CHAPTER 06

"Well, I think the progress we have made is excellent, thank you all very much for this," Alexander said, closing the computer that had allowed him to make the presentation.

All the men who had been gathered that morning could not have been more satisfied with all the progress the company had made. The fashion magazine, the new designs couldn't be better, he himself felt ashamed just thinking that he could have needed Paula to carry out those businesses.

Then the men began to leave the meeting room. They couldn't believe that a man who loved his wife so much was recovered in such a short time.

And among all the people celebrating there, among them you could find the cold gaze of Romina, the same woman of no more than forty-five years who had seen how Paula's husband, her stepsister and of course, the stepmother had treated her in all that time.

There was nothing she could do, except regret that Paula, being so young, had ended her life for the sole reason of having married a man as hypocritical as the one who was smiling in front of her. She just hoped that their lives would not pass away without them paying for everything they did to her because somehow, something told her that they had had something to do with Paula's death.

After a meeting where the investors only knew how to applaud the success of that man who was surely still roasting for a painful moment, Alexander entered his office. Everything had turned out as he expected.

"Finally you arrive!" Said a woman sitting in her place with a bright red-painted smile.

Alexander's smile left his face. "I don't have time for this, Emma. Go before they start thinking strange things, I don't want them to see me as the bad guy in the story. Paula has just died and the least I can show is how much her death hurts me.”

Emma stood up from the spot and walked over to where he was. "As if you really cared. How much longer until we can tell the world how much we love each other?”

Alexander started laughing. “Are you serious? Is that what you expect from me, Emma? At least the ugly duckling had elegance and was a one-man woman, the truth is that I don't know what awaits me with you.”

Those words made Emma furious. "Hey, why are you talking to me like that?!”

"That's the truth and if you don't like hearing it, you can leave now.”

Emma only knew how to stay there, watching as he took his position in front of the desk without caring about the person who was there. Then her mother's words came to Emma's mind.

“If you really want Alexander to take you seriously now that stupid Paula is dead, you have to be patient, sneak into his eyes until he is your husband. You have to go slowly, Emma, ​​you have to be someone in life.”

Emma's smile returned as she knew what she had to do. And like the easy woman she was, she began to unbutton her dress.

"Do you really want me to leave?”she asked with a sensual voice.

Alexander turned to look at her. After all, he couldn't expect anything less.

"Now that I think about it, I think you can wait a little longer here in my office.”

Emma smiled approaching him now without the dress. That was the life of traitors. This was how traitors handled themselves.

******   

Sitting in the living room, with his head between his knees, unable to stop thinking about everything Paula had told him in so few words, Maximilian didn't seem to know what to do. In front of him was his best friend. Manuel.

"I just told you, Max, I told you that it wasn't good to have that woman here. You don't even know who she is. It's been a month, a month! And no one has claimed her.”

"You know that we are very far from where the accident happened, and if they claimed her, the truth is that I don't know, but I couldn't hand her over against her will.”

"And what are you going to do now that she's seen her face, are you going to marry her and have many children? Please, Max, we have to be moving because the police can't know that you do this type of surgery.”

"I don't know, I don't know what I'm going to do!" Maximilian stood up from where he was sitting.

"Where is she?”

"I injected her with a painkiller. She's going to be fine, it's just that the shock hit so hard.”

"How not? I can't imagine her face.”

"Enough, Manuel.”

“It's the truth. But anyway, I'm not going to get involved in your problems anymore, just that if you want to marry her, don't count on me for anything and when I say nothing, it means nothing.” Manuel left.

Only Maximilian remained. He was going through the trouble of his life, he didn't know who she was, he only knew her name and that some people had hurt her to the point of making him think that they caused her accident. If he returned her to her world it would be like putting her on a silver tray so they could do whatever they wanted with her.

Max sighed. There would be time to think about all that.

*******

In the loneliness of that night, in the same darkness that enveloped everything, Paula's eyes were opened by an impulse that forced her to return to life every time she wanted to die. Her heart had already been contaminated by the most terrible of feelings, now she only lived for hatred and the thirst for revenge.

Carefully, Paula leaned against the head of the bed until she was sitting up. She still had a request to make. And it was something she had not stopped thinking about since the moment she felt sleep take over her.

She had heard what Maximilian could do. Her face was disfigured, she was no longer Paula. Wasn't that a second chance at life?  

“Three clients come today, one of them so you can remove the change bandage on her face and the other two just so you can take off a few extra years.”

She didn't know who that man was who had saved her, she didn't know why he did what he did hidden from the law, she only knew that if he had saved her life when it was almost impossible to do so it was for a reason. He must be her miracle.

"Salomé Sorní," she pronounced without haste. "Salomé Sorní.”

It was all she had on my mind.  

And with that thought, knowing that that was what she wanted most, she got out of her bed.

An office that had seen the faces of so many women, the changes that had been made to them for one reason or another but always having the intention of making fun of the law and all those who could harm us in one life, Maximilian looked with attention to the photos he had taken of his next clients to start working on their faces, without stopping thinking about Paula. He didn't know what he was going to do with her.

Suddenly, in front of the entrance door of that office, the living image of the same woman from whom she had removed the bandages herself.

"Paula," Max said, getting up from his place and going to her.

When he grabbed her arm, all she could do was step aside.

"Paula, you have to rest, you can't be here.”

Everything was silent. Maximilian did not want to bother her nor did she know how to start talking. But if he didn't give her wings, was she really willing to wait?

"Paula, please, let's go to bed," Maximilian tried to take her arm the moment she pulled away.

"Operate on me," Paula said without further ado.

Max's eyes widened in surprise. What was she asking him for?

“What?”

Finally Paula looked up. All Maximilian could see was a pair of eyes that glowed in the darkness and a face that was covered by white bandages. "Change my face, change my face, I swear I will pay you whatever I have to pay but please, make me another person like you have done with so many.”

That was the end of Maximilian. A woman in front of him, that he had saved, that he knew nothing about, that woman was tearfully asking him to make her someone else so that she could live a different life, and then what?

"They have to pay for this pain, you have to help me.”

Once again those words that were hurting him so much and that felt like his own pain.