Maria Belen Chapur, the infamous Argentinean mistress of former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, accepted his marriage proposal last week, three years after their romance shocked the nation and damaged his marriage and political career.

Chapur and Sanford got engaged at the Bella Italia Grill restaurant in Buenos Aires on Wednesday, according to Argentinean newspaper Clarin.

"The location is one of the favorite restaurants of the former journalist and Bunge & Born executive," the paper wrote.

The Argentinean newspaper reports that Sanford arrived early to the restaurant and hid the engagement ring in a bag which he handed over to the waiter.

Sanford reportedly asked the waiter to come up with a story for Chapur while he hid in the restroom. The waiter approached Chapur and told her the restaurant had a gift for her for being the customer No. 100 of that day and gave her the bag with 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, Sanford disappeared for five days and told his staff he was going to the Appalachian Trail.

Instead he went to Buenos Aires to see Maria Belen Chapur.

South Carolina's newspaper The State received multiple tips about Sanford's whereabouts and the paper sent a journalist to an Atlanta airport where Sanford was supposed to land. The journalist saw Sanford getting off an airplane from Buenos Aires, according to Clarin.

The State informed the Governor's office about its findings and few hours later, on June 24, 2009, Sanford admitted to his affair in a televised press conference. He said he had developed a relationship with an Argentinean woman he met about eight years ago but that the relationship had turned romantic about a year before.

Although Sanford kept the identity of his lover from the media, Argentina's newspaper La Nacion identified the mistress as Maria Belen Chapur, now 46, a divorced woman and mother of two who reportedly lived at an upscale district in Buenos Aires and worked for Bunge & Borne.

At the time when the affair was uncovered, The State published candid e-mails exchanged between Sanford and Maria Belen Chapur where Sanford praised her "erotic beauty."

"I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificently gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curves of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of night's light - but hey, that would be going into the sexual details we spoke of at the steakhouse at dinner - and unlike you I would never do that!" Sanford wrote Chapur in an email that was sent anonymously to The State.

After the e-mails were made public, Maria Belen Chapur admitted the affair was "of great pain to me, as for my two children, my family and all the great friends that I have known and harvested throughout my life and that had always been there for me," according to a statement she sent to Argentine television station CN5, for which she worked as a reporter.

On that statement she also said she had a firm suspicion of whom hacked her e-mail accounts but that she wouldn't name the individual.

The New York Times reported that the individual was one of her former boyfriends. Argentinean newspaper Clarin confirms this report.

Sanford terminated his marriage with Jenny Sanford less than a year after the affair was uncovered.

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.

She told the magazine that she felt sorry for Chapur.

"I also feel sorry for the other woman. I am sure she is a fine person. It can't be fun for her, though I do sometimes question her judgment", Sanford said in the interview.

Watch Maria Belen Chapur in the Following Clip Covering the 9/11 attacks in New York City: