Chapter 22
DECIDE WITH YOUR HEART
VICTORIA
The sun filters through the blinds and casts golden streaks across the soft sheets covering the bed.
I’ve been standing in front of the mirror for several minutes, and the reflection of my tired eyes stares back at me.
In it, instead of a woman excited and happy about her current life, I see a person trying to keep her composure in the midst of chaos.
What Jorge told me during breakfast has been echoing in my mind ever since.
“Elena is in love with you”—a phrase that is both simple and powerful—has unleashed a storm of emotions that threatens to drag me down a path that, at this moment, I don’t even know where it might end.
My hands won’t stop trembling slightly as I hold the eyeliner and try to draw a line on my eyelids.
And it’s all her fault. I haven’t stopped wondering how it’s possible that after all this time—after what I did to her, after how we got divorced—she still feels something so strong for me.
During this time, Carolina hasn’t mentioned a word to me, and after the argument I had with Joana, I’m a mess.
First, because I don’t know if my relationship with her is okay, and second, because my feelings for my ex-wife are gnawing at me inside.
When I think of her, a flood of memories and feelings is unleashed—ones I thought were buried under layers and layers of work.
But now that I’m here, back in the place where it all began and where anything seems possible, my heart beats strongly, warning me that it doesn’t matter what I do or think because it knows exactly what I want.
The mascara glides smoothly over my lashes as I try to answer every single question swirling in my head.
The blue dress I’ve chosen hangs on the hanger, and I gaze at it through the mirror as if it were the key to unraveling the mystery that’s consuming me from within.
I can’t stop wondering what I should do: follow my heart or listen to my reason?
I get up from the vanity with the certainty that I won’t find my answers in the folds of the fabric.
I take a deep breath, finish getting ready, and leave the bedroom, heading to the Gardenias restaurant.
Carolina told me that Elena had organized a lovely evening, and I’m already curious to see if everyone will be there or if I’ll be the first to arrive.
I know we’ll have dinner together, that we’ll go out partying afterward, and that we’ll have one of those great nights we used to have.
It’s been ages since I’ve gone out to drink, dance, and have fun, so I’m looking forward to it just as much as I am to reconnecting with the woman who once stole my reason.
The murmur of voices and laughter coming from the restaurant makes me freeze and stand alone for a moment.
I take a deep breath and try to calm my heartbeat, and once I release the tension in my nerves, I step into the light and look around, searching for a familiar face that might give me some sign of which way to go.
Instead, all I find are smiles and conversations that don’t interest me—at least until a pair of gray eyes meet mine and a spark of complicity shines in them.
Something insignificant, yet it manages to ignite a fire that burns within me when I discover in Elena’s smile the answers to all my questions.
A smile that charts a path that, right now, leads me in the direction I want to go… “Those peach-colored lips.”