as an infant with her father, mother, and grandfather. Her father held his child in his arms and kissed her sweet cheek. Together, she and Isabel lovingly placed both pictures on the wall of the bedroom Isabel shared with both Faith and Grace, alongside the pictures of Faith’s birth mother and Grace’s biological mother.
With time and lots of love, all six children, Hope, Faith, Grace, Pedro, Lucia, and Isabel had adjusted to their new environment, as had Miranda and Tomás who were expecting their first born any day. Life was unbelievable busy and chaotic but so full of love that Angel couldn’t believe this life was really hers.
She stood in the kitchen of their Beverly Hills home, her hands hovering over the dirty dishes as she absent-mindedly stared out of the window, so lost in thought that she never even heard him when he walked in.
“Hi there, beautiful.” Kevin pulled her to him and kissed her.
“Oh! You startled me. Hi yourself, handsome.” She gave him a smile. “You’re home early.”
“Yeah, I wanted to catch a nap before we have to get ready for the awards show tonight.” He cocked his eyebrow suggestively. “Wanna join me?”
Angel giggled like a schoolgirl. “For the awards show or the nap?”
“Both.”
“Maybe,” she flirted back.
“Maybe? Aww, now you know you wanna say yes.” He nuzzled the sensitive spot just behind her ear. “Let me hear it. Say, ‘Yes Kevin. You know I can’t resist a hunk like you,’” he teased in a girly voice.
She giggled again and wiggled away from him. “I’m never gonna get this finished if you keep that up.”
“Okay, okay, but I’m only giving you five minutes,” he warned her.
She raised an eyebrow. “Well then, I’m only giving you five minutes.”
“Ouch! That was brutal.” Kevin feigned hurt at her words.
Angel couldn’t help but laugh at his playful bantering. “Okay. Five minutes.”
Kevin winked and disappeared through the kitchen door.
She rinsed the dirty dishes from the childr
en’s afternoon snack and put them in the dishwasher before sliding under the cover with him five minutes later.
She snuggled in close to him and breathed him in. “Kevin, Can I tell you something?”
“Sure, baby,” he said, kissing the underside of her jaw. “What’s wrong?”
She melted into his strong, warm body. “Nothing.”
“Oh good.” He pulled her closer to pull at the strap of her baby doll nightie. “Then it can wait, because I can’t.”
“But, Kevin…”
“But what?” He ran the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip.
She looked into those deep blue eyes and lost her train of thought. She reached up and caressed his cheek with the back of her hand. The slight stubble made her feel warm and giddy inside. “I love you.”
“I love you too, baby,” he whispered as he pulled her to him and placed his mouth over hers.
The Diamond Awards night at the Montreal Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, was a very prestigious and well-publicized affair. Angel had never been one to seek the spotlight, especially given the circumstances of the last few years of her life, and this was certainly not a place where she’d ever thought she’d find herself.
Kevin thought they made a remarkably good-looking couple standing together on the red carpet. He in his custom-made black tuxedo, and she looking beautiful in her strapless emerald-green evening gown. The gown was made of pure silk from some exotic-sounding place that Angel had never heard of, with a short, mid-thigh length in the front falling to floor length in the back. It showed off her creamy white shoulders and legs to perfection. Kevin noticed proudly that his wife was admired greatly by the men and was the envy of every woman.
They walked the red carpet with people that she never thought she’d ever be likely to meet but who now called her by her first name as if they’d known her their whole lives. Angel had gotten some of their phone numbers and had promised to call them when she had time. Some of them had even seemed sincere in their efforts to get information concerning the Angel’s Foundation.
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