The Senator's Hispanic Bride

by Gold, Alexis

  They fell back against the pillows and caught their breath when it was over, holding each other, and he kissed her face and her mouth. “I love you,” he whispered.

  She smiled back at him with all of her heart. “I love you, too.” She ran her finger down his face and looked into his bottomless blue eyes. “How did I ever get so lucky?”

  “I’m the lucky one,” he told her, and then reached for his shirt and pulled her ring from his pocket. She blushed slightly and he took her hand into his.

  “I’m going to give this back to you, but only on one condition,” he said softly.

  “What condition is that?” she asked, looking up through her eyelashes at him.

  “You can’t ever take it off again. It has to stay on your finger for the rest of your life. Alright?” he asked.

  She leaned to him and gave him a long, soft kiss. “I promise,” she said earnestly. He took her finger and slid the ring back onto it.

  “Now, it’s forever,” he said, kissing her hand.

  “Forever,” she answered, closing her eyes and kissing him again. They held each other close and kissed for a long while, until their kissing set them on fire again, and in the middle of the day in the warm sunlight streaming through the window, they made love again, wrestling and twisting, loving and losing themselves in each other.

  Later that afternoon, he went with her to her family’s restaurant and all of the cousins and Mama and Papa were overjoyed to see them. The cousins hugged them and greeted them, gathering at the family table, where they had a drink and talked for a while, but then Ricky, Pablo and Orlando, after giving him a few shots of rum, dragged Michael into the kitchen.

  “What are we doing?” he asked the men as they walked into the bright warm room.

  “We’re going to teach you how to cook!” they told him. He hadn’t ever been in a big kitchen like the one in the restaurant. They handed him a coat and he pulled it on and washed his hands.

  “What are we doing first?” he asked curiously, looking around the enormous kitchen. Pablo smiled and handed him a bowl of beans. “You’re going to wash these and learn to cook them!”

  “How do I do that?” Michael asked, looking at them with an eager smile. They laughed at him and Ricky took him to the sink and showed him what to do. A short while later, Michael was hovering over a pot of beans on the stove, stirring and poking at them as the water bubbled around them.

  Orlando waved at him. “Leave them alone! Let them cook! Come over here and help me with the fish primo!”

  Michael checked his beans once more and Pablo started on the rice to go with them while Orlando stood Michael beside the refrigerator door and had him hold his hands out palm up.

  “What did you call me?” he asked Orlando.

  “Primo. Cousin. You are my cousin now, tarado! Here.” Orlando pulled a massive fish from the refrigerator and slapped it in Michael’s hands. Michael stared at it as it stared lifelessly back at him.

  He raised his eyes to look at Orlando. “What am I going to do with this?”

  Orlando shook his head and walked Michael to the sink where he showed him how to scrub the fish with sea salt and water, and then they filleted it and rubbed sea salt into the meat of the fish, adding cilantro and lime, tucking pats of butter into it here and there, then they closed it up and laid it in a broiling pan to cook while Michael went back to check on his beans. Ricky gave him some spices to add to them, and when he tasted them, he was quite pleased with how they had come out.

  Ricky took Michael to the counter and showed him how to cut plantains, and then they sautéed them together in coconut oil and added sea salt to them.

  “Here, primo, try these,” Michael called out to Orlando, who looked up at him from behind diced citrus and pineapple. Orlando laughed at him and walked over to where Ricky and Michael stood. Ricky stood watching closely as Michael handed Orlando a few of his cooked plantains on a plate. Orlando popped one into his mouth and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  “Miguel! Mi primo! This is excellent! You keep cooking like this and I might let you work in the kitchen someday!” Orlando wrapped his arms around Michael in a big hug and then let him go with a clap on his shoulder. “Good! Now go get your beans before you burn them!”

  Michael rushed over to his beans and Pablo helped him pair them with the rice. Ricky, Orlando and Pablo all approved, and Michael could not have felt more proud as he walked out of the kitchen with the men, side by side, carrying the dishes of food that they had made, and setting them on the table before the ladies and Mama and Papa.

  He had not felt as much a part of a family in years, if ever, and it warmed his heart and touched his soul, making him feel as though he had found something he never wanted to let go of. He looked around at all of their faces, laughing, talking, sharing the food, and loving each other, and he felt like he was home.

  Isabella wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly. “This is delicious, Michael. You did such a great job! I love it. I’m so proud of you.” She bit on a plantain and closed her eyes to savor it. “Michael, I thought I would be the one to help you and teach you how to cook, but I think you began your lessons in very good hands!”

  Papa waved at him and he walked over to him. “Come, sit by me, Miguel. Come here.”

  Michael sat by him and looked at him with respect and admiration as the old man poured each of them a shot of rum. “You are my son now, Miguel, and I want you to know how proud I am of you for becoming part of this family and loving my beautiful daughter so much. I can see how happy she is, and it’s because of you.”

  “Thank you, Papa,” Michael said with a wide smile. “She makes me happy, too.”

  “Miguel, I want you to know that you are as much a part of this family as every one of these people who are here. You might not have been born into it, but you were brought into it by love, and there is no stronger bond than that in the world.” He wrapped his arm around Michael’s shoulders. “My son.” He kissed the top of his head and toasted him, then drank with him.

  Ricky, Orlando and Reynaldo pulled out guitars and started to play music for all of the guests of the restaurant, and the ladies began to sing. Before long, most of the patrons in the restaurant were clapping along, some of them joined in the song, and all of them enjoyed the camaraderie as the night grew long. Michael looked around him at the people who were loving the evening there together with the family, feeding their bodies on the food, their hearts on the music, and their souls on the warm and colorful culture that surrounded them.

  He realized as he was sitting there that his desire to change the communities of his city had changed. It had once been that he just wanted to make them better places for the economy, for safety, for tourism, for reasons of ecology and morality, but now as he sat there, having gotten to know them, having been with them, he realized that his desires had changed to include wanting to do this not for the people as a whole, but for people as individuals. For each one of them that he saw and spoke with, for people, individually, and he vowed to himself that that was just what he would do.

  The music filled the dark night, and before long, there was some dancing, some drinking, lots of singing, and lots of celebrating and wonderful memories were made. Isabella was tucked under his arm for a good portion of the night, near to his heart and warm in his arms. She delighted in seeing him participate in all the things he had done with her family, from cooking dinner for all of them to clapping along with the music and talking with her cousins and parents. Only one person hadn’t interacted with him that night, and that was Marisol. She still didn’t trust him, but she didn’t say anything about him or to him, she just carried on with the restaurant and all of them had a wonderful time.

  Isabella saw a new light in Michael’s eyes that she hadn’t seen there before, something alive and inspired, something that made her love him more and feel more connected to him than she had been up to that point. She was watching him, wondering what it was, when he turn
ed to look at her and touched her cheek, smiling at her. He leaned over to her and kissed her softly, and curled his fingers in hers, holding on to her as they listened to their family together.

  The night wore away into the wee hours of the morning, and finally it ended, and everyone went their own way home. Michael didn’t want the feeling to end, and he went home with Isabella, reminiscing about the wonderful evening, and falling asleep in her arms in her bed, where they rested soundly until the morning light touched them again.

  He woke up to find her watching him. “Did you dream?” she asked softly.

  Michael shook his head. “No, I just felt like everything from last night might be gone and I was worried about losing it,” he said quietly.

  She touched his cheek and looked into his blue eyes. “You haven’t lost anything and you won’t, you are part of it, now.” She kissed him and he knew she was right. He had a family, a big family, and he was going to be part of it for the rest of his life.

  *

  Chapter Four

  Isabella was walking up the sidewalk toward Michael’s office a few days later when she saw someone walking out of the door that she could not believe was there. The woman had her blonde hair pulled back over her shoulders and she was wearing a flimsy white dress and heels. Kelsey waved at someone in the doorway and turned toward the street, walking down the steps and then she saw Isabella and stopped short for a moment as a razor sharp smile spread over her red lips.

  She paused for a moment and then finished descending the steps and walked down the sidewalk toward Isabella, her hips swaying and the hem of her dress dancing around the middle of her bare thighs. Isabella felt like she might vomit right there in the street.

  She stopped and waited as Kelsey walked up to her and stopped before her.

  “We should go have a coffee. There’s a little place around the corner,” Kelsey said with a cold smile on her face.

  “I don’t have time to have coffee with you. I was just on my way to see Michael. We have some important things to go over for the wedding.” Isabella felt anger bubbling up inside of her.

  Kelsey laughed at her, tossing her head back and shaking her blonde waves. “Your wedding.” She leaned toward Isabella and lowered her voice. “I wouldn’t worry too much about planning for that. It won’t last long anyway.”

  Isabella gritted her teeth and was just about to tell Kelsey where she could go when Kelsey held her hand up. “Ah, ah… now, be nice, kitten. We really should go for coffee. There are things that you don’t know about, that you should know. Things that might change your mind about that life altering decision you are planning on making, and those things are things that you aren’t going to find out from Michael and Glenn, at least, not until it’s far too late. Save yourself the time and heartache, honey, come talk with me for a while.” Kelsey smiled at her and looked down at her in pseudo sympathy.

  Isabella thought about it for a moment and wondered if what Kelsey was saying was true. Part of her wanted to tell Kelsey to get lost and ignore anything she said, and yet there was something nagging at the back of her heart, something that told her that Kelsey wasn’t lying, that there were things she didn’t know that she would want to know. She took a deep breath and nodded.

  “Alright, Kelsey, I’ll go with you,” she spoke quietly and Kelsey grinned and flipped her hair back, taking the lead and walking a half a step ahead of Isabella as they turned back down the sidewalk and headed for the café around the corner.

  Coffee in hand, they found a secluded table beneath an umbrella on the patio overlooking a small garden. They sat down and Isabella shot Kelsey a serious look. “Alright, what’s so important that you need to tell me about it?”

  “Rush, rush,” Kelsey said, sipping her coffee. “If it was me, I would be anxious to hear every little detail.”

  “I don’t have a lot of time, Kelsey.” Isabella sighed and looked at her with impatience.

  “Oh alright.” Kelsey grinned coldly and leaned toward Isabella, looking into her eyes. “Well, the first thing is that you should know that Michael still wants me.”

  Isabella stood straight up. “I don’t have time for this,” she said, grabbing her coffee.

  Kelsey put her hand on Isabella’s wrist. “You do have time for this. Don’t you want to know what he and I did after the party?”

  Isabella sighed and sat down. “What are you talking about?” She thought back to the night of the engagement party, when Michael had driven her home and she asked him to stay but then he said he had to work that night and that he had an early morning meeting and he left her to go back to his own house.

  Kelsey grinned and stirred her straw in her coffee. “I’m talking about the after party that Michael and I had at his house after he dropped you off. I’m betting he didn’t tell you about that.” She almost sneered at Isabella.

  Isabella felt her heart launch itself into her throat and Kelsey’s eyebrows went up as her grin widened. “Oh! I was right! Look at you… he didn’t tell you about it. Smart boy. Unfortunately for him, we girls have to stick together, so I’m going to tell you.”

  Isabella swallowed hard and watched Kelsey with piercing eyes. “Well tell me, then.”

  “It was a clothing optional party, and it started out smoldering hot and just… caught fire from there. He couldn’t keep his hands off of me. I don’t remember the last time he wanted me that much. God, it felt good to have him touch me like that. It’s been so long!” Kelsey rolled her eyes and blushed smiling, as if she was gushing about a hot date to a girlfriend, but then she looked back at Isabella and shook her head slowly.

  Isabella felt her stomach tighten and her heart begin to race. Her muscles ached and her head was pounding as though it might burst open at any moment. She tried to steady herself from the dizziness that threatened to pull her down to the ground. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be real. Michael wouldn’t have touched her like that, not now that he was engaged to her. Not the very same night as their engagement party.

  “You’re lying,” she said quietly, staring at Kelsey. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t, she thought. Her mind raced with arguments about why it wasn’t true at all, but something was wrong. Something was out of place. She wasn’t sure at all that Kelsey was lying and it ripped her whole body in two to admit that to herself.

  Kelsey shook her head slowly. “No honey, I’m not, but I’m sure enjoying this. You don’t believe me? Ask him. He may love to put his hands and his mouth on me while he’s engaged to you, but he isn’t a liar. I can see he hasn’t admitted it to you, but I’m not lying and he won’t lie to you either if you ask him. You go ahead and ask him. See what he says.” She took a drink of her coffee and Isabella could feel her eyes burning through her as she spoke. “If you think about it, you’ll know I’m right. He went home without you that night. I know that because he was with me. How else would I know that?”

  Isabella gritted her teeth. “You bitch.” She spoke in a low voice. She wished she could knock Kelsey right out of her chair, but she had Michael to think of, and it was the only thing holding her back from it.

  Kelsey smiled and wagged her finger at Isabella. “Now, now… that’s not all I have to tell you.”

  “What else could you possibly have to say to me?” Isabella was trying her best to hold in the hot tears that stung her eyes and threatened to fall, but she could not let them fall, not in front of Kelsey.

  “Well, I went in to see Michael today. I’m lonely and I wanted to…” she showed a sexy smile, “…spend some time with him, but Glenn stopped me and asked me to talk with him in his office. It seems that Glenn has some plans regarding you and Michael. He didn’t give me all of the details, but he told me that I have to steer clear of Michael for now because he’s got something going on with you two, and he said that if I got in the way that it would mess it up. It’s something to do with Michael’s election, and so of course I told him that I would step
aside for now. I want Michael to win, of course, but that got me to wondering if you know what old Glenn is up to. Why are you marrying Michael? Is he paying you? Is that it? Is this a publicity stunt?” Kelsey eyed her carefully and Isabella gasped in horror.

  “What? What are you talking about? I’m not getting paid to marry Michael! He’s marrying me because he loves me!” She was quickly succumbing to the anger and pain that was ravaging her heart.

  Kelsey nodded. “Ah. I see. They didn’t tell you anything about it either. So that means you aren’t being paid, you’re just being used.” Kelsey shook her head sadly and looked at Isabella with pity. “You poor thing. No idea what’s going on, and you’re the bait they are using for the election. Well, at least it’ll be fun while it lasts.”

  She leaned close to Isabella. “I will tell you this, though, as soon as that election is over and they are done with you, I’m going to take Michael back, and there isn’t anything or anyone who is going to stop me.”

  Isabella was too furious to speak. She glared at Kelsey with eyes brimming with tears.

  Kelsey dipped her finger into her coffee and then slipped her finger into her mouth, pulling it out slowly and moaning while she closed her eyes for a moment as if it was extremely pleasurable. She opened her eyes gradually and smiled at Isabella.

  “He couldn’t… keep… his hands… off… of me.” She said in a low voice with a wicked smile. “Go ahead and ask him about that night. Maybe when you finally believe that I was there, you’ll realize that I’m telling you the truth about Glenn. They’re up to something, and if I were you, I would want to know what it is. He isn’t marrying you for love, honey, he’s marrying you for his campaign.”