When We Left Cuba by Chanel Cleeton

Author:Chanel Cleeton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-04-08T16:00:00+00:00

chapter eighteen

Nick and I celebrate Valentine’s Day together in private. I purposefully avoid the society pages, knowing if I look, I will see a picture of him with his fiancée at the Heart Ball. I pleaded a cold to be excused by my family from the entire event. I thought my mother would insist upon my presence, but the fear of me out in public looking anything but my best dispatched with that problem.

Instead, Nick and I spend the weekend together, commemorating the occasion with my favorite champagne and moonlight swims when the beach is abandoned.

I wish I could say it was an entirely happy occasion, but as the weekend wears on, as Sunday afternoon looms before us, I sense a change in Nick; he is quiet when he would normally be flirtatious and affectionate, his expression grim. His mood is infectious, and a sense of melancholy descends upon both of us. I spend the weekdays looking forward to the weekends when he is home, but once we are together again, I can’t help but feel a sense of dread that our time together is far too short and will rapidly come to an end.

“What do you do when I’m gone?” he asks, trailing his fingers down my naked back as I lie on my stomach beside him in bed on Sunday afternoon.

“What do you mean?”

“When I’m in Washington. How do you fill your days?”

The nature of our affair doesn’t exactly lend itself to inquiring too closely about the other’s whereabouts. Is he jealous, or is it an innocent question, an attempt to envision my routine when we are apart?

“What are you asking me, exactly?”

“Nothing. I’m just curious.”

“Would you like me to ask the same of you? What you do when we’re not together? How was the Heart Ball, for example?”

“You knew I had to take her.”

“I did. And I didn’t ask you anything about it. Nor did I hold it against you.”

“You could have.”

I search his expression, attempting to figure out what is prompting this. Despite what he says, there’s more than simple curiosity in his tone.

“Are you jealous?” I ask, harkening back to my original guess. “Is that what this is, you’re worried I’m with another man?”

“No, I’m not worried about another man.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

He stops stroking my back.

“Why do you go to a house in Hialeah known for communists who are aligned with Fidel Castro?”

My stomach sinks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I sputter.

“Don’t you? I thought we didn’t lie to each other. I thought we had honesty between us, at least.”

“We do.”

“You’re lying to me now.”

I am, but doesn’t he understand how dangerous all of this is, that I am trying to protect him from the political scandal, trying to protect myself?

“This is Dwyer’s doing, isn’t it? Another plot you have going with the CIA. What do they have on you?”

“Nothing.”

“Then you’re just doing this out of what, the kindness of your heart? Please tell me you’re at least getting something out of it, that you aren’t so stupid as to risk your safety on Dwyer’s say-so.

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