“You should be careful.”
The voice jolts me, and I pivot slowly, prolonging the moment a bit for female vanity, but mostly to clear my head.
He’s no less golden now that I know who he is, or now that he’s officially engaged. In fact, the only thing marring his handsome face is the scowl directed at me.
“Dwyer is not someone you want to get on the wrong side of,” Nicholas Preston warns.
Given his influential position in the government, I’m not surprised he’s familiar with a CIA official; from the interest I saw in his gaze, I’m not surprised he tracked my departure from the ballroom in the midst of his engagement announcement, either.
I bristle at the words, though, at the warning contained in his tone, at the implication that I need a keeper.
“I can take care of myself.”
“Maybe you can, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be more careful about the company you keep. Dwyer won’t feel guilty about using you in order to achieve his ends, and he won’t concern himself overmuch with what happens to you in the process. He doesn’t play around.”
“Good, because I don’t play around, either.”
His words feel a lot like all the ones my parents put before me, the barriers and obstacles—my gender, our family’s status, the need to marry a man who reflects well on my family, the importance of always advancing our position in the world.
He steps forward, and I tilt my head to the side, studying him.
“Should you be out here, Senator Preston? I can’t imagine your fiancée would be pleased to see you so concerned with another woman’s affairs. Especially someone like me.”
In this sedate little town, this insular island, I am a scandal.
A tic in his jaw erupts as the word “fiancée” falls from my lips. A full-body flinch at “affairs.”
I smile, all teeth this time. “Like I said, I can take care of myself.”
He doesn’t speak, the silence yawning between us, and then he nods, the motion stiff, the familiarity that existed between us earlier on the balcony erased.
“Of course you can. I apologize for intruding.” There’s a hint of mockery in his tone and in the curve of his lips that suggests he bites, too. “As you said, my fiancée is waiting for me.”
It turns out his is a remarkably effective closing line as I am met once again with the sight of his back and the rarity of watching a man walk away from me.
I never accepted any of those five proposals, never really considered them, because while most were nice enough men, some odious but in possession of perfectly nice fortunes, they never made me feel anything.
They never slid under my skin and rattled me.
In one evening, Nicholas Preston has.
chapter three
“How did it go last night?” Eduardo Diaz asks me in Spanish, his voice low, his gaze darting around the crowded restaurant as we debrief the introduction he arranged between Mr. Dwyer and me.
“I’m not sure,” I admit. There hardly seems to be a point to lying to a man I used to blackmail into playing tea party when we were children. Eduardo is the sort of friend who is practically family.
“Well, how did you leave things?”
“Mr. Dwyer said he’d be in contact.” I lower my voice. “I got the impression the CIA doesn’t have a plan for getting close to Fidel, but he was intrigued by the idea of using me to accomplish such a feat.”
Eduardo takes a sip of his coffee, a frown on his handsome face. “It’s not enough.”
“Maybe not, but what was I supposed to do? The man is suspicious. If I’d pushed too hard, he likely would have thought I was a Cuban agent or something.”
The spying going on between Washington and Havana has been particularly fervent these days, and Fidel is rumored to have inserted spies into the growing exile circles.
“Perhaps.” Eduardo leans back in his seat, taking another sip of coffee. The instant he sets it back on the table, a server is there to refill it. He flashes her a smile, one I’ve watched him employ countless times. Women are forever falling in love with Eduardo Diaz, which I fear is a terrible mistake. He’s a selfish bastard, albeit a lovable one, and at the moment, his focus is devoted to our cause, and a pair of fine eyes or other virtues won’t sway him. Despite how much Eduardo likes women, he loves Cuba more.
A pink hue tinges the waitress’s cheeks.
Once Eduardo’s coffee mug is filled to the brim once more, the waitress leaves us.
“I heard you gained an admirer last night,” he muses.
“I imagine I gained more than one; I was trying for my best damsel in distress—the princess without a throne, in need of a valiant knight to slay the dragon for her. Men love nonsense like that.”
He grins. “Some do.”
“No dragon slaying for you?”
“Hardly. You know I hate to dirty my hands.”
“Well, presumably some of these American men don’t share your sentiment.”
They say Nicholas Preston was a war hero.
His gaze turns shrewd. “Speaking of American men, I heard you were the recipient of a ballroom proposal.”
Eduardo wasn’t at the party, but clearly, I’m not the only set of eyes and ears he has placed in Palm Beach society.
“You could just come to these events yourself, you know. Rather than relying on your little network of spies to tattle on us for you.”
“I was playing cards last night. It turned out to be a very profitable endeavor.”
“Cards? Is that what they’re calling it these days? I’m sure there were other, shall we say, distractions to your evening.”
Eduardo enjoys a position in society the rest of us haven’t achieved. Despite the temporary lack of fortune, they view him as a catch, the sort of escort bored housewives and ambitious mothers love: his appearance handsome, his manners impeccable, a perfectly tailored dinner jacket at the ready.
“I can’t help it if everyone finds me irresistible,” he teases.
“Please. It’s far too early for that sort of talk, and I went to bed far too late last night.”
“So I wasn’t the only one who had an interesting evening.”
He manages to make “interesting” sound like a very naughty thing, indeed.
“I very much doubt my evening was as interesting as yours, considering I went home with my parents and sisters, and you went home with—who was she?—a lonely widow or aspiring cabaret singer? Perhaps a misunderstood, much younger wife?”