—Alejandro never dared to give it to anyone —Teresa murmured—. He hid it. I found him among his things before he was hospitalized. I think that, although he did not know how to love well, he did know too late what he had destroyed.
I took the box.
My fingers caressed the white gold rose.
And in that moment I understood something.
The ending I had been waiting for was not to see them fall.
That had already happened.
The real end, the most difficult, was to recover what was left of me after the collapse.
I looked up at Teresa.
—I can’t forgive what they did —I said honestly—. But this pain ends with me.
She burst into tears.
I closed the box and took a deep breath.
That night I returned home alone.
I opened the window.
I looked at the lights of Monterrey stretching like a bright sea under the darkness.
And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel anger.
I didn’t feel a thirst for revenge.
I didn’t feel afraid.
Just a strange, new, firm peace.
I took the ring.
I walked to the office.
I opened the safe where years ago I had kept my dreams.
And instead of hiding it again, I left it on the desk, next to a folder with the new name of the company’s largest social project:
White Rose Foundation.
I barely smiled.
Not because I had forgotten.
But because, at last, he had survived.
And this time, she was no longer anyone’s wife.
It was Valeria Monteverde.
The woman who fell from the height of deception…
and yet he found the strength to rise bigger than ever.
