Chapter 3

VALERIA

Emiliano Navarro Reyes had already signed the divorce papers, and as planned, Renata Salgado Mora had retrieved them for me. His willingness to sign so quickly did not surprise me anymore. There was a time I would have called it love, but now I knew it was simply indifference dressed up as convenience. I stared out of the airplane window as the clouds stretched endlessly beneath me, and for a moment, memories I had buried for two years came rushing back with uncomfortable clarity.

Two years ago, my life had not been perfect, but it had been complete in a way I no longer knew how to describe. I had wealth, structure, and a name that carried weight, yet none of it ever truly belonged to me in the way people assumed. In our family, women were never raised to own their lives. We were raised to preserve alliances, to become extensions of power, and to accept that love was secondary to arrangement.

I was sent to the finest business school, dressed in luxury, and protected from public scrutiny as though visibility itself was a danger. On my sixteenth birthday, I asked my father to keep me away from the paparazzi, and he agreed without hesitation, not because he respected my privacy, but because he had already begun preparing me for a future I had not chosen.

It was in Mexico during my studies that I met Emiliano. Back then, he was not the man I was divorcing in my mind. He was warmth, attention, and everything I thought I had been denied for too long. I fell for him faster than I ever admitted, and in that vulnerability, I made a decision that would unravel everything. I told him I was an orphan on scholarship, someone with nothing but ambition and struggle. He believed me completely, and that belief became the foundation of everything we built.

I still remember the day my illusion began to crack. I had gone home during the holidays under the excuse of visiting my only surviving aunt, only to be shown a photograph by my father of a man I was meant to marry. I never met him, but the idea of a life without Emiliano felt unbearable, so I returned and told Emiliano I wanted us to marry instead. He asked why, and I lied again, saying my aunt wanted to force me into marriage with an older man. He accepted it without hesitation, and we married with his father present. He was a kind man, and even now I cannot deny that.

Time passed too quickly after that. Before I could fully understand what I had built, life shifted again. During Easter, Emiliano wanted to travel with me, but I convinced him to delay so I could speak to my family first. I returned home alone and told them I was already married. The reaction was immediate and devastating. My parents were furious, my father colder than I had ever seen him, and even my brother Xavier Jiménez Aguirre, who had always protected me, looked at me like I had become someone unrecognizable.

They gave me an ultimatum. Divorce him or be erased from the family registry. I chose the version of survival I thought I could live with, and I returned to Emiliano and told him I had been disowned. He said he would love me forever. That promise did not survive reality.

The pilot announced our descent, and the plane began to lower into a country I once believed I would never return to again. When we landed, I pulled my suitcase behind me and moved through the airport with a heaviness I could not explain. I half expected Xavier to be waiting, but he was nowhere in sight. Yesterday, I had sent him a message telling him I had arrived in Manhattan and subtly asking for assistance, though I already suspected silence would be my answer.

I had barely stepped forward when a familiar voice stopped me.

“Ms. Valeria?”

I froze.

Turning slowly, I came face to face with someone I had not expected to see again.

Damián Ibarra Cruz stood a few steps away, his expression controlled but unreadable. He was the last person I wanted recognition from, and the last person I wanted to acknowledge the life I had tried to bury.

“Yes,” I replied carefully, forcing calm into my voice. “Can I help you?”

His gaze lingered on me in a way that felt heavier than memory. “Your brother is in a meeting. He asked me to pick you up.”

So Xavier had seen my message after all.

Relief should have come first, but instead I felt something more complicated settle in my chest.

“Thank you,” I said softly, offering a polite smile. “And sorry for the incon…”

Before I could finish, Damián took my suitcase without another word and walked ahead. I followed him to the car, watching as he placed my luggage in the trunk before opening the back door for me. The driver started the engine, and the city outside began to blur into motion.

The silence inside the car was thick enough to feel intentional.

Clearing my throat, I tried to ease the tension. “So, I will be staying at…”

“I am taking you to my private residence,” he interrupted calmly, not looking at me. “Your brother will meet you there.”

I turned slightly, surprised by the decision. “And why am I not going to the hotel I booked?”

He finally glanced at me then, briefly, as if the answer was already obvious to him and not worth explaining.

“Because that is not where you are going.”

The car continued forward, and I realized with a slow sense of unease that my return home was already becoming something far more complicated than I had prepared for.

His gaze flicked toward me only for a brief moment before settling forward again as if I was already something he had decided not to acknowledge any further, and when he finally spoke his tone carried a cold finality that made the air inside the car feel heavier. Emiliano Navarro Reyes stated bluntly that he had no interest in being entangled in the scandal of an affair with a married woman, and the words landed with a quiet brutality that made me instinctively lower my eyes.

Without thinking, my fingers brushed against the bare space on my hand where a ring had once rested, the same ring that had marked a marriage I had walked away from too quickly and too painfully, and I tucked my hand into my pocket as though hiding the memory could ease the discomfort rising in my chest. “I apologize for any inconvenience,” I murmured softly, my voice tight with a guilt I could not fully explain, not just for myself but for the messy way I had ended up here in the first place, and the silence that followed felt heavier than any accusation.

The rest of the drive unfolded in complete silence, the kind that presses against the skin and makes every passing second feel longer than it should, until the vehicle finally came to a stop in front of a tall gate that slowly opened to allow us through. As we entered the grounds of a grand villa, Emiliano stepped out first with a calm, controlled presence, then led the way toward the imposing structure without looking back, leaving me to follow in quiet uncertainty as the unfamiliar environment swallowed me whole.

He spoke only once as we entered, his tone still detached and formal, telling me I was free to use the guest room to freshen up or rest, and adding that if I needed anything to eat I could simply inform the staff. “Thank you,” I replied in a low voice, watching as he began to walk away, but before he could fully disappear from my sight I gathered the courage to stop him with a question that had been weighing on me since I arrived.

“Do you happen to know when Xavier will arrive,” I asked, my voice softer than I intended, and the moment the words left my mouth his expression shifted into something unreadable, almost hollow, as if my question itself irritated something beneath his composed exterior. His eyes met mine with a chilling emptiness as he replied icily that Xavier Jiménez Aguirre was my brother and that perhaps I should be the one calling him if I wanted answers, his sarcasm cutting through the space between us before he turned away and ascended the stairs without another word.

Left standing alone in the hallway, I suddenly became aware of how silent the villa truly was, the kind of silence that does not comfort but isolates, and even though the surroundings were luxurious and the staff attentive, I could not shake the feeling that I did not belong there at all. I eventually retreated into the guest room where my belongings had already been arranged neatly, yet even with the comfort offered to me I found myself unable to accept it, as though indulging in it would make my presence feel even more misplaced.

Time passed in uneasy stillness until a familiar voice broke through the quiet, and the sound of Xavier Jiménez Aguirre calling out for me made my entire body react before my mind could catch up. I rose quickly, my eyes already filling before I even reached the door, and when I finally opened it I moved straight into his arms where he held me without hesitation, grounding me in a warmth I had not realized I had been missing so deeply.

As I clung to him, I noticed Emiliano standing further back in the hallway, his presence quiet but unmistakable as his eyes settled on us with an expression I could not read, something distant and restrained that lingered only briefly before he turned and walked away without a word. Xavier pulled back slightly to study my face, asking whether I had come for the holidays or intended to stay longer, and I managed a strained smile as I told him I was there to stay, realizing in that moment just how much I had truly missed him.

When he asked about Emiliano, the weight in my chest tightened again and the truth spilled out before I could stop it, as I admitted in a choked voice that we had divorced only three days earlier. Xavier did not question me further, instead pulling me back into another embrace as he told me softly that it was fine because he needed me and the company needed me, and I closed my eyes against his shoulder as I let myself sink into the only sense of safety I still recognized.