Chapter Sixty-Eight
Fernando awoke with a start, reaching for his Rolex on the nightstand beside his bed. Only six o’clock, plenty of time. His head felt foggy from lack of sleep. Children’s laughter and the sound of tiny feet running down the hall brought a smile to his stubbled face. Javier was having a wonderful time getting to know his cousins. Jada and Tiyanna were obviously delighted to have someone close to their size to play with. Although, the night before, Javier had made a good pretend horse for the little girls.
He dressed quickly, leaving his stubble to shave off later, and made his way to the kitchen. He could already smell the coffee and bacon.
“What do you think you’re doing down here?” Hannah demanded when he entered his favorite room in Anthony’s home.
“I’m coming to eat some of my big sister’s amazing breakfast. Am I suddenly not allowed?” Fernando asked defensively.
“Not on your wedding day, you’re not. You are sequestered in your room until the bride leaves to get pampered. If you want, you can join your big brother in his office. Nah-ah, not that way. Back up the stairs, you go,” Hannah ordered, pointing with her spatula to the stairs he had just come down. “Stay in your hall, and you can use the back stairs to get to the office. Don’t you dare go past the office, though! We women are working in the library. You do not get to see your bride on your wedding day.”
“Why don’t you send Sophie to the spa early, and I will help you decorate the library?” Fernando suggested, hopefully eyeing the bacon.
“Nope. Sophie, Mamma Williams, and I have it all taken care of. Now go before she comes out,” Hannah ordered once more.
Entering his brother’s office, he heard Anthony laughing from behind his newspaper. “Tried to sneak some bacon and failed, did you?”
“I can’t believe you read those things. You know they’re all electronic now, right?” Fernando asked, flopping down onto the overstuffed couch under a bank of windows.
“Yes, I do. But there’s something about reading it this way…”
“That makes you look like a pretentious snob?” Fernando interjected.
Folding the newspaper and placing it on a pile of others already on the surface of his desk, Anthony leaned back in his leather desk chair and folded his hand in his lap. “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Any reason in particular? Cold feet, perhaps?”
“No way! I just want it to be over. Not the wedding. The waiting,” Fernando admitted, rubbing his hand over his eyes.
“Well, the best way I know to make time pass more quickly is to be active. You heard my wife, you are sequestered. Let’s meet her terms on the golf course. If they need us, we’ll only be a few minutes away.”
Sure enough, the day went by quickly after a light breakfast at a local bistro and eighteen holes of golf. Julio showed up halfway through and finished the game with them before running home to clean up for the evening’s gathering.
“He is going to be so surprised tonight when he learns the secret both of us managed to keep from him during that game. He must be love-struck or something not to notice and interrogate us,” Anthony stated as they enjoyed a delicious lunch at the country club.
They sat for a couple more hours, catching up on business and discussing how the mayor’s job was going. Hannah called and asked them to run into town to pick up the cake since her mother, who was designated to deliver it, had come over earlier to help watch the children.
By the time they got back, they had less than thirty minutes to get cleaned up before their BBC brothers started arriving.
Julio was the first to arrive with a gorgeous female hanging off his arm. She looked like she had just stepped off a runway in her elegant form-fitting gown, glossy mane of long brown hair with perfectly applied highlights and low lights in varying shades of blonde, and make-up that would have made Kylie Jenner proud.
“Maria, this is my kid brother Fernando. Fernando, this is Maria.”
Fernando shook her hand, noticing her firm grip, and started to change his initial opinion about her. Perhaps she wasn’t a placeholder until Julio could find the woman he was destined to be with.
“Nice to meet you, Maria.”
“Likewise.”
Just then, Enrique walked through the door.
“No way! Enrique on time? Is this a result of Hannah’s genius, if slightly diabolical punishment last year, or the lovely lady I see standing by your side?” his brother asked, drawing everyone’s attention .
“Guess we will never know, as my lady hates to be late and won’t allow it to happen,” Enrique replied, helping a short blond woman out of her coat.
Fernando stepped up, and Enrique embraced him in a huge hug. “It’s good to see you, bro. Where’s Sophie?”
“She’ll be here,” Fernando answered cryptically but was saved from further interrogation when Hannah announced dinner was ready and everyone needed to grab their seats.
“What about Gabe?” Fernando asked, confused. Hannah never allowed family dinners to start without everyone present.
“Just pulled up,” she said over her shoulder, heading to the kitchen. Anthony followed on her heels to help carry out the food.
“Has motherhood enhanced her hearing because I didn’t hear anything,” Julio commented.
Just then, a car door closed, and two sets of feet could be heard coming up the stone steps.
“He probably texted her, the brown noser,” Enrique added as Gabriel entered, holding the hand of the woman behind him.
When she stepped around him to remove her coat, Leigh’s jaw dropped. “Mia? You’re with Gabriel?”
“Finally! It was so hard keeping that secret from you, boss. He made me promise not to say anything since everyone was keeping their pact details a secret, but…”
“Wait, pact secrets?” Leigh turned to Enrique, demanding clarification.
“You’ll see over dinner. Come on, I’m not going to be the one keeping Hannah waiting this year.”
Fernando claimed the seat closest to Anthony at the end of the table across from Hannah, the chair to his right remaining empty as everyone filled in the table around him .
Hannah delivered the food to the table, and after Anthony said the blessing, plates were filled with her traditional Jamaican New Year’s Eve dinner.
“Okay, who wants to start?” Anthony asked once the first few bites of Hannah’s wonderful meal had been enjoyed in relative silence.
“I’ll go first since I think mine is pretty well known,” Fernando volunteered, wanting to get this part over so he could enjoy his meal. “All the BBC brothers know I have refused to fly no matter how much coaxing or threatening they tried. I addressed that fear by taking a twelve-hour flight to Italy and then back. The good news is, I’m no longer afraid to fly and actually just took Sophie on a helicopter ride to Malibu to propose.”
Congratulations and cheers went up around the table as his brothers told him, in their own unique way, that it had taken him long enough.
Having said his piece for the evening, he sat back and enjoyed his meal while his brothers went around the room sharing their stories. He was happy for all of them and wondered at how they had managed to keep secrets from each other while at the same time noting that every single one of them had informed at least one brother, if not two, and that Hannah seemed to be in on everyone’s secrets. It just went to show how connected they were and how they leaned on each other in different ways.
The meal, as always, was a culinary delight, and the stories were entertaining. The men were all happy, and the family grew exponentially.
At eleven thirty, they adjourned to the living room to ring in the New Year and the proposal of a new pact.