by Gold, Alexis
Isabella knew that she shouldn’t do it, but she had to. She bit at Kelsey’s bait. “Alright, Kelsey, what’s different about this morning?”
Kelsey stared at her and laughed right out loud, and Marisol took a step toward her and glared. “You really don’t know, do you? Ha!” She laughed again and then pulled a chair up and sat down in it.
“Don’t make yourself comfortable, Kelsey, you aren’t staying,” Isabella said sharply.
Kelsey shook her head slowly. “Oh no, I’m going to have the best seat in the city today. I wouldn’t miss this for the world. You really should keep yourself better informed.”
Isabella was swiftly growing irritated at the woman sitting before her, and sorely wished that she could tell her what she really thought of her. “What are you talking about, Kelsey?”
Kelsey clapped her hands together in glee for a moment and then reached down into her bag and pulled out a newspaper, handing it to Isabella. “Here you go, darling. Have a look. I can’t wait to see the fallout from this.”
Isabella took the newspaper from her and looked down at it. Kelsey grinned.
There, on the front page of the newspaper, was a photo of her and Michael at the function they had had at her family’s restaurant, and the headline read, “Michael Bradley marrying for the Latin American votes.” She stared at the words, hardly believing she was reading them. She was sure that they couldn’t be true, and she skimmed over the article, which said that his campaign manager Glenn Todd had planned the courtship and marriage right from the start in order to gain all of the Latin American votes in the state and sway the election enough to win it from the incumbent senator who had an archaic stance on immigration.
It further stated that the wedding was being made into a three ring circus publicity stunt to draw the attention of the public eye and create a celebrity couple out of the two, which she felt deep in her heart was exactly what had happened. She was livid. Tears stung her eyes and her heart almost stopped in her chest. She heard Marisol’s words echoing in her ears from weeks and weeks of warnings about just this thing. She tried to bite her lip. She absolutely refused to cry in front of Kelsey, who was sitting there just waiting for it, waiting for her to crumble and break.
She looked up from the paper and Kelsey had an expression that told her she was eating it up like chocolate cake. Marisol took the paper gently from her sister’s hands and read it as Isabella drew a deep breath and faced her nemesis.
“That’s all just trash. It’s a lie. You shouldn’t believe everything that you read in the papers.” She held her chin up and forced all the raging chaos of emotions in her to still and subside.
Kelsey laughed and shook her head. “No, it isn’t. I talked to Glenn about it, and he confirmed it. Remember when I talked to you last time and I told you that Glenn told me to stay away from you and Michael until after the election? This is why. He told Michael to propose to you and marry you. Why do you think you’re getting married so quickly? It’s because of Glenn. Haven’t you been suspicious about why he is so determined to have this taken care of so quickly and why he keeps involving the press with it?”
Isabella felt herself shaking with rage. “You’re lying,” she said in a warning voice.
Kelsey just grinned. “You don’t believe me? Go ask Glenn and Michael. Maybe they’ll tell you the truth about this one. I would be surprised if they did, but it’s worth a shot. I would want to know the truth if I was you.”
Marisol looked up from the paper and narrowed her eyes at Kelsey again. “It says here that all of this is from a source close to the candidate. Who would that source be, Kelsey? Was it you?”
Kelsey raised her eyebrows and pushed her lips out in surprise. “Oh! Look at that. Big sister is a smart girl.” She uncrossed her legs and stood up, looking down her nose at them both. “Yes, I was the source. Where else do you think this would come from? I know Michael and Glenn would never tell anyone else. Glenn only told me because he wants me to stay away from Michael, and I knew he was up to something, so I spent the night with him and coaxed it out of him. That man would give away every national secret for a hot night in the sack with me. He’s such a pushover. He confided his plan to me and I just thought it was so… newsworthy… that I couldn’t keep it to myself. I had to share it, and of course the editors promised to keep my name out of it, but I am considered a reliable source, having been engaged to the man myself, before.”
Isabella gasped and stared at her in horror. “You’re going to ruin his career! You’ll ruin the election! How could you do this to him?”
Kelsey clicked her tongue. “Oh, look at you… ever thoughtful and selfless. You should be more worried about what this is going to do to you. I’m sure it must be awful to find out that you’re being used for your skin color and heritage. It’s almost like being bought… like, being a prostitute, you know, selling yourself for the benefit of another. That’s just what you’re doing, and that is just what you are. Nothing more than a cheap, trashy, dirty little prostitute, and it’s time the public knew just-”
That was the end of what Kelsey thought, because Marisol reached her fist back three states and brought it forward with the force of a tank, planting it firmly on the side of Kelsey’s cover girl face. Kelsey went sailing backward, not having seen it coming, her arms flailing as she cried out and landed flat on her back. The wind was knocked out of her and she gasped and choked for air as a trickle of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth.
“Mari!” Isabella cried out, horrified. She clapped her hand over her mouth and stared at her sister with wide open eyes. “What have you done?”
Marisol looked down at Kelsey lying on the floor and shook her hand, working out the pain from the punch. “She had it coming, and you can’t do something like that, you have to think of your public image. I don’t have a public image, so there’s no recourse for me.”
Isabella laughed in surprise and tears rolled from her eyes. “I’ve wanted to do that to her since the engagement party! Thank you so much!” She hugged her sister tightly and Marisol smiled at her.
“Sister has always got your back,” she said softly.
The sales girls went flying around the room, bringing cool wet cloths and helping Kelsey to her feet. The manager of the boutique rushed up to Isabella and Marisol and started apologizing left and right.
“I saw the whole thing! I am so sorry she was let in here. I don’t know who she is, but she had no business coming in here and talking to you like that. She had no business being so awful to you! I’ll have her escorted out immediately!” The woman did just that: calling security and having a large burly guard drag Kelsey to the door and alert the police, telling them that Marisol was protecting her sister as Kelsey was threatening and attacking her. Kelsey argued and yelled about her side of the incident being different, but it hit the Internet so fast and had such negative repercussions that Kelsey had no room at all for her argument.
Isabella found her dress and left the shop under a cloud of newspaper reporters and photographers who were waiting outside for her, all of them shouting questions at her about the news that morning that she was only marrying Michael to help his campaign, and even more questions about Kelsey attacking her. The cell phone pictures that the shop girls posted showed Kelsey thrusting a newspaper at Isabella with a nasty look on her face and everyone sided with Marisol in defense of Isabella. Marisol was a social media celebrity by the end of the day.
When they climbed into the car as they left the shop, the driver asked them where they wanted to go, and Isabella asked that they drop Marisol and her dress off at the restaurant, and then she had the driver take her to Michael’s office.
She walked into the office and for once, Jean was not sitting at the front desk. She walked back to Michael’s office and saw that the door was partway open. She heard voices shouting and knew that one of them was Michael’s, one was Glenn’s, and there was a third one that she couldn’t place. She knew it wasn’t right to st
op and listen. She knew she should walk in and make her presence known, but she heard them say her name, and it froze her in tracks. She waited beside the open door and listened in as they spoke.
“What the hell is this all about?” the strange voice said.
“It was a plan that I came up with and Michael agreed to it,” Glenn said miserably.
“So it’s true?” the strange voice said even louder.
“Most of it is true. I had studied the demographic of the state to a fault, looking for the best way to get Michael elected, looking for votes. The Latin American community was all angry with the current senator and he was losing their backing left and right. I found out that Michael had met Isabella and it just clicked,” Glenn explained.
“What just clicked?” the strange voice said.
“The plan I came up with for them to get married, a marriage that would swing the vote to him with a large and loyal sect of the population; a convincing reason for the people who were angry with the current senator to give their vote to Michael. We would make it completely public and use the engagement and wedding as extra publicity to bring in more voters. Most people don’t like politicians, but Michael is a good looking man and hitching him to a beautiful Latin American woman was a shoe in for positive publicity. It was like someone was handing him the keys to Washington. We couldn’t pass it up. He almost screwed it up, but luckily he managed to save it in time,” Glenn continued with a long sigh.
“And you agreed to this, Michael?” the stranger’s voice sounded appalled.
“I did.” Michael’s voice sounded miserable.
As the words were spoken, Isabella felt like everything inside her had been destroyed and every cell in her entire being had exploded simultaneously. Kelsey had been right. Marisol had been right. There had been no love all along. Her heart vaulted to her throat and she almost choked on it and on her tears. She could barely believe what she was hearing, and she wouldn’t have believed it, except that she clearly heard Michael admit to it and there was no way to not hear what he had said.
“Who else knew about this?” the strange voice asked.
Glenn answered him. “No one else knew about this except Michael’s ex-fiancée Kelsey. She’s a piece of work.”
“This news is going to destroy the entire campaign! All of the money I’ve invested in you both will be gone! I am your biggest contributor, Michael, and now I find out about this underhanded and low brow deal? Who the hell spilled it to the press?” the strange voice was a stranger no longer. Isabella knew just who it was. The man was one of the most successful businessmen in all of Manhattan, who just happened to be Puerto Rican. No wonder he was so put out about all of it.
“Kelsey let it out. She came to talk to me about Michael a couple of times recently, and she kept telling me she wanted to be with him and that she would be such a big help to his campaign. I told her that she couldn’t be around him and that we already had the campaign plan well underway. She wanted to know all the details and I refused to tell her but then she talked me into it, and now she shared all of the news with the media. Now everyone knows the plan.”
The campaign supporter spoke again. “How did she get such important information out of you, Glenn?”
“She screwed me,” he said as if she had brought him a cup of coffee.
“For crying out loud!” Michael shouted at him. “What the hell is wrong with you? You slept with my ex? Are you sick?”
“She’s a hot woman. I didn’t think she’d tell anyone. She said you were her first priority,” Glenn continued in his monotone voice.
“I am her first priority, Glenn, she wants me back! That’s why she came to you in the first place! Now look at the mess you’ve gotten us into! Everything I have done to make sure that this election is won is out the window!” Michael was still shouting, and Isabella had decided that she had heard enough.
Her heart could not handle being ripped to further shreds. She walked to Jean’s desk and wrote a note to Michael. It read, ‘Give this ring to some other Latin American woman.’ She took one long last look at the beautiful ring on her hand and thought of all the dreams she had that were gone now. She slid it off and set it with the note, and then walked out of the door, closing it behind her.
Chapter 7
Michael looked at Carlos and Glenn as their conversation escalated, and raked his hand through his black hair in frustration. “I can’t believe you slept with my ex, Glenn! I should fire you right now! What the hell am I paying you to do? You’re ruining my life!”
“I’d say that he’s ruining Isabella’s life!” Carlos said with obvious disgust.
“I’m not trying to ruin anyone’s life!” Glenn shouted back at both of them. “This is just an unfortunate turn of events! That’s all!”
“It is not an unfortunate turn of events, Glenn, it is a bombshell that I may not be able to recover from! What am I going to do when Isabella finds out about this?” He threw his hands up in the air and glared at Glenn.
“What do you care about what Isabella thinks of it?” Glenn asked with equal frustration.
“I happen to be in love with her! I want to marry her and spend the rest of my life with her, and I have already lost her once, I can’t lose her again! She made it crystal clear to me that I couldn’t screw up again and here I am in the biggest screw up of my life! I can’t believe you did this to me or to her!” Michael shouted angrily.
Carlos looked hard at him and then raised his eyebrows. “You really do love her!” he exclaimed in amazement.
“You’re damn right I do. She is the love of my life. She is my family. Her family is my family. She is everything to me and now there’s a good chance that I’m going to lose her! Glenn, I’m done with this. I cannot let you ruin my life any more than you already have. You’re fired. Pack your desk up today and get out.” Michael shook his head angrily at Glenn.
Glenn stared at him. “You must be kidding. You can’t do that! You can’t fire me this close to the election! We’re almost there! I got you this close! I can get you over the finish line!”
Michael jumped to his feet. “Don’t you get it, Glenn? I don’t give a damn about the election! All I care about is Isabella, and you’ve just created a problem for me that I may not be able to recover from. I cannot have you around anymore. I don’t need you around anymore. You’re out. If you say one word to anyone about anything that we have done in the work of this campaign… or rather, anyone else… I will sue you.”
Glenn’s jaw fell open in shock. “But I’m… you can’t…”
Michael glared at him and spoke in a low tone. “I just did. Leave.”
Glenn stood up and walked out of the room. Carlos looked at Michael and smiled.
“Michael, that was the best thing you could have done. I was about to pull my funding and backing from you, and you would have been on your own.” A smile grew across Carlos’ face and he laid his hands down on his knees.
“I hate to let him go, but too much of what he has done has cost me my ethics and morals and I can’t keep letting him run my campaign like that or he is going to wreck my career at some point in the future. He may have wrecked my relationship. I need to try to get a hold of Isabella as quickly as possible. I don’t know if she has seen anything yet, but I can’t take the chance that she’ll believe any of it. Carlos, I am so sorry that it went the way that it did and that I ever agreed to that plan of Glenn’s in the first place, but I want you to know that that isn’t how I’m going to run the rest of my campaign or any of my business in the future. I would like to keep you involved in my bid for the senate, if you are comfortable staying with me.” Michael looked at him in earnest.
Carlos nodded. “I’ll be glad to stay with you; I like your platforms and your plans. I like how you think and what you do, but I want to ask you to be much more careful in your choice of campaign staff in the future. That Glenn Todd is far too jaded, and anyone else like him wouldn’t be someone I wouldn’t want to be associat
ed with. If you think you can get this mess cleaned up, then I’ll stay with you. If you don’t get this mess cleaned up, then I’ll be withdrawing my support from this and all future campaigns.” Carlos told him with a serious tone, his eyes steady on Michael.
Michael stood up and reached for Carlos’s hand. Carlos stood up and closed his hand firmly around Michael’s. “I’ll clean it up. I promise you that. I am running for office so that I can win the seat, not so that I waste my time and resources messing around on the way. I will fix this situation for myself and for everyone else. It’s paramount that I undo the damage that Glenn has done.”
“Thank you, Michael,” Carlos said with his kind smile. “I really hope it is fixed soon. I’d like to keep our association.”
Michael nodded, and Carlos walked out of the room. Michael picked up his phone and called Isabella, but there was no answer, it went straight to voicemail. He left her a message telling her that he needed to talk with her and that whatever she might read in the newspapers, it was not the truth.
Jean, his secretary, walked into his office with a heartbroken look on her face. She walked up to his desk and set the note Isabella had written on it, and then held her hand over the note and when she moved her hand, Isabella’s ring was lying on the note. Jean turned silently and walked toward the door, shaking her head.
“Jean!” he called out, and she turned around to look at him.
“I let Glenn go,” he said quietly.
“I know,” she said in a low voice. “It’s high time he was out of here,” she stated shortly and smiled a little, and then turned and walked out of the room.
He looked at the note. He knew what it would say before he read it. He closed his fingers around the ring and held it tight as his chest felt like it was cracking right in half. The ache that burned in his heart grew rapidly and overtook all of him, tearing him apart from his core. Tears stung his eyes and his breath burned in him. He tried to call her again and got no answer. He knew there was no way that she would answer her phone. He could hear the phone ringing off the hook in the font office, and he could hear Jean fielding his calls, taking messages and telling people he would call them back.