Chapter 1
“Don Ramiro had to buy his daughter a husband. Even with all his money, no man would willingly wake up next to her every morning.”
The cruel remark echoed through San Francisco Church in Puebla as guests hid their laughter behind their phones.
No one had come to celebrate a wedding.
They had come to witness the year's biggest scandal:
A ruined heir agreeing to marry the Castañeda family's "ugliest daughter" in exchange for wiping out a 30-million-peso debt.
Inés Castañeda walked down the aisle without a veil.
She was 29 years old, tall and elegant, with a reddish birthmark covering much of her right cheek before disappearing beneath the neckline of her wedding dress.
Near her ear, an old scar interrupted the growth of her hair.
Since childhood...
She had lived with cruel nicknames and whispered insults.
Her father had never stopped them.
If anything...
Ramiro Castañeda smiled as though humiliation were simply another part of her upbringing.
Waiting at the altar was Julián Ferrer...
The only son of a family that had once owned construction companies and luxury hotels throughout Querétaro.
His father had died while under investigation for a multimillion-peso fraud case.
Soon afterward...
The family's bank accounts were frozen.
Their business empire collapsed.
And his widowed mother and younger sister faced losing the only home they had left.
Ramiro had made Julián an offer.
He would pay the 30-million-peso debt...
Reopen the investigation into Julián's father's case...
And save the Ferrer family from financial ruin.
In return...
Julián had to marry Inés.
They had met only once...
Twenty days earlier...
In Cholula.
“My father says you don't have any other choices,” Inés had told him.
Julián met her eyes.
“And yours believes the same about you.”
A faint smile touched her lips.
“I'm sure they've already told you I'm unpleasant to look at.”
Julián answered quietly.
“People said far worse things about my father.”
“I learned a long time ago not to repeat rumors like a parrot.”
For the first time...
Inés almost smiled.
It wasn't love.
It wasn't even trust.
But Julián had spoken to her...
Without pity.
Without treating her like a spectacle.
That alone was enough for her to say yes.
There was another reason.
Inés needed to escape.
Her mother, Beatriz, had died eleven years earlier after falling from a balcony at the family's estate in Atlixco.
The official report called it an accident.
Inés had never believed that story.
Afterward...
Ramiro forced her through endless private treatments...
Heavy sedatives...
And repeated psychiatric diagnoses claiming she suffered from "emotional instability."
Every time she asked about her mother's finances...
She found herself locked away for days inside a private clinic.
The night before the wedding...
She discovered a tiny key hidden inside Beatriz's old sewing basket.
She was certain it belonged to an antique cabinet.
Without telling anyone...
She sewed the key into the corset of her wedding dress.
Hours later...
Two men searched her bedroom.
They grabbed her arms.
Demanded to know what she had taken from her father's office.
Inés denied everything.
They searched every drawer.
Every suitcase.
Every corner of the room.
But they never touched the wedding dress.
During the signing of the marriage certificate...
Ramiro placed a hand on his daughter's shoulder.
Inés flinched so violently...
The pen slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the floor.
Julián noticed.
But said nothing.
That night...
At El Mirador Estate...
A housekeeper spotted a stain of blood seeping through the back of Inés's wedding dress.
She locked herself inside her bedroom.
And refused to see the doctor her father had sent.
Julián quietly knocked on the door.
“I won't come in unless you want me to,” he said.
“Just tell me if you need help.”
The lock slowly clicked open.
Inside...
Inés stood beside the bed with the back of her dress unfastened.
The hidden key had cut into her skin.
But that wasn't what left Julián speechless.
Her back...
Was covered with old scars.
So were her wrists.
And her ankles.
“Who did this to you?” he whispered.
Inés looked at him without a trace of emotion.
“My father.”
“And the doctors he paid to convince everyone it was for my own good.”
Then...
She reached beneath the mattress...
And pulled out a blue folder.
Holding it tightly, she looked Julián straight in the eyes.
“Before you ever touch me...”
“Read this.”
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“My father didn't pay you to marry me.”
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