The Senator's Hispanic Bride (7 page)

Chapter Five

Michael stood in his office and looked at the beautiful engagement ring lying on the floor at his feet. He bent over slowly and picked it up, holding it in his fingers and wishing, with all of his heart, that things could be easier for Isabella and him. He looked toward the door she had slammed closed and sighed.

The door opened and Glenn walked in looking at him. “Was that Isabella I just saw tearing out of here?”

Michael sat down on the sofa and looked at the ring in his fingers. “Yes.”

“Why are you holding her ring?” Glenn asked with a furrowed brow.

“I’m holding her ring because she dropped it on the floor, and I didn’t want to leave it there,” Michael said sadly.

“Why isn’t she wearing it, Michael?” Glenn walked over to him and sat beside him on the couch. Glenn was Michael’s campaign manager.

“She isn’t wearing it because she broke off the engagement.” Michael sighed.

Glenn’s eyes widened in panic. “No! She can’t do that! What did she do that for?”

Michael leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Because I’m an idiot and I screwed up.”

Glenn turned and looked at Michael directly. “Michael Bradley, you get that woman back over here and get that ring back on her hand as fast as you can! We have to stop the media from getting word of this. A breakup of your engagement this close to your election would be disastrous! There’s no way we’d get the Latin American votes we need! We’d lose the whole thing! What in the hell did you do to make her that mad?”

Michael closed his eyes, his face still turned up to the ceiling. “I made out with my ex-fiancée and apparently she told Isabella about it.”

“You did what?” Glenn glared at him.

Michael shook his head. “It’s the worst excuse ever, but I didn’t mean to. I went home after the engagement party… the engagement party. Isabella asked me to stay with her that night and I didn’t. I went rushing home to get more work done and who should walk into my den, but Kelsey. Kelsey came strutting in wearing this little see through thing and nothing on underneath it.”

Glenn stared at him as he described what happened.

“She decided she wanted to spend the night with me. I was so surprised to see her there that I didn’t stop her, she just… came on to me, pretty much literally, and I let her kiss me and make out with me,  but I stopped her before things got… too far. Then I kicked her out, but I should’ve stayed with Isabella that night. I should have kicked Kelsey out as soon as I saw her. Now I’m paying the piper. I lost my fiancée because of it. Tarado.”

Glenn blinked and tilted his head. “What does that mean?”

Michael opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling again. “Stupid.”

Glenn stood up and began pacing. He chewed on his thumb and walked back and forth. “You still have a shot at this. You could still fix this.”

Michael leaned his head back up and looked at Glenn. “No I don’t. She’s gone. I was with another woman. It’s over.”

“It’s not over. You didn’t sleep with the other woman. You kissed her, yes, you screwed up, but you didn’t have sex with her, right?” Glenn looked at him closely.

“No, no we didn’t have sex. We just got really close to it.” Michael looked miserable.

Glenn shook his head. “We can save this. You still have a shot. Michael, you get up off of that couch and you go find her and make up. I don’t care what you have to do. You get that ring back on her hand and get her to walk down that aisle with you and you do it fast. You absolutely cannot afford to lose her right now. She is your ticket to the Senate, Michael, you get out there and get after her!”

Michael stood up off of the sofa, his shoulders slumped, his look forlorn. “I don’t think she’s going to take me back, Glenn. I think it’s done.”

Glenn glared at him. “Get your ass out there and go find her and fix this! Now! You don’t have a choice!” Glenn’s face turned bright red and Michael knew he meant business.

He grabbed his phone and keys and headed out the door. He had no idea where to look, no idea where she might be. He tried to call her and got no answer, so he headed for her house. There was no one home there and after knocking on the door and trying to call her again, he sat on her step and put his head in his hands. There was only one other place that he could think of that she might be, but he didn’t want to go there and face the entire family.

He buried his head in his hands and closed his eyes. He mentally bashed himself for being so stupid as to let Kelsey get as far as she did the night she came over. He had no idea how she even got into his house, unless she still had the key. He’d never asked for it back. The idea of Kelsey kissing him and getting so physical with him made him sick when he thought of what it cost him. Isabella was more than just his fiancée, she was part of a family that had taken him in and made him one of their own. She was his best friend and his lover. She was all he wanted and now he was going to lose her because of one stupid mistake he had made. And he hadn’t even really wanted Kelsey to begin with. He had suffered through ages with the broken heart that she gave him, and he hadn’t gotten over it until he had started dating Isabella.

He waved at her neighbor lady as the woman passed and smiled at him as he sat on her doorstep. He picked up his phone again and called, and finally she answered. It was like a reprieve straight from heaven. Relief and panic shot through him simultaneously and he stood up swiftly and held the phone tight to his ear.

“Isabella!” he said with hope.

“Stop calling me!” she snapped at him.

“Wait! Please wait!” he replied desperately. “Listen to me please, you don’t know the whole story. It wasn’t like what you think! I need to explain it to you. You have to let me explain, please, you have to give me a chance!” He was desperate for her to let him try just once to get her back.

There was a moment of silence on the phone and then she said, “Alright, you can have ten minutes and that’s it.”

“Where are you? I want to do this in person, I need for you to see me when I talk to you. I want you to know how genuine I am about this. Where are you?” He grasped the phone with both hands as though it was a lifeline.

There was another long silent pause and then the door behind him opened up. He swung around in his place on the sidewalk and looked up to see her standing in the doorway. She glowered at him.

“Come in. You have ten minutes.” She stepped back and opened the door wide to allow him in.

He bounded up the steps and looked at her with utter gratitude on his face. He reached for her when he came in the door but one look from her and he pulled his hands back and walked into the living room. She closed the door and followed him in.

She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at him. “Well? What do you want to say?”

“You’re home? I knocked on the door several times, I called you…” He looked at her and she didn’t respond, so he sat down on the edge of the sofa and started to explain. “First of all, I want to know what she told you, because I’m pretty sure that whatever it was is a lie.” He looked at her in desperation and she pursed her lips and then walked toward him slowly, one step at a time as she spoke, stopping several feet from him.

“She told me that she was with you after you dropped me off. She said you weren’t wearing clothes and you couldn’t keep your hands off of her.” Isabella couldn’t believe she was repeating the words. She couldn’t believe she was repeating these vile words to him, but they had to be said. She looked at him carefully.

Michael shook his head. “That’s the truth according to her. It’s not my version of it at all.”

“So what’s your version of the story?” Isabella asked with narrowed eyes. “It can’t be that different. Her version sounds like facts to me, not perspectives.”

Michael took a deep breath. He wasn’t looking forward to telling her what happened, but she deserved to know the truth, and he owed it to her. “I left you here and went home. When I got there, I guess she was already there, but I didn’t know it. I went into my living room and got a drink and was sitting on the couch when she walked in.”

“How did she get into your house? You have a security system!” she glared at him.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. She used to have a key. I didn’t change the locks after we broke up so maybe she kept it. I also didn’t change the alarm code, but I’ll do that today when I get home.”

Isabella lifted her chin and looked sharply at him. “So what happened then?” she asked in annoyance.

Michael shook his head a little. This was it. “She wasn’t wearing much; she was in a sort of negligee thing, I guess, and she came up to me and kissed me.”

Isabella felt anger rising in her again. “Did you kiss her back?”

It took everything in him to answer her honestly. “Yes, I did.”

She turned her back on him and growled in frustration, and then without turning back to him, she asked, “What else happened?”

Michael stood up and walked toward her slowly. “We made out for a few minutes, and then I couldn’t get you off of my mind, and I knew it was wrong, so I told her to get her things and get out of the house.”

Isabella lowered her head and buried her face in her hands. Michael felt worse than he had ever felt with her. He had betrayed her trust and her sweet love, and nothing was worth that. He reached for her shoulders, resting his hands there lightly, but she pulled away from him and he had to reach again and hold on to her tightly.

***

Isabella felt as though she were living in a nightmare that had come to life. The only saving grace was that he had kicked Kelsey out before anything happened. He hadn’t had sex with her, and that was something. Not much, but it was something. She wept bitterly and when he put his hands on her shoulders, she tried to pull away at first, but he held her fast and turned her around. She refused to look at him, but he wrapped his arms around her anyway and held her tightly to his chest.

“I’m so sorry, Isabella, I love you. I would never do anything to hurt you. You must believe that. There’s no woman in the world that I want as much as I want you.” He kissed the top of her head and stroked her hair with his hands. “Please forgive me. I don’t want to be without you.”

Her weeping quieted and she looked up at him through wet eyelashes and the expression he saw on her face tore at his heart. “How could you do that with her? Even if it wasn’t sex, making out with her, kissing her?”

Michael shook his head. “I don’t know, Isabella, honestly, I don’t. I’ve been asking myself that same question over and over since it happened. I think it was because she hurt me so badly before and it was like I was getting her back, I suppose, but then it just wasn’t right and I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to hurt or lose you, and it seems like that might be just what I did.”

She looked into his beautiful blue eyes and asked sadly, “Why didn’t you tell me? Do you know how hard it was to have her ask me to sit with her at that café and listen to her as she told me all about you being with her and see her laugh at me because I had no idea? I felt like such an idiot, and I hurt so bad! You gave her the upper hand, and it put me at a disadvantage. Why would you do that? Why wouldn’t you tell me and just be honest from the start?”

He held her face in his hands and looked into her sad eyes. “I’m so sorry, Isabella. I hate that she did that to you. She had no business doing it. I didn’t tell you because I was so ashamed of what I had done that I didn’t want you to know. I never wanted you to know. I can promise you something, though,” he held her face close to his and gazed at her earnestly, “I am never going to do anything like that again. Never. I promise I won’t hurt you like that. There is no other woman I want besides you, and it will never, ever happen again. Just say you’ll take me back. Say you’ll marry me. Be my wife, stay with me the rest of my life, please.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and as she let it out, he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her softly. “Please say you will. Please marry me. I don’t deserve a second chance with you, but I promise that you’ll be glad you gave it to me.”

Isabella opened her eyes and looked at him again. He was pleading with her so genuinely that she had no choice but to listen to the desires of her heart. “Alright,” she said softly. “I’ll marry you, but Michael, I’m going to tell you this right now, don’t you ever hurt me again, because I won’t take you back a second time.”

He closed his eyes in complete relief and pulled her close to him in a tight embrace, holding her to his heart and swearing to them both that he would never hurt her again. “I promise. I love you so much, Isabella, my wife, I promise.”

He took her ring from his pocket and slid it onto her finger. They looked at each other and she knew he meant every word. She hoped with all of her heart he would keep his promise, because living without him would be the hardest thing in the world for her.

*

The days leading up to their wedding were growing short, and in between the wedding planning, Michael and Isabella were working the campaign trail almost every day. They went to parties and functions, they were invited to galas and balls, they visited work sites and talked with laborers, they went to luncheons and spoke to special interest groups. They were hot on the tail of the incumbent senator who was old fashioned enough that he wasn’t meeting the demands of his younger voters, and his stance on immigration was so far fetched and outdated that Michael was quickly becoming the favorite to take down the current senator. Having Isabella by his side really connected him to the entire Latin American community.