Chapter 7 - The Wedding Nobody Planned
Victor refused to sign.
Richard threatened Elena.
Maria stepped forward.
“I'll sign.”
Victor turned.
“No.”
“If I don't, he kills my mother.”
“We'll find another way.”
“There isn't time.”
Richard smiled.
“She's learning.”
Maria sat.
The papers were placed in front of her.
Victor watched every movement.
Richard instructed the notary.
The document was read aloud.
Then Maria noticed something.
A clause.
A tiny paragraph.
If the transfer occurred under duress, it became invalid.
She looked at Victor.
He understood.
He nodded once.
She signed.
Richard smiled.
“Now Victor.”
Victor picked up the pen.
Before signing, he asked:
“Where is the witness?”
Richard pointed toward Elena.
“She will sign.”
Elena stared at him.
Then at her daughter.
Then she smiled.
“I know what you're doing.”
Richard frowned.
Elena signed.
Then the notary.
Victor picked up the pen.
And instead of signing the transfer, he dropped it.
The lights turned on.
Police flooded the room.
Richard froze.
Victor looked at him.
“You were right about one thing.”
“What?”
“My weakness is her.”
He looked at Maria.
“But you made the mistake of thinking that made me weak.”
Richard was arrested.
The evidence was transmitted.
The trust was protected.
And the network collapsed.
Months later, the Torres Grand reopened.
But it was different.
Victor changed the employee policies.
Health coverage expanded.
Schedules became humane.
No employee was allowed to work extreme consecutive shifts.
Maria became the director of a new employee-support division.
Her mother recovered.
Her brother graduated.
And Victor proposed.
Not in a ballroom.
Not at a board meeting.
In the same bathroom where he had found her asleep.
He stood beside the bathtub.
Maria laughed.
“You planned this?”
“Yes.”
“Why here?”
“Because it started here.”
He knelt.
“Maria Lopez, will you marry me?”
She looked at him.
“The billionaire CEO?”
“Yes.”
“The man who caught me sleeping in his bathtub?”
“Yes.”
“The man who interrogated me about my work schedule?”
“Yes.”
“The man who fell in love with a housekeeper?”
He smiled.
“That one too.”
May you like
She cried.
Then she said yes.
