Chapter 3 - “SHE IS MY DAUGHTER”
Dinner that evening was supposed to include six executives and two foreign investors.
Diego canceled everything.
At seven o’clock, only four people sat inside the enormous dining room.
Diego.
Marisol.
Valentina.
And Paulina.
Valentina sat beside Diego.
He had personally moved the chair there.
Paulina noticed.
Of course she noticed.
She noticed everything.
Diego placed the laboratory report on the table.
“99.99 percent.”
Paulina didn’t touch it.
“I heard.”
Diego leaned back.
“Then there will be no more discussion about whether Valentina belongs here.”
Paulina’s eyes flashed.
“I never said she couldn’t stay if she was actually yours.”
Marisol stared at her.
Yesterday, Paulina had ordered a three-year-old child onto the street.
Now she spoke as if nothing had happened.
Diego saw it too.
“You called her a problem.”
Paulina sighed.
“I was angry.”
“You threatened her.”
“I threatened to remove an employee who repeatedly violated household boundaries.”
“She is three.”
“And I apologized.”
“No.”
Diego’s voice became colder.
“You didn’t.”
Paulina fell silent.
Valentina dropped her spoon.
The sound echoed against the table.
She immediately looked frightened.
“Sorry.”
Diego picked it up.
“You don’t have to apologize.”
Paulina watched him.
Something in her expression changed.
Jealousy.
Not of Marisol.
Of Valentina.
Diego had never looked at Paulina with that kind of softness.
After dinner, Diego walked Valentina back toward the small room beside the laundry area.
He stopped at the doorway.
The room was barely large enough for one narrow bed and a child’s mattress.
He stared.
“This is where you live?”
Marisol nodded.
Diego stepped inside.
Valentina’s entire world fit on one shelf.
Three books.
A stuffed rabbit.
Colored pencils.
A photograph of Marisol.
A paper crown from her last birthday.
Diego picked it up.
“You had a birthday party?”
Marisol smiled sadly.
“Cake in the kitchen.”
“Who came?”
“Rosa.”
“The cook?”
“And Mateo from maintenance.”
Diego swallowed.
“Was I home?”
Marisol hesitated.
“Yes.”
He remembered.
That night he had hosted thirty investors upstairs.
His daughter had turned three beneath his feet.
And he hadn’t known.
Diego sat on the edge of the tiny bed.
“I missed everything.”
Marisol stood in the doorway.
“You didn’t know.”
“That doesn’t give me those years back.”
“No.”
Valentina walked toward him.
She placed the paper crown on his head.
Diego looked ridiculous.
Marisol laughed before she could stop herself.
Diego looked at her.
For one second, they were twenty-five again.
Then Paulina appeared.
“Diego.”
The warmth vanished.
She held a tablet.
“You need to see this.”
On the screen was a photograph.
Marisol.
Pregnant.
Standing outside a restaurant.
Beside a man Diego didn’t recognize.
The man had one hand against Marisol’s back.
Paulina crossed her arms.
“Before you reorganize your entire life around her story, perhaps you should ask who this man is.”
Diego looked at Marisol.
May you like
Her face went white.
Because she knew exactly who he was.
