"No!" I closed the door in case Mordy and Edith came out, and led Mari to the couch. For the next twenty minutes, I walked her through the whole ugly mess as I knew it, including the fact that Delores was probably the one who had tipped off the feds, a tidbit that turned Mari so red with anger I thought she might have a stroke.

"Pinche puta!"

Whatever she just said sounded utterly venomous and I vowed to learn it. I finished my tale by saying I didn't care if any of it was true or not.

"Of course it wasn't true. You know I'd never do anything like that." Left unsaid was her growing suspicion that maybe Pepe had. She abruptly rose. "I need to get dressed and go see Pepe. Are you coming?"

We showered separately but otherwise shared the bathroom like an old married couple-an image that was verbally descriptive but not visually desirable, since it conjured mental pictures of Mordy and Edith.

Mari drove so slowly on the way to Coral Gables, I wondered if she was having engine trouble. "Is something wrong with your car?"

"I guess I'm not in that big a hurry to find out what's going on. What if Pepe did those things? What if he was cheating our investors but got Felix to have it dismissed on some sort of technicality?"

I'd had longer to think about that question than Mari, and I knew the answer. "I had to ask myself the same thing over and over about you. That kind of disappointment in someone you love and admire is just off the scale. But even when I thought you were using me in your scheme, the thing that hurt most was thinking you didn't really love me. Once I realized you did, I would have found a way to forgive you, because I never want to lose that."

"You'd have stood by me even if you found out I was scamming my clients?"

"Yeah, but like I said, the disappointment would be pretty hard to deal with. I'd have to know you were genuinely sorry, and I'd expect you to make amends. That's the only way I'd know you were really the person I loved. It's like you told me about that Boston job I didn't take-it's about the future, not the past. If Pepe's done something wrong, what matters now is what he does next."

The grand house in the Gables gave off quite a different atmosphere from the night of Emilio's birthday party. Pepe's big Mercedes was the lone vehicle in the parking circle, the only sign anyone was home.

As we neared the steps, the front door swung open to reveal her beloved uncle, dressed casually in gray slacks, sandals with socks and a white Panama shirt.

"You don't seem surprised to see us," Mari said drily.

"I'm only surprised it took you so long," he answered, smiling with what looked like a combination of mischief and pride. "Good morning, Daphne."

We traded kisses as if getting arrested together was the most normal thing in the world.

Lucia made the moment even more surreal when she appeared in the foyer and did the same. "Cafe con leche," she told the housekeeper, along with a few words I didn't understand.

Nothing rejuvenated like strong Cuban coffee. Two shots of scalded espresso with four sugars and whole milk would have me awake until day after tomorrow.

Pepe led us all through a set of double doors off the living room that had been closed the night of the party. It obviously was his study, and it held a sofa, several leather chairs, bookcases and an enormous carved mahogany desk. We'd just gotten settled when Mima's caretaker rolled her into the room in her wheelchair.

It was sweet how they included Mima in all their important family discussions, as if to a.s.sure her that despite her age and declining health, she would always be their matriarch. Mari and I greeted her as the coffee was delivered, and the housekeeper closed both doors on her way out.

Pepe sipped his coffee and cleared his throat. "I should first apologize, especially to you, Daphne, for the events of last evening. In hindsight, we should have antic.i.p.ated that our actions might trigger an investigation, but we had no inkling they would involve you."

So there was something. I could see Mari stiffen beside me on the couch, as though bracing herself for bad news.

"I was advised by my attorney, who happens to be my younger brother, to tell no one of the events of last evening, but I cannot leave those I love in such darkness. However, it is absolutely essential that what I'm about to tell you never leave this room. Is that understood?"

Mari and I both nodded eagerly. I'd promise anything if it meant someone would finally lift this veil of ignorance.

He leaned back in his leather chair, so far that I feared he would fall over. "Mari, the Iberican Fund is real. Several of our investors-and one of our companies-are not."

"Pepe, that's fraud!" Mari exploded from her seat and stomped across the room.

"Sientate," Mima said firmly.

From the speed with which Mari returned to her seat, I took that to mean something like, "Sit down, you impudent child."

"It's more complicated than that, nena. There are things that are not strictly legal, yet must be done. When the Castro regime falls, America must fill the void. Not Russia, not China, not Venezuela. The companies that make up the Iberican Fund are a vital part of America's preparations for democracy in Cuba. We are poised to infuse an almost endless supply of building materials, along with agricultural equipment and mining machinery that will jump-start the Cuban economy and put the Cuban people back to work to rebuild their country. We cannot let America's enemies gain a toehold in that revitalization."

"But why is any of that illegal?"

"The complication is we don't know when Castro will fall. There has always been a plan for Cuba, but America's priorities and resources have shifted over the past decade to other fronts. Five years ago, I was asked by someone from the State Department in Washington to take up those preparations. They put me in touch with their CIA contact, someone inside Cuba who's building support for the transformation. I met with that person in the Caymans, and once I understood Cuba's needs, I set out to meet them-with your help, I should add-by pulling together those companies that form the Iberican Fund."

Mari shook her head. "I still don't see what the problem is, and why we've brought on bogus investors. The embargo applies only to Cuba, not to companies who might want to do business there after the old geezer croaks." She said something to Mima in Spanish that caused her to chuckle.

"The problem, as I said, is not knowing how long it will be before the fund takes off. It will ultimately be wildly successful. Of that, there is no doubt. But our investors want returns now, not, as you say, when the old geezer croaks. So in order to hold their investment, we must pay dividends. That's where our friends from the State Department come in. They invest a few million dollars in our sh.e.l.l company-which we pay out in dividends-in order to keep billions of investment dollars in place."

I could see from her fidgeting hands and feet that Mari wanted to get up and storm around the room again but didn't dare.

"You're telling me all the work I've done for the past three years on this fund has been bogus, that I've been lying to everyone about the financials and performance indicators. None of it ever mattered."

"Mari, before I ever agreed to this, I went to Mima for her blessing. I told her it could blow up in our faces, and might cost us everything if our work was discovered to be a front for a political cause not everyone cares about. She said yes, and she sold this house to Lucia and me so she could be the first to invest because of what it represented-a free Cuba. But she wanted you kept clean, so we agreed to set the investment bar out of your reach."

Commiserating with Mordy about how silly the Cubans were in their hatred of Castro seemed so foreign to me now. Even after fifty years, seeing the dictator fall was still the reason many of those in Miami's exile community got out of bed each day.

"If you wanted me clean, why did you let me sell it? You could have managed the fund on your own."

"I needed your help, because I knew that would guarantee the fund's success. But I also knew you'd never be dishonest with your investors, so I hid the details from you." Pepe smiled softly and looked at his mother. "And there was someone else who wanted you to be a part of this historic effort, and he helped convince Mima to let me bring you in."

I felt as if I'd been dropped into a spy novel, though for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what I had to do with any of this. But the shock and confusion in my head probably paled next to what had to be going on in Mari's.

"Mari, my CIA contact in Cuba is my older brother, Eduardo...your father."

Cue the kettle drums. Even I felt like standing up and waving the Cuban flag.

"He has been working secretly from within the country to advance the causes of freedom and democracy for the Cuban people. It is because of his work that those dreams will someday become reality."

If Mari was thrilled by the revelation, her twitching jaw hadn't gotten the news. She looked as angry as she had when I told her about Delores. "You expect me to believe after all these years that he's one of us? Not one word from him in thirty years, Pepe."

"He has made some bad decisions, and he doesn't expect your forgiveness. But his love for Cuba is genuine, as is his love for you. He's risking his life to make Cuba free. It is very dangerous for him, and would be even more so if he reached out to you. If his efforts are discovered, he will be thrown in prison or possibly worse. Therefore, we must commit ourselves to holding these secrets from all, as Castro has eyes and ears throughout the region, even here in the exile community."

Mima reached out a shaky hand to Mari, and spoke again to her in Spanish. I understood hijo-son-and the last words, which she spoke with tears in her eyes. Te quiero tambien. I love you too.

Lucia clasped her hands and blew out a satisfied sigh. "Very well. Mariana has prepared lunch for us all. Shall we?"

Even if Mari didn't fully accept the story of her father, I couldn't help but find it touching and n.o.ble. As difficult as it would be for her, I liked knowing that someday- "Wait a minute." Before we all ran off to digest this startling news along with a few fried plantains, I needed answers too. "Did I have anything at all to do with this, or was the IRS just using me to get to Mari?"

Pepe looked truly baffled. "I believe you were approached because you accompanied us on the dinner cruise with Michael, whose money, by the way, we decided to accept after all when he became insistent. We couldn't afford to raise suspicions."

"Besides," Lucia added, "it pleased Pepe to know his investment allowed the firm to continue its support of things like your Miami Home Foundation, whether he approved of it or not."

"So the part about you guys setting up an account for me in the Caymans that held six million dollars was just..."

Pepe roared with laughter. "I am so sorry, Daphne. It is not true."

Figures. Diaz had lied to get me on board, and she'd undoubtedly added the bit about the Osterhoffs that day at the jobsite because she thought I was getting cold feet. "And you didn't pull any strings to get my mortgage princ.i.p.al reduced and the interest rate lowered."

His smile faded. "That went through?"

Holy Housing Bubble. "Diaz told me it did, but I haven't received official word."

"I would hold off on the official celebration, but it's possible it's true."

"You meddled in her mortgage affairs?" Mari asked, her dismay obvious.

"No, not directly. But I mentioned it to Juan that night we were out on the boat because the subject happened to come up. As you may recall, he's a bank executive, and he deals with these issues daily." He looked sheepishly at Mari and then at me. "Though it might appear unseemly, I a.s.sure you he would not have acted illegally."

Hooray! If my sweetheart deal turns out to be real, I get to keep it.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

I took a deep breath and tried to remain calm as Mari blew warm air onto my still-crackling Lady Parts. After weeks of glorious practice, she had finally led me to the Promised Land of Second o.r.g.a.s.ms, even though the process meant a momentary separation of body and brain. I'd discovered such disembodiment was necessary for only a few critical seconds while I pa.s.sed from one ethereal level to another.

The problem we had at first was me getting reconnected when I got to the other side. Once I shut down my body's response in order to get past the tickling sensations, I found it difficult to recover my prior level of arousal. Mari decided that was a good thing because it meant she never had to stop, and sure enough, her torturous teasing eventually led to a follow-up frenzy.

From my current vantage point, which was peering down from a pile of fluffy pillows on my queen-sized bed, it didn't get any better than this. Mari's gorgeous naked self lay vividly exposed, her arms wrapped possessively around my thighs and her lips poised dangerously above that which put the nerves in central nervous system. As her mouth descended once again into Ground Zero, I sighed. She owned me.

The best part was I owned her too. We still hadn't talked much about what our relationship meant, but that was hardly necessary since we'd effortlessly folded our lives into one another's. I had as many clothes at her house as she had at mine, and I even had my own set of keys to her Porsche. If that wasn't commitment, what was?

We'd also talked some more about our financial differences. She insisted she didn't care if we sometimes did things on the cheap, but implored me to accept the gifts she lavished upon me. I relented but insisted we shop mostly at the discount stores. Last year's clothes had always been good enough for me, and that wasn't going to change because I now had an extravagant girlfriend. I was still behind on my credit cards, as usual. Despite the recommendation from the good folks at Banco Primero, my refinancing application was ultimately rejected by the Treasury Department-probably Elena Diaz's doing-which left me hoping for Christmas money from my parents to catch me up.

Mari and I barely spent a night apart. Felix and Robbie T kept us busy on the weekend nightclub circuit, and Mari sprang for her own set of box seats at the Arsht Center so we wouldn't miss a cla.s.sical performance. For the New World Symphony, though, we stuck with the Wallcasts, making an evening of it with Mordy and Edith. I'd become a regular at Mima's for birthday celebrations, which were frequent in a family that large. Last week, we'd gone shopping for a winter coat so Mari wouldn't freeze to death over Christmas when she accompanied me back to New Hampshire.

It suddenly occurred to me why I had trouble staying aroused after my first climax-because I let my mind wander to practical things. There was Mari, eating her little heart out, so to speak, while I was thinking about box seats and winter coats. I should have been thinking about how her tongue felt as it rolled over my freshly waxed Brazilian playground.

Once I turned my attention back to what she doing, my numb nub became a buzzing b.u.t.ton, making me wish I could moan in Spanish. My second o.r.g.a.s.m was less intense than the first but longer, since I didn't have to pull away from overpowering sensations.

Mari crawled up to lie beside me and shared my essence with a kiss. "I love having breakfast in bed on Sunday mornings."

"And I love being breakfast in bed."

"I have a surprise for you, but first you have to make me a tomato omelet with crispy bacon."

I loved Mari's surprises, less so when they meant getting out of bed. Today's surprise apparently involved going somewhere to be with other people, because Mari insisted we both shower away the scent of several hours of s.e.x.

"You don't need your purse, or your phone, or anything else," she said as we readied to leave. "Nope, not your sungla.s.ses either."

The only time I ever went out the door with only my key was when I visited Edith and Mordy. That possibility vanished when Mari called the elevator.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

I gave up trying to guess when we got on and she pressed the b.u.t.ton for the fourteenth floor. Obviously, we were going to see the Garcias, but what that had to do with a surprise was beyond me.

Ronaldo greeted us warmly and invited us into the living room, where Tandra had already prepared a tray of cafe con leche and guava pastries.

I'd never been inside their apartment and couldn't resist looking around with envy. Though we had the same floor plan, the similarities ended there. Theirs was decorated in a style I could describe with only one word-tasteful. Whereas my place had all the standard features, they had oak floors, black granite kitchen counters and designer lighting throughout, and their furniture looked like something out of a decor showroom.

Judging by the presence of a baby monitor on the gla.s.s coffee table, Isabel was asleep in the other room. That took away my best way of communicating with the Garcias, so I'd have to rely on Mari as a go-between.

"Ronaldo and I were talking last week about the plans for his import business, which is growing," Mari said. "He wants to make his permanent home here in Miami, and would like to apply for US citizenship in three more years."

"We learn English," he said. "Little by little."

I couldn't resist sharing a bit of what Mari had taught me, that I was learning Spanish little by little as well. "Aprendo espanol poco a poco tambien."

Except now I felt really stupid because the Garcias spoke Portuguese.

"Pero no portugues."

"Hablamos espanol," Tandra said.

In other words, everyone here spoke Spanish but me. If this was Mari's idea of a surprise, we needed to have a chat.

But it was nice to visit, as long as I had her to translate. I needed to do things like this more often. Not so long ago, I would have been intimidated at being surrounded by people who were so different from me, but I welcomed it now because it gave me insight into Mari's cultural world. She'd get a dose of mine in New Hampshire next week.

She and the Garcias chatted excitedly for a minute and then all eyes turned to me.

"Ronaldo wants to bring Tandra's mother from So Paulo to help take care of Isabel. They also want to have another baby soon."

That was very sweet. If Ronaldo would willingly bring his mother-in-law to live closer, it was further proof to me he was the Perfect Man.

"The problem is their apartment has only two bedrooms, and they'll need at least four. They like this building very much because it's close to where Ronaldo works, and Tandra has Brazilian friends who live here."

As far as I knew, there were a couple of three-bedroom units on each floor, but none with four.

"Daphne, Ronaldo talked to the building manager and learned others have bought adjacent units and joined them together. If you have the desire to sell your apartment, they'd be very interested in buying it. They'd add a staircase and make three of the bedrooms upstairs."

Was that a trick question? Of course I'd sell.

Except...

"I can't sell. I'd have to pay off my whole mortgage and my apartment isn't worth that much anymore. The bank would make me come up with the difference, probably a hundred thousand dollars."