Capital Wives by Rochelle Alers Read Free Book Online Page A

from home, Bryce got up every morning to shave and shower as if he were going into a traditional office, because he never knew when he would have to leave at a moment’s notice to meet with a client and/or candidate who needed his political expertise. Some men in Washington sold influence, while Bryce McDonald sold advice and strategy. His family was as entrenched in politics as some families were in banking and finance. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather had earned a reputation and amassed their wealth as power brokers.
    Marisol’s dilemma wasn’t that she didn’t love her husband, but his reluctance to go to a fertility specialist to determine if her inability to get pregnant was the result of a low sperm count. She’d tried to assure Bryce that she wasn’t attacking his virility, but if they had to resort to other measures then she wanted him to consider other options.
    His comeback was if they couldn’t have a child through the normal intercourse route, then maybe they were destined not to become parents. He followed his tirade with the statement of adoption not even being a remote possibility. It was the first time since she’d become Mrs. Bryce McDonald that Marisol had thought about seeing a divorce attorney. A two-week stay in Jamaica redesigning a client’s vacation retreat had saved her marriage. When she returned she realizedshe’d married Bryce because she loved him, and if they never became parents, then she would still love him.
    â€œThe next time you invite her, please call to give me prior warning,” she crooned, placing light kisses along his jaw. “I always need to gear up before dealing with my mother.”
    Bryce’s hand was busy searching under Marisol’s sweater. He gave her breast a gentle squeeze. “Your mother is a pussycat compared to mine.”
    â€œMy mom is pushy.”
    He laughed softly. “That’s because you’re all she has. My mother has three other children to annoy.”
    Marisol knew Bryce was right. Pilar Rivera was only seventeen when she’d found herself pregnant with a married man’s child. Her parents sent her to Puerto Rico to have the baby, and when she returned Pilar moved in with her grandmother before she finally got her own apartment in an East Harlem public housing development. Pilar went to beauty school, graduated and worked in a local hair salon for years. She had finally saved enough money to open her own salon, but six months later a fire in an adjacent restaurant destroyed her shop and half the stores and apartments on the block.
    Pilar had returned to school, this time to become a medical technician, where she’d learned to take blood pressure readings and draw blood. She applied for a position at a local medical clinic and twenty years later she was now their office manager.
    Marisol knew it hadn’t been easy for Pilar, and she struggled not to repeat her mother’s life as an unwed mother living in public housing. Unlike her mother, she didn’t have her first serious relationship until after she’d graduated college. It was when she met Bryce McDonald at a Washington Redskins football game that she knew she had met her soul mate. Theirsix-month I-95 courtship ended when Bryce asked her to relocate from New York to D.C.—as his wife.
    What Marisol had planned as a small gathering quickly became an extravaganza when Bryce’s parents invited politicians, elected officials and several heads of state. Her family was definitely outnumbered, and she sought to even the odds when she invited many of her Puerto Rican relatives—some of whom had never left the island—to her nuptials. The highlight of the reception was when the Latin band began playing salsa, mambo, meringue and samba. Her relatives had put on a dancing exhibition that was still talked about when Marisol and Bryce returned from their two-week Mediterranean honeymoon.
    â€œWhat are