Chapter 1 CHAPTER 1

You Shall Love Your Husband Above All Things

My name is Valentina Arráez de Montenegro. I'm thirty-three years old. I have a master's degree in business administration, a culinary diploma, and a five-year marriage.

Tonight, I'm cooking dinner for my husband and his mistress.

As much as I hate it, I have to endure it.

I'm the perfect wife.

She's been sitting at my dining table for four months now.

Every Thursday, Rodrigo—my husband—sits at the head of the table. She sits on his right. I sit on his left.

She eats the food I prepare.

She laughs at jokes I don't understand.

And when she leaves, I'm the one who washes the dishes.

Her name is Camila.

She's twenty-seven.

Black hair. Tiny waist. Loud laugh.

Everything I'm not.

I know I'm pathetic. Submissive.

Any woman with a shred of self-respect would have thrown her out the first time she showed up.

But my mother gave me ten rules on my eighteenth birthday.

She made me memorize them.

She made me repeat them in front of a mirror until I knew them better than my own name.

Rule Number One:

Love your husband above all things, even above yourself.

I repeat it now while standing in front of the oven, waiting for the beef tenderloin to finish roasting.

I repeat it like a prayer.

Because when things hurt, the rules are all I have left.

The doorbell rings.

Camila walks in without waiting for an invitation.

She's wearing a short red dress, high heels, and her hair loose around her shoulders.

"Valentina, you look beautiful today. Well, you always look perfect."

"Thank you, Camila."

"It's a gift, you know. Not every woman has it. I'd get bored."

I smile.

Rule Number Three:

You shall never contradict him, nor those who belong to him.

I lead her into the dining room.

The table is set exactly as it is every Thursday.

Rodrigo comes downstairs wearing the blue shirt I gave him for our anniversary.

He doesn't even look at me.

He kisses Camila on the mouth right in front of me.

Right in front of me.

In my house.

Rule Number One.

Love your husband above all things.

I serve dinner.

Beef tenderloin marinated in red wine for twenty-four hours, with port reduction and truffle mashed potatoes.

I've been preparing it since eight in the morning.

Camila cuts off a piece.

Chews slowly.

Sets down her fork.

"Vale, don't take this the wrong way, but this tastes like cardboard."

I go still.

"I've had better tenderloin from a little place near my apartment. And it was cooked by a guy with no diploma or anything. You have a culinary degree, sweetheart. I can tell you put a lot of effort into it, but apparently you didn't learn enough."

I look at Rodrigo.

Rodrigo cuts his steak.

Chews.

Swallows.

Says nothing.

Not one word.

Rule Number One.

Love your husband.

Rule Number Two.

Remain faithful and loyal, even if he is not.

Rule Number Three.

Do not contradict him.

I repeat them in my head.

Over and over.

Like a rosary.

Because if I focus on the rules, I don't have to focus on the hole opening inside my chest.

"I'm sorry, Camila. I'll do better next time."

"Oh, don't worry, Vale. Nobody can be perfect at everything. Otherwise you'd be a machine."

She smiles.

Four years of culinary school.

Three years training in Michelin-starred restaurants.

Only for that snake to compare me to a machine.

I smile.

Rule Number Five:

Always be beautiful and kind, because your image depends on you.

I take a breath.

Count to three.

And serve dessert.

"Oh, now this is actually good. At least something turned out right. It's a shame you spend all day in the kitchen for nothing."

Rodrigo helps himself to a second serving.

For the first time all evening, he looks at me.

"It's good, Valentina."

Two words.

After two hours of dinner.

Two words while another woman called me incompetent and compared me to a machine at my own table.

And I smile at him.

Because I love him.

Because it's Rule Number One.

Camila gets up.

Rodrigo walks her to the door.

I hear them laughing in the entryway at something I can't make out.

I clear the table.

Three plates.

Three glasses.

Three folded napkins.

I carry them into the kitchen.

Wash them by hand.

One by one.

The water is scalding.

It burns my fingers, but I don't pull away.

Physical pain is easier to endure than the other kind.

Rodrigo comes back into the kitchen.

Walks past me.

Takes a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet without looking at me.

Then disappears into his study.

As if I don't exist.

I go upstairs slowly.

Step into the bathroom.

Lock the door, even though nobody is going to come looking for me.

I undress and step into the shower.

And there, beneath the water, I finally allow myself to cry.

But it doesn't last long.

Because my mother taught me not to cry, too.

Women who cry are weak, she'd always say.

And weak women don't keep their husbands.

I wash my face.

Look at myself in the fogged mirror.

I don't look good.

I don't want to look.

I leave the bathroom.

Put on my nightgown.

Apply cream to my neck.

Upward motions.

Never downward.

That's what the rule says.

I lie down on my side of the bed.

Rodrigo's side is empty.

I stare at the ceiling.

And I repeat my mother's ten rules.

One by one.

Until the tears dry.

Until my eyes close on their own.

Because if I repeat them correctly...

If I follow them perfectly...

He won't leave me.

Of course he won't leave me.

I'm the perfect wife.

And while I was lying there in the dark, repeating my mother's rules...

My husband was in another woman's bed.

With the woman who planned to replace me.