Distant.
Unattainable.
All of that had ended up destroying the only woman he had ever truly loved.
Yeah.
Beloved.
Because he never managed to forget her.
After that night, Alejandro looked for her at the company the next day. But she had already disappeared.
And since then, no other woman has managed to win his heart.
He didn’t even try.
“Get in the car,” he finally said, much calmer. “Your mother is in the Santa Lucía Hospital, right?”
Valeria opened her eyes in surprise.
-As…?
—I’ve been paying for the treatment for three months.
Valeria’s world seemed to shake.
-That?
—The doctor said you needed urgent surgery and that you had no way to cover it.
She felt a lump in her throat.
—It was you…
Alejandro nodded without looking at her.
—I never stopped watching from afar. I was just waiting for the right moment to talk to you without forcing you to run away again.
The tears returned with a vengeance.
For years she thought he would never care about her.
And all the while, he had been quietly taking care of his mother.
Mateo looked at Alejandro with curiosity.
—Are you friends with my mom?
Both adults remained silent.
Until Alejandro slowly crouched down in front of the child.
And with a tenderness that Valeria had never seen in him, he replied:
—Yes… I think so.
Mateo smiled innocently.
—Then you can come with us to the hospital. My grandma makes the best soup in the world.
That simple phrase finally destroyed all the barriers within Alejandro.
Because for the first time someone was inviting him to be part of a family… without self-interest, without fear, and without conditions.
…
The following days were strange.
Alejandro insisted on moving Valeria and Mateo into a residence near the hospital. She refused several times, but finally agreed only for her mother’s health.
However, staying away from him began to become impossible.
Because Alexander wasn’t acting like the arrogant man she remembered.
He acted like someone desperate to make up for lost time.
I was taking Mateo to the park.
He was teaching him how to play chess.
I listened patiently to his absurd stories about dinosaurs and superheroes.
And every time the child laughed, Alexander seemed more human.
Warmer.
More realistic.
One night, Valeria watched them from the doorway of the hospital room.
Mateo slept lying on Alejandro’s chest while he continued working on the laptop, without moving so as not to wake him up.
The scene broke his heart.
Because he understood that he had made a mistake.
