Nick steps forward, and his lips brush the top of my head, his fingers clasping my waist, clutching the fabric of my coat, somewhere between pulling me closer and pushing me away.

“You’re too everything for me. Young is probably the least of my worries.”

My hand finds his, and he releases the fabric, threading his fingers with mine once more.

“This is a bad idea,” I whisper, as I step into the curve of his body.

“The worst,” Nick agrees, his hands moving to my nape, his fingers on the clasp of my necklace. His fingertips ghost across my skin as he removes the jewelry from my neck. He sets it on the nightstand before mimicking the motion with my earrings, his knuckles skimming my earlobes.

He leans down. His lips graze my ear.

I shudder, goose bumps rising over my skin.

I tip my head up, no longer content to wait for him to kiss me first. In truth, I’ve built up this kiss in my mind since the first moment I met him.

It doesn’t disappoint.

There are kisses, and then there are kisses, and this one rests firmly in the latter category.

“I thought you didn’t believe in rebellions,” I whisper, tearing my mouth away from his, my fingers making quick work of his tie as he shrugs off his coat.

Now that I have the taste of him in my mouth, the feel of his body against me, I am greedy for more.

Nick groans, pulling me closer. “Maybe I just hadn’t found the right one.”

He strokes my nape, his fingers shifting to the buttons at the back of my dress, his knuckles soaring across the exposed bare skin.

I fumble with the buttons down the front of his white dress shirt, removing his tie from his collar, my heart pounding madly, madly, madly with each shudder, each caress.

When you’re a young girl, from the right family, who sits in the wooden pew at Mass each Sunday alongside your parents, inhabiting a society that looks for reasons to cast a proverbial scarlet letter upon you, you’re told to guard your virtue against such wantonness. No one tells you with the right man it can feel like heaven; in the right moment, it can make you feel more powerful than you ever imagined.

No one tells you how truly lovely it can be.

I thought I knew what it was to want, but now, his body above mine, well, now I know what all those men before him only hinted at, the stolen kisses by eager boys paling in comparison to the passion I find in his arms.

Is this love?

Who has time to worry about such things?

At the moment, it is everything, and that’s all that matters.

* * *

? ? ?

“You’re quiet,” Nick says.

He dabs his cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table, his other arm wrapped around my shoulders. My head rests against his bare chest.

When I remember this moment later, it will be the scent of his cigarettes, his skin warm against mine, the sheets scratchy against my skin, the bright light from the lamp we never got around to turning off that I conjure up. Those will be the colors, sounds, and smells that shape the memory, but what fills it, what fills me now, is how happy I feel, even as I know there will be heartbreak down the road, that I am the villain in this piece for going to bed with an engaged man, that as I once warned Eduardo, the bill always comes due at the end.

And still—I don’t regret a moment we’ve shared.

“I’m happy,” I reply.

“You say it like you’re surprised by the emotion,” he muses.

“I suppose I have a hard time trusting ‘happy.’”

“I can understand that.”

Despite his time spent fighting in the war, I have a hard time imagining he can understand, and at the same time, there are some things I don’t know how to explain, don’t want intruding on this moment.

My body was easy to share; the rest of it more difficult. Ironic, really, when you think of all the times my mother and Magda worried over my virtue, guarding my virginity as though it was the most prized part of me. They worried far less over my heart.

“You’re still afraid,” he says, his tone filled with surprise.

“I am.”

“I would have thought—”

“That if I were afraid of Fidel and his men, I’d stay far away from them?”

“Yes.”

“The only way to stop being afraid of something is to confront it. To take away its power over you.”

“He doesn’t have power over you anymore, though, Beatriz. You’re safe now.”

The earnestness in his voice almost makes me laugh, and for the first time all evening, I feel like the older, wiser one.

“I don’t even know what ‘safe’ means anymore. I was so busy living in a bubble, I didn’t realize how tumultuous the rest of the world was, how badly people wanted to tear down everything we’d built. None of it was real. It was all just a pretty illusion we fooled ourselves into believing. I won’t make that mistake again.”

“So you don’t believe in anything anymore?”

“I believe in myself.”

“Is that why you don’t let anyone close? All those abandoned marriage proposals?”

I shrug.

“Don’t do that. Don’t push me away, too. You can let me in.”

“Can I? What is this if not a fantasy? What good does it do to pretend it is anything else?”

“It doesn’t have to be a fantasy,” he replies. “It could be something more, something real.”

He is a good man. That is a singular quality these days. He is a good man, and one day he will do great things.

So will I.

I roll over, resting my chin on his chest, trailing a finger down his jaw.

“We are both what ambition has made us. Let’s not pretend otherwise. We have our goals, and the paths we are on are set. This is a moment. Nothing more.”

“You don’t want it to be more.”

“It’s not about what I want or what you want. Neither one of us would be content to have our plans derailed, and we don’t fit neatly in each other’s pockets. You have a fiancée out there somewhere.” He flinches. “You can’t afford a scandal. Not now. The election is, what, not even two months away? And I am nothing if not a scandal.”

“You don’t have to be, you know. It’s not too late to back down from this insane arrangement you have with the CIA.”

“It’s not in my nature to back down.”

“Sometimes I forget how young you are.”

I sit up, the sheets dropping to my waist.

“Don’t do that. Don’t discount me because of my age. I am so tired of people telling me I don’t understand the world around me because I am a woman or because I am young.”

“It’s not about your age or gender. I just can’t reconcile the version of you that is smart and logical with this person who seems willing to throw herself into an utterly reckless and risky situation.”

“That’s because you have no idea what it’s like to watch your country fall apart in front of you, and to feel so utterly powerless, so helpless to do anything about it.”

I want him to understand this side of me, the most important part, perhaps. I want him to value the choices I’ve made as I do. I want his respect.

“No, you’re right, I don’t,” he replies. “I can’t imagine what you experienced in Cuba. But I don’t understand why you feel the need to fix everything yourself. There are other people who can do that, Beatriz. You don’t have to risk your life. If my brother told me he was involved with the CIA, I would warn him against it. Dwyer has a reputation.”

“So do I. This isn’t the first time I’ve participated in such activities and I doubt it will be the last.”

“And your family? What do they say of your involvement with the CIA?”

“They don’t know anything about it.”

“They wouldn’t be pleased, though, would they?”

“Probably not. They certainly weren’t happy when I was involved with the revolutionary movement in Cuba. If I only did what my family wished me to do, I wouldn’t have very much fun at all. I certainly wouldn’t be here with you.”

He has the grace to nearly blush.

“I’m not that strange, you know,” I add. “There are plenty of women who have joined the revolutionaries in Cuba, who are fighting for what they believe in. I can admire their conviction even if our beliefs are not the same.”

“And I can worry about you even if it annoys you. I can’t help it, Beatriz.”

I turn, capturing his mouth in another kiss.

“Let’s not talk of such things. I don’t want politics between us. Not now.”

“What do you want then?” he asks. “From me?”

There’s hesitancy in the question, and I imagine he’s the sort of man from whom a great many people want a great many things.

“This.”

“And what is ‘this,’ exactly?”

“I want you. Just you. No cash by the bedside table. No lies between us. No promises we don’t intend to keep.”

“Debutantes aren’t what they used to be, are they?”

I roll my eyes. “Would you rather I let you take the lead?”

He laughs. “I’ll manage just fine, but thank you. So I take it, even though I never extended the offer, that you have no interest in being my mistress.”

“It’s hardly personal. I don’t want to be anyone’s mistress.”

“Then that’s not the plan with Fidel?”

“You don’t want to know the plan with Fidel.”

“He’ll be back in Havana soon. Will you still be here?”

“I’ll be in Palm Beach.”