Former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford is engaged to his Argentinian mistress Maria Belen Chapur, according to Clarin newspaper.

Sanford proposed to Chapur last Wednesday at the Bella Italia Grill restaurant in Buenos Aires, according to the newspaper. He reportedly arrived early at the restaurant and gave the engagement ring to a waiter so he could come up with a story for Chapur.

"Yes, we are engaged, and I'm both happy and excited for what that means, I have long expressed my feelings for her, she's a wonderful person. My closest friends have met and love her, and I look forward to introducing her to still many more that have yet to do so," Sanford told CNN.

When Chapur arrived, the waiter told her they had a gift for her for being their customer No.100 on that day and handed her the bag where she found the ring.

"What followed after that were kisses for a long time, tears and emotions. There were heartfelt words and promises of eternity," the paper reports.

In June 2009 when Sanford was the Governor of South Carolina and married to Jenny Sanford, a reporter spotted him at an Atlanta airport leaving a flight from Buenos Aires.

Shortly after, he tearfully confessed to his affair with Chapur and admitted that he had not been traveling along the Appalachian Trail, as he previously claimed, but was rather visiting his Argentinean lover.

After his confession, Jenny moved out of their home and took their four sons with her. They divorced less than a year later.

Jenny told Vogue Magazine in 2009 that Chapur had the same effect on her husband, as alcohol or pornography has on addicts and that she learnt her husband had an obsession for Chapur.

When the scandal erupted, The State newspaper infamously published a series of e-mails Sanford sent to his Argentinian mistress where the former Governor wrote things such as " I love your tan lines" and "I love the curves of your hips."

Chapur is a former journalist and an executive at Burge and Born.