Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO WOKE UP WITH A SECRET
Camila woke two days later.
Her first sensation was pain.
Her second was fear.
She tried to move, but a nurse gently pressed her shoulder.
"Please stay still. You're in the hospital."
Camila blinked at the unfamiliar ceiling.
"My baby?"
The nurse smiled softly.
"Your little boy is alive. He's in the neonatal intensive care unit, and the doctors are taking excellent care of him."
Tears immediately filled Camila's eyes.
"Can I see him?"
"Not just yet. Your physician needs to examine you first."
Camila closed her eyes and whispered a prayer.
Then she remembered the staircase.
The fall.
The blood.
The phone slipping from her fingers.
And Mateo rejecting her calls.
Her breathing quickened.
"Where's my husband?"
The nurse hesitated.
"He's been here."
"When?"
"Yesterday."
Camila looked toward the window.
"Did he stay?"
The nurse's silence answered the question.
Camila turned her face away.
A few minutes later, Alejandro entered the room carrying a small bouquet of white flowers.
He stopped when he saw her awake.
"Camila."
She looked at him, and the tears came before she could stop them.
"You came."
Alejandro placed the flowers on the table.
"Of course I came."
"I called you after five years."
"And I answered."
She covered her face.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize for needing help."
Camila cried until her chest hurt.
Alejandro waited without asking questions.
When she finally calmed down, he pulled a chair beside her bed.
"The doctors say you and the baby are stable. He's small, but he's fighting."
"What's his name?"
"You haven't officially chosen one."
Camila smiled faintly.
"We were supposed to decide together."
Alejandro looked at the floor.
"You still can, if that's what you want."
She shook her head.
"Mateo hasn't even asked whether I woke up, has he?"
"He knows."
"That's not what I asked."
Alejandro didn't lie.
"He hasn't been here today."
Camila closed her eyes.
Something inside her seemed to break, but beneath the pain was a strange clarity.
She had spent years explaining Mateo's cruelty to herself.
He was stressed.
He was ambitious.
He had difficult childhood memories.
He didn't know how to express love.
She had transformed every insult into a misunderstanding and every betrayal into a temporary mistake.
But when her life had been in danger, he hadn't even answered.
"I want a lawyer," she whispered.
Alejandro studied her carefully.
"Are you sure?"
"I want to know what belongs to me. I want to protect my son. And I want to know why my husband has been transferring money out of my accounts."
Alejandro's expression hardened.
"You know about the transfers?"
"Not everything. But three weeks ago, I received a notification about a change to the family trust. Mateo said it was routine paperwork."
"Did you sign anything?"
"No."
A long silence followed.
Alejandro took a notebook from his jacket.
"My attorney found a digital authorization bearing your name. It was used to initiate several transfers."
Camila stared at him.
"That's impossible."
"That's what we're investigating."
She tried to sit up, but pain forced her back against the pillows.
"Mateo wouldn't steal from his own child."
Alejandro said nothing.
Her expression changed as the realization settled in.
"Would he?"
Before Alejandro could answer, the door opened.
Mateo entered holding an enormous bouquet of red roses.
He looked exhausted, but his expensive suit was immaculate.
"Camila, sweetheart."
She stared at him.
He placed the flowers beside the white ones.
"Thank God you're awake."
For a moment, she wanted to believe him.
Then she remembered the seventeen calls.
"Why didn't you answer?"
Mateo stopped.
"I was busy."
"Seventeen times?"
"I didn't know it was an emergency."
"You didn't even listen to one voicemail."
He looked toward Alejandro.
"Can we have some privacy?"
"No," Camila replied.
Both men turned toward her.
She had spoken quietly, but there was no uncertainty in her voice.
"You can say whatever you came to say in front of him."
Mateo's expression tightened.
"I made a mistake."
"A mistake is forgetting milk at the grocery store. You deliberately rejected my calls."
"I was drinking. I wasn't thinking clearly."
"You were thinking clearly enough to turn off your phone."
He rubbed his forehead.
"Camila, please. I feel terrible."
She looked at his hands.
There was no hospital bracelet. No evidence that he had stayed through the night. No sign that he had been waiting for her to wake.
"Did you come here to apologize," she asked, "or because you heard Alejandro's lawyers were investigating our finances?"
Mateo's face changed.
It lasted only a second, but she saw it.
"What are you talking about?"
"The trust."
"That's a private matter between us."
"Not anymore."
He stepped closer.
"You're upset. You've just survived surgery. You shouldn't make decisions right now."
Camila felt an icy calm settle over her.
"You're right. I shouldn't make decisions while I'm in pain. So I'll make this one simple."
She looked directly at him.
"Until I understand what you've done, you are not making financial decisions for me or my son."
Mateo stared at her as though he had never seen her before.
Then he turned toward Alejandro.
"This is your doing."
Alejandro remained motionless.
"No. This is the consequence of yours."
Mateo stormed out.
Camila waited until the door closed before asking the question that had haunted her since waking.
"Do you think he caused my fall?"
Alejandro didn't pretend to know.
"I think we need to find out why there was a piece of his security manager's jacket caught beneath the broken railing."
Camila went completely still.
"His security manager?"
"That's what the police are checking."
She gripped the blanket.
For the first time, the possibility that her fall had not been an accident felt real.
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And somewhere beyond the hospital walls, someone knew exactly what had happened on that staircase.
Someone who might be preparing to make sure she never remembered it.
