Chapter 3
Mariana returned to the condo shortly before six.
She didn’t cry.
Instead, she pulled a medium rolling suitcase from the master closet and left it open and empty beside the front door.
Twenty minutes later, Alejandro unlocked the door and immediately noticed it.
“What is this supposed to mean?” he asked, tossing his keys onto the entryway table.
“We need to talk.”
He sighed with irritation. “Not this again, Mariana.”
“I met with Chloe today.”
Alejandro’s body went rigid. “You went to her office? Are you completely out of your mind?!”
For seven years, that accusation—that she was losing her mind—had been enough to make her retreat, doubt herself, and apologize.
Not today.
“She showed me your text messages, Alejandro,” Mariana said, her voice entirely devoid of emotion. “She told me you’ve been seeing each other for a year and a half. She told me you claimed our marriage was dead, that we slept in separate rooms, and that imaginary doctors forbade you from asking for a divorce.”
Alejandro’s jaw tightened as he tried to regain control. “Chloe misunderstood the context of those conversations—”
“Did she misunderstand when you slept with her?”
Silence.
“Did she misunderstand the lease applications for apartments you were looking at together?”
Alejandro looked away and rubbed the back of his neck. “It was a relationship. Yes.”
A sharp ache moved through Mariana’s chest, but there was no surprise left. “And last night? When you told me you were in meetings with Sergio?”
“We had dinner!” he snapped. “I wasn’t going to tell you I was meeting her!”
“Of course not. Lying was easier.”
Alejandro threw his jacket onto a chair. “What do you want me to say, Mariana?! Our marriage has been dead for years!”
“Then you should have asked for a divorce.”
“When?!” he shouted, stepping closer. “Right after Lucía died?! So your family and all our friends could say I abandoned my grieving wife when she was at rock bottom?!”
The words hung in the silent living room.
Mariana stared at him and, for the first time in a decade, saw him clearly. “So you stayed to protect your reputation.”
Alejandro realized his mistake a second too late. “That’s not what I meant—”
“That is exactly what you said.”
“In the beginning, I stayed because I loved you!” he insisted, his voice rising defensive anger. “Because you were completely broken! I’m the one who dragged you to therapy! I’m the one who cooked your meals! I put up with your sleepless nights for years!”
“And I spent seven years feeling guilty for it,” she replied quietly.
“Guilty? You stopped being a wife! I’d come home from work and find you in the same clothes, reading medical journals for hours, refusing to go out! What did you expect me to do?!”
“I expected that if you stopped loving me, you would have the basic human decency to tell me.”
“It wasn’t that simple!”
Mariana pulled out her phone and showed him the message Chloe had forwarded. “‘Where is she going to go? She doesn’t know how to survive on her own.’ Was that complicated, too?”
Alejandro stared at the screen, his face darkening. “I was angry when I typed that.”
“You were also angry when you told my colleagues to stay away from me.”
Alejandro blinked. “What?”
“Laura came to this house twice after the funeral,” Mariana said coldly. “Andrew called. You told them both that hearing about the hospital caused me to have psychological relapses.”
“I was trying to protect you!”
“I never asked you to protect me from my friends.”
“You don’t remember what state you were in!”
“I remember exactly what state I was in seven years ago,” Mariana said, taking a step toward him. “What I want to know is why you were still telling those exact same lies five, six, seven years later.”
Alejandro had nothing to say.
“You also told Sergio that you routinely passed up career opportunities because of my ‘panic attacks,’” she added. “You turned my grief into a convenient professional excuse for your own failures.”
Alejandro sneered and gestured toward the open suitcase. “Are you going to pack your bags and leave then?”
“No,” Mariana said smoothly. “That suitcase is for you. You’re leaving.”
Alejandro stared at her, then laughed sharply in disbelief. “To where? This is my home!”
“I bought this condo five years before I met you, Alejandro. The deed is in my name alone.”
“We’ve lived here together for fifteen years!”
May you like
“And it ends today.”
Alejandro’s face flushed deep red. “Do you honestly think you can handle everything on your own?! The mortgage, the HOA fees, the taxes, the maintenance?! You won’t last a single week!”
