“He’s been sentenced to thirty years in prison. I hardly think he is preoccupied with romance at the moment.”

“And when he’s released? Is he going to pull you back into his world?”

“You cannot possibly be jealous of a man in prison.”

“It’s not jealousy. It’s concern. There are groups of exiles who are being monitored closely for their activities inside the United States. And before he left for Cuba, Eduardo’s name kept turning up on those lists. They’re smuggling things into the country. Weapons. Explosives. There are rumors that they have planned attacks inside the United States to make it look like pro-Castro forces are at work in order to spur our action. Eduardo was in the thick of everything. I don’t want him dragging you down with him.”

Considering the night I went with Eduardo to pick up the shipment of dynamite, I’m not exactly surprised by this information. “The CIA trusts him,” I retort.

Nick laughs. “The CIA doesn’t trust anyone. They’re using Eduardo because he’s well-connected, but don’t think for a second that they aren’t also watching him, that they aren’t also watching you.”

“So, what, you’d rather he stay in Cuba because he’s fighting for his country?”

“Of course not. I’d just rather him stay out of our lives for good.”

“He was my brother’s best friend. We grew up together. He’s like family.”

“I know. And I love how loyal you are. But he doesn’t deserve your loyalty. Not when he risks your safety over and over again. So yes, I worry about what will happen when the prisoners come home. When he’s back in your life again.” Nick is silent for a beat. “We haven’t talked about it, but let’s be honest. You came back here because you had to leave London, because the world was on the brink of ending, and neither one of us was thinking clearly. But neither one of those things are at issue anymore. So what happens next?”

“I don’t know. I spoke to Elisa the other day, and she mentioned me coming home. Said she missed me.”

“Would you like to go to Palm Beach?”

“Only if you come with me.”

* * *

? ? ?

In December, we return to Palm Beach for the start of the social season. Nick opens up the giant house on the beach I have always thought of as ours. The house was shuttered the day we said good-bye after the Bay of Pigs, everything as I remembered it, nothing out of place, a museum of sorts to our affair. The few clothes I had kept there still hang in the closet and reside in the dresser, and I am grateful for the signs that he did not attempt to erase me in my absence, the evidence of the role I play in his life and the space I occupy in his heart.

Now that the missile crisis is over, the town is abuzz with the glamorous Kennedys, decorated by women walking down Worth Avenue in brightly colored shifts designed by Lilly Pulitzer. The threat of Soviet aggression is, for the moment, contained, and the party is back on, dinners at Ta-boo followed by lunch at the Seminole Golf Club the next day.

Nick travels between D.C. and Palm Beach regularly, and I entertain myself with my sisters when he’s gone. It’s surprisingly easy to fall into a routine again, to greet now-married Isabel as though nothing has happened between us even when so much time has elapsed—the wedding I should have been a part of yet never received an invitation to pushed from both of our minds. As for my parents, we do the careful dance of politely ignoring and avoiding each other when we are on the island, an arrangement that works surprisingly well. I see Maria when I am visiting Elisa and Isabel, spend my days with my sisters or sunning myself on the veranda of the Palm Beach house as I once again settle into a version of the life I had before I left Nick. A few days before Christmas, Nick returns to me, and we spend most of the holidays curled up in each other’s arms, looking at the tree we decorated, our gifts for each other piled atop the skirt. The domesticity is, once again, both comforting and terrifying.

“We should do one Christmas in Connecticut,” Nick muses, twirling a strand of my hair around his finger.

“Isn’t it cold in Connecticut at Christmas?”

Never mind the implication contained there.

He laughs. “You don’t have to sound so horrified by it. It is cold, but everything turns white from the snow. You should experience at least one white Christmas in your lifetime.”

Will we have another Christmas together? Somehow, I can’t bear looking so far ahead. I still have not heard from Dwyer, but I feel as though I have a date with Fidel penciled in on my calendar, my future already set.

On Christmas Day, Nick goes to see his family, and I borrow one of his cars and drive down to Miami to Elisa’s house in Coral Gables. She’s hosting a big celebration for the holidays—and to celebrate the resolution of negotiations between Cuba and the United States.

Nick and I don’t speak of it, but there’s another reason for my visit to my sister.

Fidel has finally released the Bay of Pigs prisoners. Eduardo is coming home.

* * *

? ? ?

I’m standing in Elisa’s living room, staring at the tinsel on their tree, when I hear my name in a familiar voice I haven’t heard for a long time.

“Beatriz.”

Eduardo takes a step toward me, and then another one, a limp in his stride that wasn’t there before.

He’s slighter than I remembered, not nearly as bad as I expected, though. My father had that same hollowed-out look about him when he was returned to us after his stint in prison, and that was only after a week or so. Eduardo spent over eighteen months in Fidel’s prison.

Despite the weight he’s lost, he looks much the same as I remembered him. Still handsome. Still Eduardo.

I swallow past the tears clogging my throat.

The weight of the stares on us is heavy, the curiosity there, and the whispers, causing my cheeks to burn. I am notorious—the lover of a prominent politician, the rumored lover of one of the Bay of Pigs prisoners. The gossip about us will be all over town by tomorrow.

Eduardo doesn’t speak, but then again he doesn’t have to. Time has not lessened the bond between us, the friendship that once felt so much more like family. I can read the tilt of his head, the question in his eyes.

I nod.

I follow Eduardo out of the room, down the hall, to Juan’s study. Eduardo closes the door behind us.

I sink down on the couch, the tremor in my legs finally getting the best of me. Even though I knew Eduardo would be here, even though I came here for this, the shock of seeing him has caught me off guard in ways I never expected.

“You look well,” he says.

My heart clenches.

“Beautiful as always,” he adds.

The words hurt, and somehow, I have a feeling he means for them to hurt.

“I thought of you. Every day I was in that hellhole. I told the other men about you. Beatriz Perez. Sugar queen. Too beautiful to be believed.”

“What was it like?” I ask as some part of me embraces the pain.

“You don’t really want to know that. Don’t you have enough dead bodies haunting your dreams as it is?”

“What was it like?” I repeat, my voice growing stronger with each word he hurls my way, as I embrace his pain, cultivating it inside me. Perhaps I have grown too complacent, too sedate, these days and nights I have spent in my lover’s arms, Cuba and her future somewhere in the back of my mind. Perhaps I have lost my edge somewhere in all of this.

Eduardo turns from me, striding over to one of the bookshelves that flank Juan’s impressive desk. My sister’s husband will likely be chosen by our father to take over the management of Perez Sugar when our father dies, to pass it on to Miguel when he comes of age. It was Alejandro’s legacy until he didn’t want it anymore, until he was murdered, and now it is to be my brother-in-law’s.

I’ve never felt the pull of sugar the way our father has; the industry has done enough damage to Cuba and its people. I’d wash my hands of the whole thing if I could, but I suppose there are larger practicalities at play here.

“It was hell,” Eduardo finally answers, his back still to me. “The moment my feet hit that beach, I regretted the stupid impulse of heroism that pushed me to take such a ridiculous action. I should have stayed here, and drunk champagne, and danced with homely girls looking for husbands.” He pivots, and his lips twist in a sneer, his gaze running over me, condemning me for dancing and drinking champagne while he bled.