“I don’t know. That’s why I refused.”
For a while, they sat in silence.
Then Raquel began speaking about her marriages.
She told him how each relationship had started with promises and ended with disappointment. She explained how difficult it had become to distinguish affection from ambition.
“I know what people see when they look at me,” she said. “They see the houses, the cars, the influence. They see a woman who can make a phone call and solve almost any practical problem.”
Her voice grew quieter.
“But sometimes I come home and realize that if all my money disappeared tomorrow, I don’t know who would remain.”
Raúl felt something shift inside him.
He had spent so long seeing her as a wealthy woman who could solve his problems that he had barely considered the possibility that she had problems no amount of money could solve.
