Chapter 6 CHAPTER 6

I can’t sleep.

I’ve been lying awake all night, staring at the ceiling of this room that smells like Valentina. Her perfume, her orderliness, her silent presence that fills everything without making a sound. She’s lying a meter away from me, breathing with that perfect rhythm she has even in her sleep, and I’ve been mulling over every word she said to me at dinner for hours.

Your parents won’t accept a divorce. They’ll take away your share of the company. They’ll remove you from the board. They’ll cut off your trust fund. The Arráez family against the Montenegro family. A public scandal. Are you willing to walk away with nothing?

With nothing?

I toss and turn in bed. Valentina doesn’t move. Of course she doesn’t move. That woman could sleep through an earthquake and wake up with her hair still in place.

The problem is that she’s right. About everything. The clause, the contract, the families. She’s right, and she knows it, and she threw it in my face with the coldness of an executive closing a deal—not with the pain of a betrayed wife. And that pisses me off more than if she’d yelled at me. Because Valentina didn’t beg me. Valentina laid out the facts.

But then there’s Camila. Camila, with my child growing inside her. Camila, who gave me a week. Camila, who looks at me as if I were someone worth loving—and not the coward that I am.

Four in the morning. Five. Six. Light starts streaming in through the window, and I still have no answer.

At 6:30, Valentina gets up. I hear her go to the bathroom, take a shower, get dressed. The routine. The human clock. She leaves the bedroom without looking at me—or maybe she does look at me, and I pretend to be asleep. I don’t know who’s pretending what in this house anymore.

At seven, I get up. I go downstairs. Valentina is in the kitchen with breakfast ready, as always, just like every damn day for the past five years. Toast, eggs, coffee. The perfect table. She’s perfect. Everything is perfectly perfect.

I watch her from the kitchen door. She looks at me. She smiles. That smile.

“Good morning. Coffee?”

And that’s when I decide.

I can’t take it anymore.

“I’m not going to have breakfast.”

I say nothing more. I grab my car keys and head out. I don’t say goodbye, I don’t explain, I don’t give her anything. I walk out of that house like someone leaving a prison with the doors wide open, the outside air hitting my face for the first time.

I drive without thinking. Or maybe I’m thinking too much. The streets are half-empty at this hour, and I’m heading to the only place I can go when life gets serious: my parents’ mansion.

I’ve been thinking about it all night. Every number, every consequence, every scenario. And the conclusion I’ve reached is this: I could lose everything. I could lose the company, the trust, the last name, the status. I could lose everything they gave me because none of it is truly mine. It was all inherited, borrowed, or came with strings attached. But I have savings. I have what I’ve saved up on my own over the years, off the family’s radar. It’s not a Montenegro fortune, but it’s enough to get started. Not with the luxuries I’m used to—no chauffeurs, no mansions, no $500 dinners—but with dignity. A decent apartment. A real job. A life that’s my own.

And a son. A son I can actually touch, whom I can actually feel, who will actually be real.

I arrive at the mansion at 7:20 in the morning. The guard looks at me with a surprised expression because in this family, no one just shows up unannounced. In this family, you announce your arrival, send a message, confirm a time, and get dressed for the occasion. You don’t show up in yesterday’s shirt and with red eyes at seven in the morning like an emotional vagabond.

“I need to see my father.”

The guard lets me in without asking any questions because I’m a Montenegro, and here that last name opens doors even if you’re a wreck. I walk into the house. My mother is in the dining room, eating breakfast alone, with that icy elegance she has even when spreading butter. She sees me and her face hardens.

“Rodrigo. What are you doing here at this hour?”

“I need to talk to Dad.”

“Your father is in his office and hasn’t finished…”

“It’s urgent, Mom.”

She looks at me. That look she’s given me my whole life. The look that says, “You’re doing something I don’t approve of, but I’m not going to tell you so with words because in this family, reproaches are made with the eyes.” She holds it for a second and then goes back to her toast.

“Go ahead.”

I walk to my father’s office. The door is closed, as always. I knock twice. The voice from inside says, “Come in,” in the same tone he’d use to say, “I was expecting you,” because my father always sounds as if the world revolves around his schedule.

Rodrigo Montenegro, Sr. Seventy-two years old. White hair, straight back, the large hands of a man who built an empire and who uses them more for signing documents than for hugging anyone. He’s behind his desk, wearing his glasses and with a newspaper open. He looks at me over his glasses. He doesn’t get up.

“It’s too early for visitors, Rodrigo.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Sit down.”

I sit down. And I just blurt it out. Without preamble, without context, without the beating around the bush that any normal person would do before saying something like that. Because I’m tired of beating around the bush. I’m tired of protocols and formalities and niceties. I’m tired.

“My lover is pregnant.”

My father doesn’t move. He doesn’t blink. His expression doesn’t change. He slowly puts down the newspaper, takes off his glasses, places them carefully on the desk, and looks at me as if I’d just told him it’s going to rain tomorrow.

“Tell her to get an abortion. There are no bastards in our family.”

Just like that. With that calmness. With that flat voice of a man who’s solved bigger problems than this before lunch. Tell her to get rid of it. As if to say, tell her to return the dress.

“I can’t do that. He’s my son.”

“Well, let him keep it. You and your wife adopt him, and the problem’s solved.”

I just stared at him. I didn’t know whether to admire his efficiency or be sickened by his coldness.

“Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. Why are you surprised?”

He leans back in his chair. He looks at me with those eyes that are exactly like mine—which has always unsettled me—and says something that completely takes me aback.

—“Just so you know, I’m the son of a mistress.”

The silence that follows is the kind that changes the way you see the world.

“My biological mother gave me away for a check and disappeared,” he continues, in the same tone he’d use to talk about any ordinary transaction. “Your grandmother took me in, gave me her last name, and raised me as her own. She gave me more love than that woman ever could have given me in her entire life. So don’t give me any of that sentimental nonsense about motherhood, Rodrigo. Blood doesn’t make a family. Decisions make a family.”

My mouth is hanging open. Literally. My father is seventy-two years old, and he’s never—not even once—mentioned this. Not over dinner, not during an argument, not even in a moment of weakness—which he never has, anyway. My father just confessed to me that everything I believed about his origins is a lie, and he did it with the same nonchalance with which he reads the newspaper.

“I’m not going to do that to Camila,” I say when I find my voice again. “I’m not going to take the child and cast her aside. I’m going to divorce Valentina, whether you agree or not.”

The thud on the desk makes me jump.

My father is standing. His hands are spread out on the wood, his face red, his eyes blazing with a fury I haven’t seen in him since I was fifteen and crashed his car. Rodrigo Montenegro Sr., the man who never raises his voice, has just slammed his open palm down on his desk and is staring at me as if he wants to do the same to my face.

“No. There are no divorces in this family. If you do this, I’ll strip you of my last name. Do you hear me? I’ll strip you of it.”

“I don’t care. My son comes first.”

“Your son? Your son with a woman you’ve known for eight months? And what about the son you’re supposed to have with your wife? Can’t you even manage that?”

“She’s the one who can’t.”

My father pauses. He looks at me. And something in his expression changes—something subtle, like a passing shadow.

—Are you sure about that, Rodrigo?

“What do you mean?”

“That the medical report says otherwise. You’re both perfectly fine. The problem isn’t physical.”

I take a second to process what he just said.

“Are you serious, Dad? Did you tamper with my medical report?”

“I didn’t meddle. I made sure everything was in order. It’s my duty. You’re my son, that woman is your wife, and a Montenegro heir isn’t a private matter. It’s a family matter.”

I want to yell at him. I want to tell him he has no right, that my life isn’t an extension of his business, that my sperm and my wife’s womb aren’t family- s assets he can audit whenever he feels like it. But I don’t yell. Because I’m his son. And his son doesn’t yell. Just like Valentina doesn’t yell. Just like nobody yells in these shitty families where everything rots in silence.

My father sits back down. He breathes slowly. He runs his hand through his white hair, and when he looks at me again, he has the face of a negotiator, not that of an angry father. He’s back to his usual self. His cold, calculating self—the man who always has a plan.

“I’ll make you a proposal.”

“I don’t want any proposals.”

“Listen to me before you speak—something you never learned to do.” He leans forward. “Most of those women who get married are just after money. You don’t believe it because you’re blinded, but I’ve been in this world longer than you and I’ve seen that movie a thousand times.”

“Camila isn’t like that.”

“Prove it.” He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “I’ll give you three months. Go be with her. But don’t get a divorce. Live with nothing. No Montenegro last name, no businesses, no credit cards, no contacts, no network. Just what you can earn with your own two hands. And see what happens.”

—And then what?

“If she passes the test—if after three months without luxuries she’s still by your side—I’ll divorce you from Valentina myself. I’ll leave you a sum of money so you can build a life for yourself. But you’ll have to stay far away from this family. Forever.”

I look at him. I search for the catch. With my father, there’s always a catch.

“What if I come back?”

“If you come back, you’ll go back to your wife, your job, your life. And you’ll never mention that woman to me again.”

Three months. Three months away from this house, from Valentina and her rules, from my parents and their expectations. Three months with Camila, just the two of us, with nothing—to see if what we have between us can survive without all the noise. It’s crazy. It’s the coldest, most manipulative proposal my father has ever made to me—and that’s saying a lot.

And I want to accept.

I want to accept because part of me needs to know if this thing with Camila is real or if it’s just a fire that’s been lit because everything at home is extinguished. And I need to find out far from here, far from Valentina, far from the guilt.

“I accept,” I say. “But I want it in writing. I don’t want you to tell me in three months that it was just a verbal agreement.”

“Fine. I’ll have the document ready by the time you get to the office. Pack up your things after you sign it. I’ll appoint an interim director for three months.”

He stands up. He walks over to the window. He turns his back on me—which is his way of saying the conversation is over. But before I stand up, he says something else.

—And if the divorce goes through, Valentina will take over the position.

“What? Why her?”

My father turns around. He looks at me with a mixture of pity and exasperation, like someone looking at a child who doesn’t understand something obvious.

“Because it’s in the prenup, you idiot. Didn’t you read it? If you file for divorce, she gets everything. The shares, the house, the seat on the board. Everything.”

Everything.

I freeze. Valentina knew. That’s why she didn’t beg me last night. That’s why she didn’t cry, didn’t plead, didn’t make a scene. Because she knew that if I leave her, she gets everything. And I walk away with nothing.

Or did she not know? Was she bluffing? Was Valentina threatening me with information she had, or was she just guessing?

I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.

“Now get out,” my father says, turning back to his newspaper. “I don’t want to see you until you realize your mistake.”

I get up. I leave the office. I walk past the dining room where my mother is still having breakfast with her usual elegance. She looks at me. She doesn’t ask anything. She doesn’t need to ask. In this family, everyone knows everything without anyone having to say a word.

I get in the car. I start the engine. I drive toward the office with my head full of noise. Three months. No last name, no Montenegro money, no support network. Camila and I alone against the world. Just like in a romantic movie—except that romantic movies don’t include fathers who go through your medical records or wives who take everything if you leave them.

And amid all the noise, a phrase from my father keeps echoing in my head.

The medical report says otherwise. They’re both perfectly fine.

If we’re both perfectly fine, why didn’t anything ever happen in five years?

What if the problem wasn’t Valentina?

What if the problem was always me?

The question followed me the whole way.

And when I got to the office, I found the document my father had promised.  I signed it without reading it.

I didn’t know yet that that signature had just ruined my life