Chapter 2 - The Shadow of the Past
The tension in the grand foyer was thick enough to choke on. Santiago did not take his eyes off Renata, whose manicured hands were trembling despite her attempts to look composed.
“I asked you a question, Renata,” Santiago said, his voice dropping into a deadly register that signaled total authority. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Renata claimed, taking a step back toward the grand staircase. “Santiago, this woman is playing you. She’s a maid! She’s been living under your roof, scheming, waiting for the right moment to ruin our engagement with some ridiculous story—”
“She didn’t tell me,” Santiago interrupted coldly. “Look at her face, Renata. She didn’t utter a word until I asked her directly. The child carries my family’s mark. I don't need a test to know my own blood, but we will have one anyway.” He turned to his head security officer, Mateo, who was standing quietly near the formal entrance. “Mateo. Secure the house. Nobody leaves. Especially not Miss Cárdenas.”
Camila felt her knees give way, and she sank to the floor, pulling Lucía tightly into her lap. The little girl wrapped her arms around her mother’s neck, sensing the sudden shift in energy around them.
“Camila,” Santiago said, his voice instantly softening as he crouched down beside her on the cold marble floor. He didn’t care that his tailored suit trousers were touching the ground or that his staff was watching. “Look at me.”
Camila slowly lifted her head. Her dark eyes were filled with tears that she had held back for years. “Santiago… please. Don’t take her from me. That’s all I ask. Don’t take my baby.”
“Take her from you?” Santiago’s brows furrowed in genuine horror. “Why would I take her from you? Camila, what are you talking about?”
“Four years ago,” Camila whispered, her voice cracking under the weight of memory. “When I realized I was pregnant… I tried to reach you. I went to your office in Monterrey. I wrote letters. I called every phone number I had. But every time, I was turned away. A woman claiming to represent your family came to my apartment in Puebla. She handed me an envelope of money and told me that if I ever tried to contact you again, or if I brought a child into your life, your family would destroy me and take the child away forever.”
Santiago stared at her in absolute disbelief. “What woman? Camila, I never received a single call from you. I searched for you in Puebla for six months! When you left the apartment we shared, the landlord told me you had moved away with another man. I thought… I thought you had left me.”
Camila shook her head violently. “No! I never left you! I loved you! I left because I thought you paid that woman to get rid of me!”
A cold silence descended upon the room.
Santiago slowly stood up, his face pale with a mix of fury and sudden realization. He looked toward the upper floor, where the private office of his late father once stood, and then turned his gaze back to Renata, who was frantically scrolling on her phone.
“Give me the phone, Renata,” Santiago commanded.
“This is insane! You’re taking the word of a servant over mine?” Renata shouted, her polished facade completely crumbling. “Your father made arrangements before he died! He knew what kind of women targeted wealthy men! If someone handled your little mistake back then, they did it to protect the Alcázar estate!”
Santiago took two long strides toward her, snatched the phone from her grip, and handed it to Mateo. “Search every message, every email, every call log from the day she entered this house.”
“You have no right!” Renata shrieked.
“I have every right in my own home,” Santiago said quietly. He turned back to Camila and reached out a hand. “Get up, Camila. You don’t belong on the floor. Neither does my daughter.”
Camila hesitated, looking down at her gray uniform. She had spent years conditioning herself to be invisible, to scrub the floors of this exact room, to keep her head down. Moving up from the floor felt like stepping off a cliff. But when Santiago took her hand, his grip was warm, steady, and familiar—just as it had been years ago when they were just two people in love, before the weight of his family’s empire came between them.
Lucía looked between the two adults, her little hands clutching the silver cufflink in one fist and her old stuffed puppy in the other.
“Daddy?” she asked softly, using the word she had heard other children use in the park when her mother took her out on Sundays.
May you like
Santiago froze. The word hit him like a physical blow. Tears welled up in his eyes—a sight no one in the Alcázar enterprise had ever witnessed. He dropped to his knees again, bringing himself eye-level with the small girl.
“Yes, Lucía,” Santiago whispered, his voice trembling. “I am your daddy.”
