Episode 5

...Chapter 5...

Valentina frowned.

"What do you mean by 'have fun'?"

"Who gave you permission to dress like that?" Mateo growled through his teeth.

"What?"

"Mateo, explain yourself!"

He lowered his gaze to her miniskirt.

"Almost your whole thigh is showing. Do you want others to look at your legs that badly?"

The dress was short, yes, Camila had chosen it for her.

"Valentina never shows off her legs," Camila had said. "Luciana struts around too much. Tonight everyone will see who has the best legs in Nueva Celestia."

Valentina raised an eyebrow elegantly.

"I see that Mr. Figueroa has noticed my legs."

Mateo was taken aback.

Leaning against the wall with an indolent air, Valentina raised her right leg, brushing his ankle with her glass shoe.

He was wearing black trousers that enveloped his long, muscular legs, exuding an air of elegance and restraint.

Valentina's snow-white toes rose from her ankle, suggestively caressing his calf.

It was a provocation.

And a challenge.

"What are you doing?" he asked coldly.

Valentina curved her red lips.

"Mr. Figueroa, between my legs and Luciana's, which do you prefer?"

Mateo watched her. The small mole on her forehead added an ethereal touch to her doll-like face. She seemed like a goddess, but she provoked him with audacity, a mixture of purity and sensuality.

Last night he had glimpsed her beauty hidden behind the glasses, but he had no idea she was so beautiful.

Her face... was familiar to him.

Valentina's beautiful eyes shone with amusement.

"Mr. Figueroa, have Luciana's legs ever wrapped around your waist?"

Mateo held his breath and moved his face closer to hers.

"Valentina, are you that desperate? Always thinking about men, you even hire eight gigolos to satisfy you!"

He didn't respond about Luciana, perhaps the best protection a man can offer a woman.

His romance with Luciana had been passionate, in the prime of his youth. Surely her porcelain legs had wrapped around his waist many times. Why else would he remember her so longingly?

Luciana was fortunate; she had managed to get such a cold man to love her so consistently.

Surely he had never called her "desperate."

Although Valentina smiled, her shining eyes remained cold.

"Of course. Since Mr. Figueroa doesn't work and can't satisfy me, I have to look for men. Let's get divorced quickly, if one man is no good, the next will be better!"

Again, implying that he didn't work!

And that the next would be better?

This woman needed a lesson!

Mateo grabbed her delicate chin.

"Are you provoking me? Are you so eager to check whether I work or not?"

What?

Valentina was stunned.

Mateo moved closer to her red lips, teasingly brushing them, but his words were icy:

"Don't dream. I'll never touch you. I love Luciana."

"I love Luciana."

He didn't need to say it; she already knew. Valentina felt as if a bee had stung her heart. The pain was not sharp, but it throbbed insistently.

At that moment, a melodious voice interrupted:

"Mateo."

Valentina looked up. Luciana had arrived.

Luciana, the goddess of Nueva Celestia, with her graceful ballerina's body.

Mateo released her immediately and approached Luciana. He looked at her with a tenderness that Valentina had never seen in his eyes.

"You've come?"

Luciana nodded and looked at Valentina.

"And she is...?"

She hadn't recognized her.

But Valentina would never forget Luciana.

They were sisters, but only on their mother's side.

Angel was not Valentina's biological father, but her stepfather.

Years ago, Valentina had a happy family. Her father, Alejandro Mendez, and her mother, Catalina, lived in harmony.

Her father adored her, lifting her in his arms every day, saying:

"My Valentina will be very happy."

One day, her father passed away suddenly. Her father's brother, Angel, moved into their house with his daughter Luciana, and her mother became Luciana's mother.

Her mother married her uncle.

And began to love Luciana, forgetting about her.

When Valentina got an A+ on exams and Luciana got an A, her mother would hit her hands with a ruler:

"Can't you let your sister win? Why do you have to get better grades?"

When Luciana lost her hair due to chemotherapy and cried, saying she had become ugly, her mother immediately shaved Valentina's hair:

"You'll be ugly with your sister too, so she won't cry."

Every night, her mother, Luciana, and Angel slept together, laughing and playing, while she stayed outside hugging the doll her father gave her, crying alone:

"Mom, I'm scared."

When Luciana finally started calling her mother "Mom," she was overjoyed, but Luciana declared:

"Mom can only have one daughter."

One rainy day, her mother took her to the countryside and abandoned her there.

Little Valentina ran after the car, crying inconsolably:

"Mom, don't abandon me... I'll be good, I'll let Luciana win... Mom, hug me, I'm scared..."

Little Valentina fell into a muddy puddle with her doll, watching her mother's car disappear into the distance.

Valentina would never forget all this.

Joaquin ran over:

"Luciana, she is... your sister Valentina!"

"You're Valentina?" Luciana asked, surprised.

Valentina knew that Luciana had always looked down on her.

As a child, she always lost to her, while Luciana grew up successful, later dating the Figueroa heir. Raised among flowers and pampering, she was haughty and arrogant.

"I never imagined Valentina was so beautiful," Joaquin murmured, again impressed by her ethereal beauty.

Childhood memories were blurry for Luciana, as she had never deigned to look at this unloved sister. Wasn't she the ugly duckling who returned from the countryside?

Luciana approached Valentina and examined her disdainfully:

"Valentina, I didn't expect you to try to copy my style."

Valentina didn't bother to respond, nor did she consider it worthy of reply.

She stood up elegantly and smiled silently. The light from the hallway bathed her ethereal face, making her shine like a pearl.

She was no longer the little Valentina of before.

"Valentina," Luciana said, "I heard you're getting divorced from Mateo. Can't you live without a man? Coming to the bar to hire gigolos, how decadent. If I were you, I'd look for a job."

Looking at Mateo, she added condescendingly:

"Mateo, even though Valentina took care of you for so long, even like a nanny, you should find her a job."

Mateo fixed his gaze on Valentina's face.

"Luciana," Joaquin interjected, "now you need degrees to work. What degrees does Valentina have?"

Luciana raised her chin and smiled with an air of superiority:

"Valentina dropped out of school at 16."

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