“No, you don’t.” She looked away. “You still have your whole life ahead of you. You can meet someone else. You can have children. You can start over without carrying the weight of other people’s judgment.”
“I don’t want someone else.”
“You say that now.”
“Because it’s true.”
She shook her head.
“I heard what your sister said. She asked what would happen when I was gone. She questioned whether I could give you children. She looked at me as if I had stolen something from you.”
Raquel’s tears began to fall.
“And the worst part is that I wondered whether she was right.”
Raúl stepped toward her, but she raised a hand.
“Please. Let me finish.”
He stopped.
“I have spent years wondering whether any man could love me without wanting something from me. When you refused my money, I thought perhaps I had finally met someone different. When you proposed, I believed you had chosen me despite everything that might stand against us.”
