“You want me to lock myself in the bedroom?” Mariana asked softly.
Alejandro barely glanced away from the hallway mirror as he straightened his shirt collar. “Don’t be dramatic. I’m on the verge of landing a promotion to general manager. Sergio is coming to the house for the first time, and I need everything to go perfectly.”
“It’s my house, too.”
“Which is precisely why I’m asking you for a favor. Serve the dinner and vanish for a little while.”
Mariana felt the familiar knot tighten in her throat, the one she had spent years teaching herself to swallow.
The two-story condo belonged to her. She had purchased it years before marrying Alejandro.
Long before that, she had also been a respected trauma surgeon, accustomed to exhausting hours in operating rooms and making split-second decisions when someone’s life depended on her.
Then, seven years earlier, their twelve-year-old daughter, Lucía, died in a tragic car accident.
