18.
LEONARDO VILLAR
I spend the morning trying to discover who photographed Manuela inside my property.
By afternoon, I have an answer.
Jonas Ribeiro, an outsourced maintenance worker, received fifty thousand reais from a company tied to Catarina. Security footage puts him near the guesthouse at the exact time I carried my daughter inside.
Marcelo wants to call the police.
Daniel recommends gathering more evidence first.
I want to find Jonas myself.
I do none of those things before calling Olívia.
“I found the photographer.”
“Who?”
“A subcontractor. Catarina paid him.”
Silence.
“Can you prove it?”
“Yes.”
“Then report him.”
“I will.”
“Why are you telling me first?”
The question surprises me.
“Because it involves you and Manuela.”
“Usually, you’d make the decision and tell me afterward.”
“I’m trying to change.”
“In a few days?”
“A beginning doesn’t stop being a beginning because it’s recent.”
Olívia says nothing.
“Where are you?”
“At the apartment.”
“Manuela?”
“Asleep.”
“Any symptoms?”
“No.”
“Can I come over?”
Her silence lasts long enough for me to expect a refusal.
“To talk about Catarina,” she says. “Not for dinner.”
“Understood.”
I arrive twenty minutes later.
Olívia opens the door in sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt. Her hair is piled on top of her head, and there is nothing between the woman standing in front of me and the memory of our mornings together.
I used to see her like this in my apartment.
Barefoot.
Sleepy.
Far too beautiful for any safe distance.
“Stop staring,” she says.
“Sorry.”
“Letting you in does not mean you get to act like—”
“I won’t.”
She steps aside.
The living room is quiet.
Bento and the new bear are on the sofa.
Drawings cover the coffee table.
One shows the plane.
Another, the hospital.
In the third, three people stand in front of a large building.
This time, my figure is closer to the others.
I don’t ask.
Olívia notices the drawing and turns it facedown.
“What did you find?”
I hand her the folder.
She reads through the bank records, security images, and preliminary report.
“Catarina paid a man to photograph a sick child.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To create pressure.”
“On you.”
“On both of us.”
“There is no us.”
“In this, there is.”
Olívia lays the papers on the table.
“What happens to the employee?”
“He’ll be fired and reported.”
“And Catarina?”
“We still don’t have direct proof she gave the order.”
“But the company is tied to her.”
“Through intermediaries.”
“So she keeps going.”
“Probably.”
“I can’t live like this.”
“You won’t.”
“How are you going to stop her?”
I have an answer.
I spent hours with lawyers discussing it.
Marriage is the fastest way.
It is also the cruelest thing I could suggest to the woman I destroyed at an altar.
“I’m moving administration of the trust to an independent institution.”
“Will that solve it?”
“It could reduce Catarina’s influence.”
“Could?”
“She’ll challenge it.”
“And Manuela’s surgery is in two weeks.”
“Yes.”
“You have another option.”
It isn’t a question.
Olívia has never been na?ve.
“I do.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not putting you in an impossible position.”
“I’m already in an impossible position.”
“Marriage or a registered domestic partnership,” I say. “The family trust provision stops applying if the parents form a legal family unit before recognition.”
She becomes completely still.
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long would the marriage have to last?”
“The will doesn’t set a minimum. But an immediate dissolution could be challenged as fraudulent.”
“Six months?”
“Possibly.”
“A year?”
“Safer.”
Olívia walks to the window.
“You’re suggesting I marry you for a year.”
“No.”
“You just explained how it would work.”
“I explained the alternative. I didn’t ask you to accept it.”
“Why not?”
The question hits harder than it should.
“Because you hate me.”
“That never stopped the men in your family from arranging marriages.”
“I’m not my grandfather.”
“You still haven’t answered.”
I move closer, but keep space between us.
“Because the last time you wore a dress and walked toward me, I destroyed you. I will not ask you to do it again over shares.”
Something shifts in her face.
“It would be civil.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“To protect Manuela, it does.”
“I’ll find another way.”
“How long will that take?”
“I don’t know.”
“Catarina walked into my clinic today.”
“She won’t again.”
“How can you promise that?”
“I’ll seek a restraining order.”
“That doesn’t stop phone calls. Leaks. Hired people.”
“No.”
“So marriage would solve it?”
“The trust problem. It won’t change who Catarina is.”
“But it would remove her main incentive.”
“Yes.”
Olívia rubs a hand over her face.
“What would the terms be?”
My body goes rigid.
“We are not negotiating.”
“You negotiate everything.”
“This is different.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re talking about marrying me.”
“Not for real.”
It shouldn’t hurt.
It does.
“Right.”
“It would be contractual. Separate residences. No marital obligations. Manuela stays with me.”
“Obviously.”
“You get gradual parenting time.”
“I get that whether we marry or not.”
“I’m stating the terms.”
“And I’m saying I will not purchase access to my daughter with a marriage contract.”
“It isn’t a purchase. You’re already her father.”
“Then why include parenting time?”
She turns toward me.
“Because I need to know you won’t use the marriage to demand more than I’m ready to give.”
“I won’t.”
“In writing.”
“Olívia.”
“You want to protect her?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop behaving as though accepting my distrust is a greater humiliation than what you did to create it.”
I take the blow.
“All right.”
She returns to the table and pulls out a blank sheet of paper.
“One year.”
“Six months may be enough.”
“You said a year is safer.”
“I don’t want to trap you for a year.”
“You won’t. It’ll be a contract.”
“And when it ends?”
“Divorce.”
The word has weight.
It is absurd to feel loss over something that doesn’t even exist yet.
“And during the marriage?”
“Separate homes.”
“The press won’t believe it.”
“I don’t care about the press.”
“Catarina could use that to argue we aren’t a legitimate family unit.”
“Then we appear together when necessary.”
“With Manuela?”
“Only when it doesn’t expose her.”
“Events?”
“No.”
“Family gatherings?”
“No.”
“Hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Can I see her in Santa Serena?”
“We’ll arrange it.”
“Can I take her alone?”
“Not immediately.”
“Later?”
“If she is comfortable and the psychologist agrees.”
“All right.”
Olívia starts writing.
Her hand trembles.
“You do not have to decide today.”
“I do. Catarina isn’t waiting.”
“The surgery—”
“That is exactly why. I cannot spend the next two weeks afraid someone will try to have me declared unfit, interfere with medical decisions, or build a financial war around Manuela.”
“No one will interfere with her treatment.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I guarantee it.”
She raises her eyes.
“Your guarantees still don’t mean enough.”
The sentence is calm.
I cannot argue with it.
“Daniel can draft the contract.”
“My lawyer will review it.”
“Who?”
“I haven’t hired one yet.”
“I can recommend—”
Olívia only looks at me.
“Right. You’ll choose.”
“There will be no confidentiality clause covering what happened five years ago.”
“I wasn’t going to include one.”
“No restriction on my speaking about the Villar family either.”
“Fine.”
“You will publicly acknowledge that the accusations against me were false.”
“I’ll do that regardless of the marriage.”
“And you’ll transfer the Recome?o building into an independent foundation.”
“You rent the building?”
“The owner received a purchase offer three months ago. If it sells, we could lose the lease when it comes up for renewal.”
“I’ll buy it.”
“Not in my name.”
“In the foundation’s name.”
“Run by a local board.”
“Fine.”
“You will not use the clinic for publicity.”
“Fine.”
“Manuela’s treatment will never depend on the marriage.”
“It never would.”
“I want it in writing.”
“It will be.”
“And you’ll go to therapy.”
That takes me a moment.
“What?”
“Therapy.”
“That is not a contractual clause.”
“It can be.”
“I don’t need—”
Olívia lifts one eyebrow.
I count.
One.
Two.
Three.
“How often?”
She looks genuinely surprised.
“Once a week.”
“For a year?”
“For the duration of the marriage.”
“You too.”
“I already meet with Manuela’s psychologist when necessary.”
“That isn’t individual therapy.”
“I’m not the one who destroys people when I feel betrayed.”
“No. You only use every painful truth you know as a weapon when you’re scared.”
Silence.
Too far.
“You’re right,” I say before she can respond. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
She keeps looking at me.
“I’ll go to therapy,” she says. “Not because you demand it. Because I’ll probably need it to survive this.”
“Then we both will.”
She writes it down.
“No sex.”
My body reacts before my brain does.
Olívia sees it.
Color rises along her throat.
“That shouldn’t even need to be said.”
“It doesn’t.”
“You’re looking—”
“I’m remembering.”
“Don’t.”
“I don’t control thoughts.”
“Control your actions.”
“I always did.”
The sentence brings back memories that do not belong in this room.
Nights when my control only disappeared after the door closed.
Hands.
Mouths.
Promises.
The way Olívia looks away tells me she remembers too.
“Separate bedrooms whenever we have to appear in the same residence.”
“Fine.”
“You do not enter mine without permission.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“And you do not touch me in public to convince anyone.”
“If we need to look married—”
“Hand-holding. Nothing else.”
“Fine.”
She puts the pen down.
“Looks like we have a deal.”
“We don’t.”
“What’s missing?”
“You saying you’re sure.”
A bitter laugh escapes her.
“I haven’t been sure of anything since you walked into my clinic.”
“Then don’t sign.”
“Is there another way to protect Manuela immediately?”
“Not one this fast.”
“Then I’ll sign.”
“Olívia…”
“It’s a contract, Leonardo.”
A contract.
The word should make everything simple.
I understand contracts.
They define obligations.
Risks.
Exit clauses.
They should not make me feel as though I’m being offered a second chance I don’t deserve, even if it is false.
“When?”
“Before the legal recognition.”
“We can have it ready the day after tomorrow.”
“That fast?”
“I can slow it down.”
She looks toward the hallway.
Manuela starts coughing in the bedroom.
Olívia is on her feet immediately.
I’m left alone with the sheet containing the terms of our marriage.
One year.
No intimacy.
No trust.
No promises.
Exactly the kind of union my grandfather would consider appropriate for preserving assets.
Exactly the opposite of the marriage I should have given Olívia five years ago.
Manuela appears in the hallway holding her mother’s hand.
“Are you staying for dinner?”
Olívia closes her eyes.
“He came to talk, sweetheart.”
“But he talked already.”
“I did,” I say.
“So he can eat.”
I look at Olívia.
“Dinner only,” she allows.
Manuela smiles.
“I can show you my drawing.”
“I’d like that.”
She runs to the table and flips over the page Olívia hid earlier.
The three of us.
This time, there is no space between the figures.
At the top, in crooked letters, she wrote one word.
FAMILHY
“It’s wrong,” Manuela says. “There’s an H that doesn’t belong.”
“We can fix it,” I offer.
She covers the drawing with both hands.
“No. It was the first one.”
Olívia and I look at each other.
Neither of us corrects it.
Maybe families are built that way too.
With visible mistakes.
And someone deciding the first attempt is still worth keeping.