Esteban Zaragosa deliberately conned her, “Why not, since you don’t like me now and I’m nice to you, but that doesn’t stop me from liking someone else, why not?”
Dulcina Calvo kept shaking her head and stubbornly said, “No means no, you’re my boyfriend! How can you like any other girl but me?”.
Esteban Zaragosa watched her fury with a slight, loving smile in his eyes.
Dulcina Calvo, unable to understand him, said: “If you like Eleanora Peña, let’s break up!
Esteban Zaragosa blushed coldly, “Don’t ever say the word break again.”
“… But you like Eleanora Peña again”.
“I don’t like Eleanora Peña, that’s just a guess.”
Dulcina Calvo said with a dominant little voice: “Hypotheses are not allowed either”.
The smile under the man’s deep-set eyes deepened, “Then no such dull assumptions in the future.”
Even now, Dulcina Calvo didn’t like him enough, but she was possessive of him, and that was enough.
He was in no hurry, she was his, and now it was as if he had surrounded a piece of land and marked it with an owner, so that even if others coveted it, they would have to stop thinking about it.
On the street, decked out for New Year’s Eve, Esteban Zaragosa hugged his little girl, kissed her forehead and said in a muted voice, “I am yours, yes, but you must remember that you are mine too.”
Dulcina Calvo wrapped her small arms around his neck and nodded earnestly, “Yes, I will be your bride with all my heart.”
He promised her the same thing he promised his teacher: “I will study hard.”
Esteban Zaragosa liked it so much that his heart burst into laughter and fireworks.
…
Florence, eight o’clock in the morning.
Estrella Berrocal has been awake all night, standing by the window with two dark circles under her eyes, looking out at the crowd of people in the street below, feeling lonely and alone.
It was Christmas Day, a very busy day in the country’s customs.
If I had been in the Holy City, I would have been taking Paulita on a candy walk with Adán Rouco.
But such a pretty picture was now a luxury for her.
Estrella Berrocal sat on the thick carpet by the window, looking at the clock hanging on the wall and calculating that it must be around three or four o’clock in the afternoon in La Ciudad Santa.
I wonder what Adam is doing, is he trick-or-treating with Paulita?
Estrella Berrocal was lying there in a daze when suddenly her cell phone rang.
It was an anonymous call.
But Estrella Berrocal could guess that it was Mr. Rouco.
“Hi, it’s me.”
“Dad.”
Roberto Rouco was silent for a moment and said: “There is something I want to talk to you about”.
Estrella Berrocal could hear the seriousness in Roberto Rouco’s tone and gasped, “What is…?”
“You are related to Adam by blood, that can never be erased, and even if you go to Florence, you are still the stray bloodline of The Rouco family. You and Adam’s business…”
“Dad … what do you mean?” Estrella Berrocal’s heartbeat, getting more and more disheveled and disorganized.
Roberto Rouco pursed his lips: “Adán … has decided to divorce you. The divorce papers, here with me, the word … he has signed”.
Estrella Berrocal, with the phone in her hand, her heart stuttered and sank to the bottom.
Tears, in an instant, welled up in her eyes …
“Adam … are you really going to divorce me?”
Estrella Berrocal’s ears were ringing as if a million airplanes were flying over her head, she could barely hear the outside world, only one voice was bombarding her head….
Adam Rouco had signed the divorce papers!