Oh.
The thing about people telling you you’re beautiful your whole life is that the more you hear it, the more meaningless it becomes. What does “beautiful” even mean, anyway? That your features are randomly arranged in a shape that someone, somewhere, arbitrarily decided is pleasing. “Beautiful” never quite matches up to the other things you could be—smart, interesting, brave. And yet . . .
He’s beautiful. Blindingly so. Shockingly so.
For a moment that stretches on and on, I can’t look away.
He appears as though he’s been painted in broad strokes, his visage immortalized by exuberant sweeps and swirls of the artist’s brush, a god come down to meddle in the affairs of mere mortals.
Irritatingly beautiful.
In that moment, I hate him just a little bit. He looks like the sort of man who has never had to wonder if he’ll have a roof over his head, or if his father will die in a cage with eight other men, or face a firing squad, or had to flee the only life he has ever known. Surely he’s never held his murdered twin in his arms, blood spilling over that pristine tuxedo. No, he looks like the sort of man who is told he is perfection from the moment he wakes in the morning to the moment his head hits the pillow at night.
He’s noticed me, too.
Golden Boy leans against the balcony railing, his broad arms crossed in front of his chest. His gaze—piercing blue eyes—begins at the top of my head, where Isabel and I fussed with the style for an hour, cursing the absence of a maid to help us. From my dark hair, he traverses the length of my face, down to the décolletage exposed by the gown’s low bodice, the gaudy fake jewels that suddenly make me feel unmistakably cheap, as though he can see that I am an impostor and he is the real deal, to my waist and my hips, lingering there.
A tingle slides down my spine, goose bumps pricking my skin.
I take another step back.
“Am I to call you cousin?”
I freeze, his voice holding me in place as surely as a hand coming to rest possessively on my waist, as though he is the sort of man used to bending others to his will with little to no effort at all.
I loathe such men.
His voice sounds like what I am now learning passes for money in this country: smooth, crisp, and devoid of any hint of foreignness—the wrong kind, at least. The kind of voice that is secure in the knowledge that every word will be savored.
I arch my brow. “Excuse me?”
He reaches between us and grabs my hand, his skin warm, his thumb rubbing over my bare ring finger. His touch is a shock to my system, waking me from the slumber of a party I tired of hours ago. His mouth quirks in a smile as he looks up, his gaze connecting with mine, little lines crinkling around his eyes. How nice to see that even gods have flaws.
“Andrew’s my cousin,” he offers by way of explanation, his tone faintly amused.
I find that most rich people who are still, in fact, rich, manage to pull this off, as though a dollop more amusement would be atrociously gauche.
Andrew. The fifth marriage proposal has a name. And the man before me likely has a prestigious one—is he a Preston, or merely related to one, like Andrew?
“We were all waiting with breathless anticipation to see what you would say,” he comments.
There’s that faint amusement again, a weapon of sorts when honed appropriately. He possesses the same edge to him everyone here seems to have, except I get the sense that under all of that seriousness, he is laughing with me, not at me, which is a welcome change.
I grace him with a smile, the edges sanded down a bit. “Your cousin has an impeccable sense of timing and an obvious appreciation for drawing a crowd.”
“Not to mention excellent taste,” he counters smoothly—too smoothly—returning my smile with one of his own.
My breath hitches.
He was handsome before, but this is simply ridiculous.
He leans back against the stone railing once more, his long legs crossed at the ankle. My gaze drops to the soles of his shoes, to the scuffs there, seizing on that imperfection.
“True,” I agree. I have little use for false modesty these days; if you’re not going to fight for yourself, who will?
“No wonder you’ve whipped everyone into a frenzy,” he replies, appreciation in his gaze.
I arch my brow once more, for a moment feeling as though I have indeed gone back in time to when I was a different person, my problems far simpler. To when I enjoyed flirting with men on balconies and in ballrooms and the like.
“Me?”
He chuckles, the sound low and seductive, like the first sip of rum curling in your belly.
“You know the effect you have.” There’s that admiration again. “I saw you in the ballroom.”
How did I miss him? He’s not the sort of man who blends in with the crowd.
“And what did you see?” I ask, emboldened by the fact that his gaze has yet to drift.
“You.”
My heartbeat quickens.
He pushes off from the balcony railing, taking a step toward me, then another, and then another, until only a foot separates us, his golden, blond frame looming over me.
“Just you,” he says, his voice barely loud enough to be heard over the sound of the ocean and the wind.
His eyes are the color of the deep parts of the water off the Malecón.
“I didn’t see you.”
My own voice sounds husky, like it belongs to someone else, someone who is rattled by this.
My gaze has yet to drift from him, too.
His eyes widen slightly, a dimple denting his cheek, another imperfection to hoard, even if it adds more character than flaw.
“You sure know how to make a guy feel special.”
I curl my fingers into a ball to keep from giving into temptation, to keep from reaching out and laying my palm against his cheek. “I’d venture a guess that you have plenty of people making you feel special all the time.”
There’s that smile again. “That I do,” he acknowledges with a tip of his head.
I shift until we stand shoulder to shoulder, looking out at the moonlit sky. He gives me a sidelong look. “I imagine it’s true, then?”
“What’s true?”
“They say you ruled like a queen in Havana.”
I have no time left for such frivolities. Over a year ago, I would have accepted the distinction as my due. Now—
“There are no queens in Havana. Only a tyrant who aims to be king.”
“I take it you aren’t a fan of the revolutionaries?” he asks, interest in his voice.
“It depends on the revolutionaries to whom you refer. Some have their uses. Fidel and his ilk are little more than vultures feasting on the carrion that has become Cuba.” I walk forward, sidestepping him so the full skirt of my dress swishes against his elegant tuxedo pants. I feel him behind me, his breath on my nape, but I don’t look back. “Batista needed to be eliminated. In that, they succeeded. Now, if only we could rid ourselves of the victors—”
I turn, facing him.
His gaze has sharpened from an indolent gleam to something far more interesting. “And replace them with what, exactly?” he asks, his tone silk sliding over my bare skin.
“A leader who cares about Cubans, about their future. Who is willing to remove the island from the Americans’ yoke,” I say, caring little for the fact that he is an American and acknowledging the line that has already been drawn in the sand between us. I am not one of them and have no desire to pretend to be. “A leader who will reduce sugar’s influence,” I add. “One who will bring us true democracy and freedom.”
He’s silent, his gaze appraising once again, and I’m not sure if it’s the wind, my imagination, or his breath against my neck, but goose bumps rise over my skin again.
“You’re a dangerous girl, Beatriz Perez.”
My lips curve. So he asked someone for my name.
I tilt my head to the side, studying him, trying desperately to fight the faint prick of pleasure at the phrase “dangerous girl” and the fact that he knows my name.
“Dangerous for who?” I tease.