Chapter 2 - The Letter That Never Arrived
Diego took Marisol and Valentina into his private library.
It was a room no employee entered without permission.
Dark wooden shelves covered the walls. Family portraits watched from above the fireplace. At the center stood a long table where Diego usually reviewed contracts and architectural plans.
Now a child’s stuffed rabbit sat beside a crystal inkstand.
Diego closed the doors.
“I need the complete truth,” he said.
Marisol remained standing.
“So do I.”
He looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I spent three years believing you rejected us. Now you’re telling me someone lied to both of us.”
Diego opened a cabinet and removed an old leather box.
Inside were photographs from years earlier.
One showed Diego and Marisol standing beside a street vendor in Coyoacán. She was laughing, her hair loose around her shoulders. Diego looked younger, happier, untouched by the coldness that later entered his life.
“I kept these,” he said.
Marisol stared at the photograph.
“Why?”
“Because I never stopped looking for you.”
Her eyes lifted.
“That isn’t true.”
“It is.”
“You had investigators. You had money. You could find anyone.”
“My father told me you had left Mexico with another man.”
Marisol shook her head.
“I never left.”
“He showed me a letter.”
“What letter?”
Diego crossed to his desk and unlocked a drawer.
He removed a folded envelope yellowed with age.
The handwriting on the front appeared to be Marisol’s.
Inside was a short message.
Diego,
What we had is over. I have met someone else. Do not look for me. I want a life far away from your family.
Marisol
Marisol read it twice.
Then a third time.
“I did not write this.”
“I know that now.”
“How?”
“You always crossed your sevens with a line. Whoever wrote this did not.”
She stared at him.
“You noticed that?”
“On the first day.”
“Then why did you believe it?”
“Because three days later, my father suffered a heart attack. The company nearly collapsed. Rafael took control of my communications while I was overseas.”
Diego’s voice hardened.
“Everything disappeared at once. You. My father. The life I thought I was building.”
Marisol lowered the letter.
“Rafael knew I was pregnant.”
“What exactly did you tell him?”
“I gave him a sealed envelope for you. It had the hospital test, my address, and a photograph from the ultrasound.”
Diego turned toward the window.
The city spread beyond the gardens, bright and distant.
Rafael had not merely hidden a relationship.
He had erased a child.
A knock sounded.
Diego’s head snapped toward the door.
“Who is it?”
His head of security answered.
“Señor Villaseñor, there is a problem at the front gate.”
Diego opened the door.
“What happened?”
“A woman tried to enter using identification from the family office. She claimed she was here to examine the child.”
Marisol tightened her arms around Valentina.
“What woman?”
“She left when we asked for authorization.”
“Find her.”
“We have her vehicle on camera.”
Diego turned to Marisol.
“You and Valentina will remain in this room.”
“No.”
“This house may not be safe.”
“That is exactly why I will not be locked away while other people decide my daughter’s future.”
Diego stared at her.
The quiet maid from the kitchen had disappeared.
In her place stood the woman he had once known—the woman who never backed down when frightened.
“Then stay beside me,” he said. “But do not leave Valentina alone.”
Downstairs, Paulina entered the drawing room.
Rafael was already there.
He had come through the servants’ entrance.
“You were not supposed to come here,” she whispered.
“We have less time than expected.”
“What was that woman at the gate doing?”
“Collecting a DNA sample.”
Paulina went pale.
“You sent her?”
“I needed proof.”
“And?”
“She failed.”
Paulina paced toward the windows.
“Diego will order his own test.”
“Then we alter the result.”
“How?”
Rafael smiled faintly.
“The same way we altered everything else.”
He placed a small envelope on the table.
Inside was a copy of an old medical record.
Paulina read the name at the top.
Marisol Herrera.
Below it was a signature authorizing adoption procedures for an unborn child.
Paulina frowned.
“This says Marisol planned to give the baby away.”
“It says whatever Diego needs to believe.”
“You want me to show him?”
“Not yet.”
“Then why give it to me?”
“Because when the time comes, you must be the grieving fiancée who discovered that the maid has been manipulating him.”
Paulina stared at the forged document.
“And if that doesn’t work?”
Rafael’s expression became empty.
“Then we remove the child another way.”
From the hallway came a tiny laugh.
Both of them froze.
Valentina stood near the half-open door, holding her rabbit.
She had wandered away while Marisol was speaking with security.
Paulina’s face changed immediately.
She smiled.
“Hello, little one.”
Valentina did not move.
Rafael crouched.
“What a beautiful rabbit.”
The child backed away.
Then she looked directly at him.
“You bad man.”
Rafael’s smile vanished.
Footsteps approached.
Diego appeared at the end of the hallway.
His gaze moved from Valentina to Rafael.
Then to the forged medical file in Paulina’s hand.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
May you like
“Why,” Diego asked slowly, “is Rafael in my house?”
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