The mistress arrived at the house to cause a scene with the wife, but what the wife did next left the mistress in shock…

Doña Rosa let out a snort.

—Now what? Now that you’re homeless?

Javier lowered his head. For the first time, his eyes filled with tears.

—I was wrong… I was terribly wrong.

Mariana’s mother stared at him.

—Making a mistake is forgetting your keys. It’s not putting your wife at risk. What you did has a name. And you’ll pay for it.

Javier wanted to approach the door again, but his brother stood in his way.

—You’re not coming in today.

That night, Javier slept in a cheap hotel. Not out of humility. Because he had nowhere else to go .

Meanwhile, Mariana, from her bed, with swollen feet and a tired heart, signed the first papers that attorney Salgado sent her by message: protection measures, a complaint for threats, and a formal request to separate assets while the process was being defined.

It wasn’t revenge.

It was security .

Two days later, Valeria reappeared… but not at the house.

She appeared on Javier’s phone, crying, shouting, demanding:

—Look what he did to me! He humiliated me! You have to defend me!

Javier listened. And, for the first time, he saw her for what she really was: not a “passion”, not an escape… but a problem he himself had created.

« Valeria, » he said, in a firm voice. « It’s over. »

There was silence from the other side.

-That?

« That’s it. Don’t you ever come near my house again. Don’t you ever speak about my wife again. If you threaten her again, I’ll report you myself. »

Valeria burst into hysterical laughter.

—But you told me you didn’t care about her! That you were only there for the baby!

Javier closed his eyes. And guilt pierced him like a knife.

« I was a coward, » he admitted. « And you… you mean nothing to me. It’s over. »

He hung up.

And he stared at the hotel wall, feeling that silence was finally the right outcome.

That same afternoon, Javier asked to see Mariana.

Not only.

With Mariana’s mother, brother, and Ms. Salgado present.

Javier entered the room slowly, without raising his voice, without getting any closer than necessary. Mariana was sitting with a cushion behind her back, her hand on her stomach, her gaze calm.

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