Chapter 17 - THE MARRIAGE THEY HAD TO REBUILD
The mansion was sold six months later.
Alejandro did not hesitate.
Valeria never wanted to sleep there again.
They moved into a smaller house in San Ángel.
Smaller was relative.
It was still beautiful.
But it felt human.
No marble halls.
No twenty-person staff.
No family portraits staring down from every wall.
Valeria chose the nursery herself.
Soft green walls.
Simple wooden furniture.
One restored painting from her father's collection.
Alejandro did not ask her to forgive him.
That mattered.
He began attending counseling.
Not because a court ordered it.
Not because the press expected it.
Because he finally understood that love without listening could become another form of abandonment.
One evening, Valeria sat beside him in the unfinished nursery.
"You know I almost left you before all this."
Alejandro looked at her.
"When?"
"Two weeks before the attack."
He said nothing.
"I had already packed documents."
"I was going to stay with my mother."
"Why didn't you?"
Valeria touched her stomach.
"I was scared."
"Of me?"
She thought carefully.
"Not of what you would do."
"Of what you wouldn't believe."
That hurt more.
Alejandro nodded.
"You were right."
Valeria looked at him.
"No."
"I needed you to prove me wrong."
Silence settled between them.
Then Alejandro said.
"I can't change the man I was."
"But I can make sure you never have to beg that man to listen again."
Valeria did not say she trusted him completely.
Trust did not return because of one speech.
It returned in small things.
Alejandro stopped taking calls during medical appointments.
He asked questions instead of giving orders.
He never allowed Marcela near Valeria without permission.
He gave Valeria full access to every financial document involving their child.
He stopped hiding behind work.
And slowly, the distance between them became smaller.
Then one morning, Alejandro woke to Valeria shaking his shoulder.
"Alejandro."
He opened his eyes.
Her face was calm.
Too calm.
"My water broke."
May you like
He jumped out of bed so quickly she laughed.
It was the first real laugh he had heard from her in months.
