“No. I want to know everything now.”
He stands up and offers his hand. “Come with me.”
We sit in the living room, and I choose an armchair instead of sharing the sofa with him. “Before you start, I want to ask a question. Is what Joaquín said true? Did you publicly acknowledge me to protect me?”
“I won’t deny that my brother and I discussed a strategy to protect you. Showing our relationship to the world made everyone believe in your innocence, but none of that would have worked if I didn’t want you for myself.”
“But you’ve never talked about feelings before, and now you say you love me?”
“Because I needed to tell you about Layla.”
“Right. I’m rushing everything. Start from the beginning . . . from the moment you found her correspondence with the detective.”
“I sought him out as soon as I came across the emails. He told me Layla hired him to find her sister and then discreetly monitor her twin’s life.”
“But why? Based on the message dates, she knew who I was for a long time. If she had no intention of meeting me, why continue paying someone to watch me?”
“I’m sorry to have to say this, Olívia, but as you must have realized by now, your sister wasn’t a good person. Remember when I told you I had to pay her to ensure she carried Valentina to term safely?”
“Jesus Christ, Guillermo! I wish I didn’t remember.”
“When I came to find you, it was a last attempt to make sure my daughter had contact with her only living maternal relative, but to be honest, I planned to keep an eye on you froma distance. If you were anything like your sister, I would never have let you near Nina.”
“You thought I wouldn’t be a good person because of my relation to Layla?”
“That was one reason. And because of your mother.”
“Our mother? Did you find out who she was? Did Layla have her investigated?”
“She didn’t need to. Your biological mother raised your sister.”
“What?”
“You have no idea how much I regret having to be the one to reveal this to you, love.”
“Guillermo, I don’t understand anything.”
I think of the letter I started reading but stopped.
Layla, my beloved little girl . . .
My body is shaken by violent tremors, and when he lifts me and holds me, I don’t push him away. Instead, I nestle closer because something tells me a storm is coming.
“Your mother was very young and beautiful when she became pregnant with both of you. There’s no record of who your biological father was, but she married a wealthy man towards the end of her pregnancy.”
“So why was I put up for adoption? That doesn’t make any sense.”
He holds me tighter in his arms. “I love you, little firecracker. I love so many things about you that a lifetime wouldn’t be enough to prove it. I was smitten the moment I saw that bizarre choreography.”
I know what he’s doing. Guillermo is preparing me for an even harder blow.
“She didn’t want me, was that it? Why did she reject only me?”
He buries his head in the curve of my neck. “Because the man your mother married asked her to choose only one of the girls.”
I’m out of breath. I try to speak and can’t.
How can a mother marry someone like that?
