They humiliated her because she looked poor, not knowing that she was the hotel owner’s daughter.

The bellhops lined up. The receptionists smoothed their uniforms. The pianist straightened on his stool. Beatriz placed her glass on the table and stood up with a radiant smile.

“Mr. Rios!” she exclaimed, adjusting her necklace. “How lucky. My husband is waiting for you at the restaurant for the signing. I will introduce myself personally…”

The glass doors opened.

Entered a man in his sixties, with silver hair combed back, wearing a navy blue suit and a long coat, soaked to the shoulders because he hadn’t wanted to wait for an umbrella. He had the hard face of someone who had negotiated with presidents, but the red eyes of someone who had just been crying in the back of a car.

Beatriz took a step towards him, her hand outstretched.

“Mr. Ríos, I am Beatriz Montenegro, the wife of…”

He walked past her without looking at her. As if she didn’t exist.

He strode across the hall, not seeing the manager, not seeing the lined-up employees, not seeing anything. He only had eyes for the drenched young woman standing by the door, a baby in her arms.

He stopped in front of her. For a second, neither of them said anything.

“Hello, Dad,” Valeria whispered.

Alejandro Ríos, the man whom no one in the country had ever seen cry — not even at his wife’s funeral — hugged his daughter and grandson so tightly that it seemed as if he wanted to protect them from the whole world.

“My little one…” he murmured into his wet hair. “My little one. Three years searching for your face on every street.”

In the hall, there wasn’t a sound. The man in the gray suit dropped his phone. The two young people who had been filming looked at each other, speechless. And Beatriz Montenegro remained frozen, her hand still outstretched in the air, while her face lost all color.

Alejandro stepped back a little and looked at the baby. He touched its forehead with two fingers, and its expression immediately hardened.

“He’s burning up.” He turned to one of his bodyguards. “Call Dr. Salazar. Have him come immediately. And prepare the presidential suite.”

“Yes, sir.”

Then, very slowly, Alejandro turned around. His gaze swept across the hall, face after face, like a judge reading a sentence. It rested on Ramiro, still a half-step away from Valeria. Then on the director. And finally on the woman in the fuchsia dress.

When he spoke, it wasn’t a shout. It was worse: a murmur that could be heard in every corner.

“Who dared throw my daughter and grandson out of my hotel?”

Chapter 5 – The Price of Pride

No one answered.

Director Villalobos approached almost running, sweating despite the air conditioning.

“Mr. Rios, please allow me to explain. It’s a terrible misunderstanding. We didn’t know that Miss was…”

“What was she, Esteban, my daughter?” Alejandro interrupted. “And what if she wasn’t? What if she was simply a mother with a sick baby, out in the rain, asking for a glass of water? Then, was it normal to throw her out?”

Villalobos opened his mouth and closed it again.

Alejandro turned to Ramiro.

“You. What is this hotel’s protocol when someone arrives in an emergency situation with a minor?”

Ramiro lowered his eyes. His jaw was trembling.

“Provide assistance, sir. Call emergency services if necessary.”

“And what did you do?”

“I threw her out, sir.” His voice broke. “Because a customer ordered me to. And because I was afraid of losing my job.”

Alejandro watched him silently for several seconds. Then he said something no one expected:

“At least you’re telling the truth. That’s more than I’ll hear from others tonight. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

And he turned to Beatriz.

She had already regained some composure. She had spent her life extricating herself from awkward situations with a smile and a good last name, and she had no intention of giving up now.

“Mr. Ríos,” she said in a honeyed voice as she approached, “what a regrettable situation. I was only concerned about the hotel’s security, you understand? You never know who might come in. If I had known the young woman was your daughter, of course…”

“You called her a thief,” Lucía said from the reception desk.

Everyone turned towards her. Lucía was pale, but she did not lower her eyes.

“Excuse me, Mr. Ríos. But it’s the truth. Mrs. Montenegro told her she was a thief, that her dress came from a thrift store, and that she probably didn’t even know who the father of her baby was. I was there. I heard everything.”

Beatriz turned red with rage.

“How dare you, you insolent little girl! Do you know who I am? I can have you fired with a single phone call…”