God, she had believed everything.
She believed the nights he came home at 2 a.m. smelling of perfume and expensive liquor were “important meetings.”
She believed the assistants who lingered too close meant nothing.
She believed the exhaustion in his eyes was stress.
She even believed him when he slowly stopped touching her.
And worst of all—
she believed love protected people from betrayal.
“I built that company with you,” Mariana whispered, her voice shaking harder with every word. “You couldn’t even pitch your own idea to investors in the beginning. I was the one scheduling meetings. I handled the contracts. I fixed the public disaster in 2018 when your expansion almost collapsed.”
Sebastián leaned back in his chair and smiled with chilling indifference.
“Don’t romanticize your role,” he replied. “You lived very comfortably. Madrid vacations. Designer clothes. Drivers. Private schools. Don’t sit there pretending you suffered.”
Mariana stared at him in disbelief.
She remembered sleeping on office couches beside him when they had no money.
She remembered selling jewelry from her grandmother just to help cover payroll during their second year.
She remembered standing beside him while investors screamed at him after the 2018 crisis, calming them down while Sebastián locked himself in a bathroom having a panic attack.
But now?
Now he acted as if she had simply decorated the house while he built an empire alone.
Valeria calmly slid a check across the table.
“Out of goodwill,” she said, “Mr. Luján is offering you two hundred fifty thousand pesos.”
Mariana looked at the number.
Two hundred fifty thousand.
Sebastián had spent more than that on watches.
On wine.
