Episode 1

For an instant, I thought I saw a crack in his armor of pride. His eyes, which normally radiated authority and calculated coldness, now seemed to reflect a deep confusion, an internal struggle between duty and an affection that he himself seemed to have buried. The mention of the surrogate mother, of my own "curse" of origin, had struck a sensitive nerve, a reminder of the hypocrisy that he himself perpetuated.

Finally, he broke the silence, but his voice was no longer the thunder of before, but a rough murmur, laden with resignation.

"She... does not represent our bloodline. She doesn't have the lineage that our family needs to recover the strength we lost."

His words, though attempting to justify his contempt, only confirmed my suspicions.

It wasn't about the curse itself, but about the image, about the purity of blood that he valued so much, about political convenience. Marcela was an obstacle to his vision of a restored kingdom, a symbol of my own "imperfection" that he could not tolerate.

"Strength does not reside in blood, but in the heart. Marcela gives me the strength you never gave me. She gives me a purpose beyond a crown that you yourself snatched from me. She is my wife, and I will not renounce her for a crown that I never wanted in the first place."

I turned around, feeling the need to leave that room, that atmosphere charged with reproaches.

As I crossed the threshold, I heard his voice once more, this time with a tone that, although still harsh, contained a note of something akin to despair.

"Leandro, you are making a mistake that you will not be able to undo."

I left his study, leaving behind the echo of his words. The injustice still burned me, but now, alongside the rage, there was a new resolution.

My father could have the crown, he could have the title, but I had something much more valuable: Marcela's love and the conviction that my own path, although different from the one he had planned, was the right one for me.

The battle for the crown was over for me; the battle for my own happiness, that one, had just begun.

I left my father's office with my heart beating strongly, the bitterness and rage still fluttering inside me.

The echo of his words about the "bloodline" and the "lost strength" resonated in my ears, but the image of Marcela, her gaze full of unconditional love, was the beacon that guided me.

I walked through the familiar hallways, now strange and cold, until I reached the door of my old room.

I stopped.

I didn't feel the urge to enter, to relive the ghosts that inhabited those walls.

I just stood there, standing, with the weight of the past oppressing me.

It was then that I saw her: our nanny's granddaughter, a young woman with a kind face and curious eyes, who was coming out of a nearby room.

"Excuse me." She turned, surprised by my presence. "I need a favor. Could you go into my old room and collect all the photographs and letters where I am with Ana? All of them. And burn them. I don't want to see any of that."

The young woman nodded without hesitation. "Of course, Prince Leandro," she replied with a discreet bow, and headed towards the door of my old bedroom.

As I watched her disappear behind the door, I felt a pang of relief, as if I were getting rid of an unbearable weight. I took a couple more steps, trying to get away from that place, from that time. But destiny, or perhaps the cruel irony of life, had other plans.

"Leandro," a kind and familiar voice broke the silence. I turned to find Camilo, leaning with a natural calm against the doorframe of his room.

"I see you're putting your memories in order. It's a good decision. There's no point in continuing to carry all that. Especially now that you are building a new path." He made a subtle gesture towards the general direction where he knew Marcela's room was. "Keeping all that in sight, so close to your new life... would be a mistake. It's better to leave the past where it belongs."

His words are spoken with a sincerity that pleasantly surprised me, they were an unexpected balm. Camilo, with his usual respect, not only validated my action, but reinforced it. He understood the complexity of the situation, the delicacy of having Ana, now his wife, so close to my new life with Marcela. His comment, far from being an attack, was a tacit recognition of the difficult transition we were all experiencing, and a way of showing me that, despite the circumstances, he understood the need to close chapters.

For an instant, I felt that I was not completely alone in this tangle of loyalties and intertwined pasts.

I nodded, trying to pass by, but he spoke again. "How did your wife wake up?"

I turned to look at him more closely, with a pang of annoyance running through me. The way Camilo referred to Marcela, that attention that I felt she received from him, I didn't like it at all.

I wanted him to stay out of it, to take care of his own wife.

"My wife," I replied, my voice acquiring a firm and possessive tone, "is perfectly fine by my side. And I suggest that you focus on yours as well. Marcela is mine, and I don't appreciate you taking so much interest in her personal life." The tension became palpable in the air. Camilo's gaze changed subtly, a spark of defiance peeking out in his eyes, but before he could respond, the nanny's granddaughter came out of my old room, and the last thing I wanted was for her to hear us arguing.

We had to keep a low profile, and despite the fact that the last thing I wanted was to confront my brother, I had to do it, I didn't like seeing him getting close to my wife, and all this is confirming to me the need to get away from that place and that conversation...

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