Who Wants to Marry A Billionaire?(36)
Daniel stirred, and then yawned as he reached for her hand, holding it against her chest as his sleepy voice whispered, “Good morning. Welcome to Paradise.”
She smiled and kissed his hand, “Is that a place or a state of mind?”
“Right now, both I think. See what happens when you just shut up and do what I tell you? Everyone gets an excellent night’s rest.”
“Mango?” Nina asked.
“Is that some kind of code…or maybe it’s your safe word?” Daniel started to tickle her, and Nina found herself screaming, “Mango, mango, mango!” as she ran laughing into the other room. Daniel chased her and grabbed her, and said, “Coffee, coffee, coffee” into her ear.
The tour of the coffee plantation was fascinating, Nina thought, and the fresh roasted coffee was amazingly delicious. Daniel, of course, bought pounds of it to take back to everyone. He listed off everyone as he put bags of coffee into Nina’s outstretched arms, “Mom & Dad, Kennedy, Boris, your mom, Reuben, Rita. Who am I missing?” Nina wanted to play nice, “What about Elsa?”
“Oh, I’ll get her some when she gets here tomorrow.”
Nina’s heart fell. “Elsa’s coming to Panama? Since when?”
“I talked to her last night, and she said she had to come do a site survey for one of the DeVere Foundation projects.”
That seemed suspicious to Nina, “Normally, she lets the field coordinators do that.”
Daniel shrugged, “You know, Elsa gets her ideas. Let’s go pay for the coffee. Aren’t you getting hungry? I think it’s time to have a little picnic by some tropical waterfalls.”
The hike to the falls was beautiful, and Nina quickly forgot about Elsa. She and Daniel had crossed some kind of threshold, and she once again began to believe that maybe they could have a real relationship; maybe after they finished the deal, they could give being a couple a chance. The rest of the day went quickly as they played in the water, sunned themselves, and talked. Boston, her family, the deal with Arturo—all of it seemed so very far away. She could believe it was just the two of them.
When they got back to the resort, Daniel held Nina, “Tonight, you are going to learn El Tamborito.”
“Is that contagious?”
“I hope so.” He led her into the bedroom. There was a gorgeous traditional Panamanian dress laid out on the bed: it had a full, heavily pleated skirt, a ruffled top, and amazing embroidery threaded through it. It was white with red designs. “There’s a festival in town, and we’re going.”
“If I wear that, people will think that I can really dance.”
“And you will,” there was a knock on the door, “that’s Luisa, and she’s going to teach you.”
“What about you?”
Daniel looked at her slyly, “Oh, I can dance.” He gave her a peck on the cheek. “Have fun, I’ll be back in two hours to get you.”
Luisa, the dance instructor, joined Nina. “Hola! I’m Luisa, Nina. I’m going to put on a CD.” She popped a CD into the caba?a’s little stereo. “First, listen for a couple of minutes.” The rhythms were wonderful, Nina thought, there were drums, and clapping, and a female singer. “What’s she singing about?”
“Ah,” Luisa said knowingly, “She sings about the attraction between men and women, about…the tension between men and women when they want to do more than dance!”
Maybe, Nina thought, El Tamborito wasn’t such a good idea.
The time passed quickly, though, and dancing turned out to be a lot of fun. It wasn’t as hard as Nina thought it might be. For a girl who grew up in New England, she took to it all very quickly. Once she had some of the basic moves down, Luisa helped her into her dress, and showed her how to hold the hem in her hands and fan it to look beautiful as she danced, and then Luisa pinned some flowers in her hair.
Daniel came back dressed in simple black pants and a white collarless shirt worn un-tucked. He whistled when he saw Nina in her dress.
“You look so pretty Se?orita!” He grabbed her by the hand, “Let’s go, we have a real car and driver tonight to take us into town. They way we can have a drink at the festival.”
In the town’s plaza, they joined the circle of people clapping as some very skilled dancers performed in the center of the group; people looked happy—entire families were there, grandparents, little kids, teenagers, and adult couples, and everyone either sang, danced or clapped. When the star performers finished, Daniel pulled Nina out on the plaza with all the ordinary couples, and they danced and laughed the night away. The dancing made them thirsty, and Daniel would appear from time to time with fruity rum drinks that went down a little too easily, and after tossing one back, they’d go dance some more, until a rather copious amount of rum punch had been consumed.
Finally, the festival started winding down, and Daniel and Nina weaved their way back to the car and driver waiting for them. Nina carried her shoes in one hand, and Daniel had an arm around her as they giggled and stumbled. They fell into the backseat of the car, and Daniel began to kiss Nina. She pushed him off playfully and tilted her head toward the driver, “Wait until we get back to our room, I’m shy!” Daniel laughed, but kept unsuccessfully trying to find his way up her voluminous skirts with a hand.