Six years ago(Flashbacks)
Paula felt depressed. She stayed in her bed all day long and barely left her room. She had no appetite for food, but for the sake of the baby, she forced herself to eat as much as her stomach could contain without vomiting. She didn't join the family downstairs for their meals. Petra. One of the maids brought her meals to her room.
She slept in her bed with her room plunged in total darkness even though it was daylight. She refused to let Petra open the drapes whenever she dropped by with the food or to do some cleaning. What was the point of letting light into her room, when her life was a total mess and a pit of endless darkness.
Every time she closed her eyes, Rafael's pained face when she told him in a sarcastic voice that she never loved him appeared before her eyes. His distraught face that night haunted her dreams and thoughts.
She missed her silly arguments with him. She missed the feel of his strong and safe arms around her. She missed the achingly sweet endearments he used to whisper in her night as he worshipped her body like she was some goddess.
Someone stepped into the room and opened the drapes. The bright summer light flooded into the room. Paula groaned and flipped open her covers, ready to shout off Petra's ear but it was her brother instead, standing at the foot of the bed, his arms crossed over his chest and his dark brows furrowed into a frown.
She groaned and fell back on the bed.
"What do you want?," she asked in a quiet voice.
They were twins but they didn't share that connection twins are believed to have. Andres had no time for her. He was always running around everything in a skirt and getting drunk or getting laid at some exclusive party with his shallow friends.
"How long are you going to spend cropped up in here?," he asked her.
"As if you care," she snorted.
"I am not exactly a person to display my emotions and affections but believe me, l really do care about you a lot."
His words stunned her into sitting up straight and leaning against the headboard. He gave her a small sad smile.
"Are you going to mourn the loss of your lover for the rest your life? At least think about the baby. You knew from the start that it was bound to end so why are you sulking over it."
Her mouth fell open at his words.
"You knew about us?," she asked, her face pale with disbelief.
Andres chuckled as he sat on the edge of the bed.
"I suspected that you had a thing for him but l wasn't sure of anything until l saw him slipping out of your room early in the morning."
"Then why didn't you out me to our parents?"
"One- you have many dirty records on me and two- l discovered that he wasn't harmless. I thought that you could enjoy a silly summer fling before going to college."
A trembling smile graced her lips.
"You never cease to surprise me, do you?"
"Is that your way of saying thank you?," he asked with an arched eyebrow.
"Thank you, Andres," she said with a genuine smile.
"I know that you don't like, Rodriguez but believe the guy may be an asshole but he is a keeper. He protects what's his with a fierce passion. I know that the baby and you will be safe with him."
Paula nodded her head, inwardly disagreeing with him. To her, Rodriguez will remain a heartless and obsessive manipulator.
"Take a shower, you stink," he said and Paula laughed throwing a pillow in his face.
"It's nice to hear you love again. This sulking doesn't suit you at all. Come downstairs for breakfast when you are done," he said and strode out of her room.
She got up from her bed suddenly revived. She had lost Rafael to keep her baby and she wasn't going to let her efforts go to waste. For her baby, she had to be strong.
She showered and wore a fresh yellow summer dress with spaghetti strips. Everyone looked up when she entered the dining room. Andres and Sofia smiled at her but her father simply lowered the newspaper he was reading and glanced at her with unreadable eyes before going back to his paper.
Throughout breakfast, her mother kept rumbling about her wedding plans, the decoration, the catering, the people invited etc.
"It's going to be the best wedding of the year. I want everything to be of fine detail. Everyone will talk about this wedding for a year in Madrid," Sofia exclaimed in an excited voice, her expression dreamy as she visualised her plans.
Paula tightened her fingers on the fork in her hand until her knuckles turned white. She felt like pulling at her hair in frustration. Thinking about her pending and inevitable wedding with Rodriguez made her want to disappear from the face of the earth.
She couldn't stand his pervert eyes. The way his steel grey eyes moved over her body as if stripping her naked made her shiver in revulsion and feel like a tiny thousand insects were crawling over her body.
His eyes were always glinting with a cold, cruel and calculating cunningness. She felt like gagging every time he used the opportunity to kiss her during family meetings where he knew that she would never resist him in front of their parents without bringing to light their little lie.
She couldn't imagine sharing a house with him, worst of all a bed. She would rather die than let him have what had belonged to Rafael only.
Oh Rafael!
Her heart twisted painfully at his name. She had betrayed him in the worst possible way.
"This marriage alliance is good for our business too. Fernando and l have begun preparations to be partners," her father said with a satisfied grin.
"This is great news, Pedro!," her mother chimed in with an excited voice.
Paula felt her blood boiling at his words. Her parents didn't care about her well being. They were only concerned about advancing their family business.
"With Fernando Rodriguez's help, we are going to break into the Asian market," Pedro said in a pleased voice.
Paula couldn't take it anymore. Her chest expanded and tightened with anger. Before she knows it, her hand banged against the table and the conversation around her came to a halt.
Her family stared at her in shock.
"What's wrong with you, young lady?," her father's angry voice boomed in the silent room.
She closed her eyes and drew in a shaky breath and blurted out the words that had been hovering at the tip of her tongue for days now.
"Father, l don't want to marry, Rodriguez," she quickly said before her new found courage deserted her.
Her father's face looked murderous at her words and a slight shiver ran down her back.
"You got knocked up by the boy! What did you expect? No daughter of mine will give birth to a bastard and disgrace me," he yelled at the top of his lungs and she felt her anger mounting high.
"I don't love him at all!," she cried out in a frustrated voice, angry tears spilling down her cheeks.
Her father's face hardened even more. His hand slapped the table and the dishes made a rattling sound.
"Don't you dare raise your voice at me, young lady! You are telling me now that you don't love him! You should have thought of that before you opened your legs for him like a whore," he ground out, his face red with fury.
Sofia's face paled at her husband's words.
"Dios, Pedro!," she cried out in horror.
Pedro glared at his wife and she looked away. He brought back his flashing eyes to his daughter.
"You will not back out of this! You hear me, Paula? I won't let you do that. I have a lot riding on this!," he growled at her.
Paula let out a harsh mocking laughter as she stared at her father's sneering face through a veil of her tears.
"You never cared about us. Did you?," she asked in a wobbly voice.
Pedro gave out a sarcastic laugh.
"Did you think that this lavish lifestyle you are living comes free? You have to work for it. What easier way to secure it than becoming Rodriguez's trophy wife. You don't have to lift a finger all your life. You only had to look pretty and become a perfect hostess."
She stood up from the table, deciding that she had had enough. She threw down her napkin, feeling her appetite suddenly gone. The food now tasted like coarse sand down her throat.
"I have said what l wanted to say. I am out of here!," she said, about to turn away but her father's angry voice froze her.
"Don't you dare walk out on me! This conversation is not over until l say so," he gritted out, standing up as well.
Sofia and Andres also stood up, their faces drawn in shock at the change of events.
"I am not getting married to him!," she said in a final tone earning a sarcastic laugh from her father.
"You are so stupid and naive. Do you honestly think that Fernando and his son are going to walk away free with their heir. Once you pop out that thing, their lawyers are going to be all over you like a swarm of flies and you are going to lose that baby forever."
"This baby is not even Rodriguez's. Our affair was simply a lie we come up with. I was never involved with him."
Her mother gasped loudly and her father staggered backwards as if a heavy blow had been delivered to his face.
"So you mean that...," his voice trailed off with difficulty as he closed his eyes.
"It's Rafael's baby," she confessed.
Pedro opened his eyes and looked at her as if he wanted to strike her.
"How could you, Paula?," he demanded in a heated voice.
Her eyes teared at his question.
"Because l loved him. He was the only guy l met who didn't care about my family status and wealthy. He made me happy. Rafael loved me..," her voice trailed off as she wiped away the unending tears running down her cheeks.
"You have never loved anyone so you will never understand," she snorted.
Pedro's eyes narrowed dangerously at her.
"You will get rid of that thing tomorrow morning!," he ordered through clenched teeth.
Paula laughed in disbelief as more tears escaped at her father's atrocity.
"What if l don't?," she challenged him in a firm voice.
"You wouldn't want to mess with me, Paula. If you don't get rid of that thing by tomorrow, l will have no choice but to kick you out of my house without a single penny. You and your bastard child will not inherit a single penny of mine," he growled at her.
"Keep your dirty money! I will gladly move out of here. l have felt suffocated here all my life," she spat out.
"Paula, don't do this," her brother pleaded with her but she was far too gone to listen.
"Pedro, please. Let's sit down and discuss this nicely like a family. We will find a solution to this," Sofia pleaded as she laid her hand on her husband's arm but he angrily shrugged it off.
"If you are not going to marry Rodriguez then terminate that boy's bastard. If you don't do either of these, then l want you gone by the time l return home," he gave an ultimate before storming out of the house.
"Pedro!," her mother cried as she hurried after him.
Andres shook his head at her, angry with her and then trudged up the stairs to his room. Paula spent the rest of the day, packing her things in her Louis Vuitton suitcase. A smile danced on her lips as she moved around her closet taking out hangers.
She felt free at last. She was going after the love of her life, ask for his forgiveness, confess her undying love for him then tell him about the baby they had created together.
The two of them were going to live together with their baby and Hazel happily ever after just like the fairy tales she read. But little did she know that her life was going to crumble that very same night.
In the evening when she was about to move out of the house, two policemen came to her house and informed them that her father had died in a car accident together with a woman.
According to reports, he had been driving while intoxicated. The whole mansion was depressed over his death but Paula had felt the heavy blow of the news. She blamed herself for her father's death. She had driven her father out of the house and caused him to drink and had an accident with one of his mistresses.
The guilty weighed heavily upon on her heart as she stood in the graveyard, clad in black clothes, watching her father's casket lowered in the cold pit. Even though she clashed with her father on many occasions, she still loved him a lot.
As if her misfortunes weren't enough, her father's various creditors arrived at their doorstep and seized everything they had. Pedro Solano had been involved in many shady dealings and had lost a great chunk of money.
He had took out many big loans to finance his struggling company and he had used is properties as collateral in the process. They lost every property of theirs, including their mansion, vacation houses and wine company. They moved to a middle class neighbourhood with the few savings they had left.
Her mother depressed over their lost fortune had turned to beer for comfort and her brother had begun gambling in the hopes of recovering their money but it only saved to worsen their situation. Sofia never stopped reminding her that she was the reason behind their misfortunes.
Paula tried to contact Rafael and Hazel but it was like they had vanished off the face of the earth. They were nowhere to be found. After months of searching for them, she gave up hope of ever finding them.
Little did she know that they had gone oversees to US with Hazel's new boyfriend who was once Pedro's client. Antonio Vicente had met Hazel at one of the business dinners that Sofia hosted at the mansion. He had tasted Hazel's food and fell in love with the cooker. Since then he had visited the mansion on the pretence of business calls, just to get a glimpse at the older woman.
After a lot of persuading, Hazel finally gave in to him and they started dating.
Rafael spent the following years working hard in his uncle's company, silently brewing in anger at Paula's betrayal. He vowed to himself that he was going to get rich and come back to Spain to make sure that she pays for her betrayal.
On the other side of the world, Paula was heavily pregnant , scrubbing some dirty floors at a cheap diner since Andres gambled away the little money they had left and her mother had drank away some of it.
A/N:
Finally, the flashbacks have come to an end. What do you think of their little past?