17.
OLíVIA SAMPAIO
The photograph appears at seven in the morning.
It doesn’t show Manuela’s face.
It shows Leonardo carrying her, asleep, from the car to the guesthouse.
I’m walking beside him.
The caption is enough.
LEONARDO VILLAR SPOTTED WITH FORMER FIANCéE AND CHILD AT FAMILY ESTATE FIVE YEARS AFTER ALTAR SCANDAL
My phone won’t stop ringing.
Camila.
Clara.
Patients.
Unknown numbers.
There are four messages from Manuela’s school and six from journalists.
I sit on the edge of the bed and read the comments beneath the post.
Some people remember the cheating accusations.
Others do the math.
The child is five?
Could she be his daughter?
Or his dead brother’s?
That last one turns my stomach.
I make it to the bathroom just in time to throw up.
“Olívia?”
My mother knocks.
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
I wash my face.
“They posted a picture.”
She takes my phone.
“Bastards.”
“You can’t see Manuela’s face.”
“Yet.”
I leave the bathroom.
My daughter is asleep in the next room, completely unaware that while she rested, hundreds of strangers began debating who her father might be.
“We need to get her out of here before she wakes up.”
“Where?”
“Santa Serena.”
“The photographers will be waiting.”
“Then the apartment.”
“You trust that nobody knows about it?”
“No.”
“Do you trust Leonardo?”
There is no simple answer to that.
“I trust that he doesn’t want Manuela exposed.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“It’s the most I can give you.”
Three firm knocks sound at the door.
My mother immediately steps between me and the entrance.
“It’s me,” Leonardo calls from outside.
I open it.
He isn’t wearing a jacket. His shirt sleeves are rolled to his forearms, his phone is in one hand, and he looks as though he hasn’t slept.
“You saw it?”
“Yes.”
“You said no one could get onto this property.”
“The photograph was taken from inside.”
Fear rises another notch.
“An employee?”
“Or someone on security.”
“People chosen by you.”
He takes the hit without arguing.
“The entire team is being investigated.”
“While that happens, strangers online are calling my daughter the dead brother’s child.”
His jaw tightens.
“The original post is coming down.”
“Others already copied it.”
“Then we respond.”
“Not without me.”
“I said I wouldn’t.”
The firmness in his voice stops me.
“I prepared three possible responses,” he continues. “Deny any connection. Confirm only that you were at the Institute as the guardian of a patient. Or say we’re dealing with a private family matter.”
“Which one do you recommend?”
“None of them.”
“Leonardo.”
“I want to take responsibility for everything. But you asked for time.”
My mother studies him.
“At least you learned how to listen to something.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’ve tried more in the last week than you did in two years with her.”
“Mom.”
“What? It’s true.”
Leonardo doesn’t argue.
“The car is ready,” he says. “The apartment was checked overnight. No one knows you’ll be there.”
“What about the press?”
“We’ll create a decoy exit through the main garage. You’ll leave through another gate.”
“Like criminals.”
“Like people protecting a child.”
I don’t like it.
I also don’t have a better option.
“I’ll wake Manuela.”
“I need to tell you something first.”
“You can say it in front of my mother.”
He looks at Marta.
“Catarina called.”
Every muscle in my body tightens.
“She knows about Manuela?”
“She knows Manuela is my daughter.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“What does she want?”
“Access to the shares allocated to Manuela.”
“I don’t care about the shares.”
“She does.”
“Then let her have them.”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
“Make it work.”
“I’m trying.”
“No. You’re trying to keep control of the company and protect your daughter at the same time.”
The words are out before I think them through.
Leonardo goes still.
“You’re right.”
I was expecting a defense.
“And if you have to choose?”
“I choose Manuela.”
“That’s easy to say.”
“Then wait for me to prove it.”
My mother looks between us.
“Is there a way to keep this woman away from the money?”
“Yes.”
Leonardo doesn’t continue.
“What way?” I ask.
“A legal challenge.”
“Slow?”
“Yes.”
“Another one.”
He looks away.
“It doesn’t matter right now.”
“When you say that, it always matters.”
“Olívia…”
“What’s the other option?”
His silence answers before he does.
I remember the language he used at the hospital.
Formal family structure.
Parents legally united.
“Marriage,” I say.
Leonardo’s entire body stiffens.
My mother says a word I will pretend I have never heard before.
“Your grandfather put marriage into his will?”
“Marriage or a registered domestic partnership between the parents.”
A disbelieving laugh escapes me.
“Of course he did. Even dead, a Villar still has to dictate how the women in the family live.”
“I’m not proposing anything.”
“You thought about it.”
“My lawyers mentioned it.”
“And you?”
“I rejected it.”
I don’t know why the answer bothers me.
Maybe because some irrational part of me expected him to consider any sacrifice.
Even one I would never accept.
“So what is the plan?”
“Recognize Manuela, create an independent trust, and petition the court to remove Catarina from any influence because of the conflict of interest.”
“And until a judge decides?”
“The shares remain in the family trust.”
“Under her influence.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
The answer comes before I can examine it.
“Olívia,” my mother says.
“I will not allow a woman who may have helped engineer the fraud to have any power connected to my daughter.”
“Neither will I,” Leonardo says.
“Then find another solution.”
Our eyes meet.
Marriage remains between us even though neither of us says the word again.
Manuela appears in the hallway hugging both stuffed animals.
“Why are you talking loud?”
“We’re not,” I say.
“You have yelling voices.”
“Count to ten,” my mother suggests.
“It doesn’t work if both people don’t count.”
Leonardo takes a breath.
“One.”
“Two,” I continue.
Manuela enters the room.
“Three.”
My mother shakes her head.
“This family is going to kill me.”
The word family silences the room.
Manuela doesn’t seem to notice.
“Are we going home?”
I kneel in front of her.
“We’re going to stay somewhere else for a few days.”
“Because of my heart?”
“That too.”
“And because of the photographers,” Leonardo adds.
I shoot him a look.
“What’s a photographer?” Manuela asks.
“People who take pictures for magazines and websites.”
“Of me?”
“They don’t know who you are,” I explain. “And we want to keep it that way.”
“Why?”
“Because you have the right to choose when you want your picture taken.”
She thinks about it.
“I’m in pictures from the clinic.”
“Because I give permission, and so do you.”
“They didn’t ask?”
“No.”
“Then they did it wrong.”
“They did.”
Manuela hugs the new bear.
“Can he come?”
I look at the toy.
“Yes.”
“And Leonardo?”
The question catches me off guard.
“He lives here.”
“But is he coming to the apartment?”
“I can visit if your mother says it’s okay,” Leonardo answers.
She looks at me.
“Can he have dinner?”
“We’ll see.”
“Is that no?”
“It means we’ll see.”
“Adults make everything complicated.”
My mother laughs.
We leave less than an hour later.
The apartment is on the eighteenth floor of a discreet building ten minutes from the Institute. There are no photographs, personal objects, or any indication that Leonardo has ever lived here.
Three bedrooms.
A large living room.
A stocked kitchen.
“You never stay here?” I ask.
“It was used for visiting physicians and foreign executives.”
“So it isn’t your home.”
“Technically, it belongs to one of the companies.”
“Better.”
Manuela chooses the room with the blue wall.
Marta decides to return to Santa Serena that afternoon to organize things at the clinic and bring us clothes.
“You don’t have to go.”
“Someone needs to be there.”
“Camila can handle it.”
“Camila doesn’t handle journalists the way I do.”
I can’t argue with that.
“I’ll be back before the surgery,” she promises.
I hug my mother.
When she leaves, the isolation grows.
I’m in S?o Paulo.
The city where I was humiliated.
Inside one of Leonardo’s apartments.
With our daughter waiting for heart surgery.
And no idea which part of my life is going to collapse first.
My phone rings.
Camila.
“There are two reporters outside the clinic,” she says. “And someone called asking whether we have records for patients named Manuela.”
“Give them nothing.”
“Obviously. The school asked for guidance too.”
“Tell them she’ll be out for medical reasons. Nothing else.”
“Olívia, there’s a woman here.”
My body goes cold.
“Who?”
“Catarina Villar.”
The name cuts through the room.
Leonardo, who is speaking on his phone near the window, looks at me immediately.
“Do not speak to her,” I say. “Lock the office door and call the police if she tries to enter any restricted area.”
“She’s in reception. She says she wants to schedule an evaluation for a child from the foundation.”
“She’s lying.”
“I know.”
“Put it on speaker,” Leonardo says.
I signal for him to wait.
“Camila, give her the phone.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
I hear movement.
Footsteps.
Then a voice I haven’t heard in five years.
“Olívia.”
Catarina sounds as though we’ve met for a family lunch.
“Get out of my clinic.”
“I came to talk.”
“We have nothing to say to each other.”
“We have a child in common.”
My blood boils.
“You have nothing in common with my daughter.”
Leonardo comes closer.
“Stay away from her,” he says loudly enough for Catarina to hear.
She laughs.
“So you’re together.”
“Get out of the clinic,” he repeats.
“You need to come back to S?o Paulo, Leonardo. The board—”
“I am in S?o Paulo.”
Silence.
“Where?”
“None of your business.”
“Is the girl at the Institute?”
“Do not ask another question about her.”
“I’m your aunt.”
“Not to Manuela.”
“Ant?nio’s shares—”
“If you approach the clinic, the school, the staff, or anyone connected to Olívia again, it will be treated as harassment. My lawyers will serve you notice within minutes.”
“You’re threatening your own family over that woman?”
I look at Leonardo.
Five years ago, he condemned me because he chose his family.
This time, his expression doesn’t change.
“Olívia and Manuela are my family.”
The air leaves my lungs.
Catarina goes quiet.
“You’ll regret this,” she says at last.
“I’ve already regretted the only mistake that mattered.”
He ends the call.
I keep staring at him.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
“You’re crying.”
I touch my face.
There is a tear there.
I wipe it away immediately.
“Stress.”
“Olívia…”
“Don’t make it into something.”
“I won’t.”
He steps away.
For the first time, Leonardo does exactly what I ask when everything in his expression says he wants to do the opposite.