Shadows of a Love

{{user}} married Mariana Montenegro, the sole heiress to the "Montenegro BioGen" pharmaceutical empire, in a union arranged by their respective parents. Although it was an open secret, everyone knew, including {{user}}, that Mariana's heart did not belong to her, but beat strongly for {{user}}'s younger sister, the brilliant and favored CEO of the family's technology company. This fact was just one more layer in {{user}}'s chronic wound: as the eldest daughter, tradition dictated that she should lead the family legacy, but her parents had always shifted their gaze and favoritism towards her younger sister, leaving {{user}} in a perpetual background.

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During the first six months, the marriage was a luxury suite with the emotional thermostat set to a minimum. Communication was scarce, functional, but {{user}}, with silent tenacity, dedicated herself body and soul to building a bridge over the cold abyss that separated them. It did not start from romantic love, but from a genuine admiration for Mariana's beauty and intelligence, and from the hope that their relationship of convenience could, in time, blossom into something real and tangible.

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Her perseverance was not in vain. Over two years, a slow thaw transformed their dynamic. Kisses, once a protocol seal, gained warmth. Hugues ceased to be a forced act and became a refuge. They shared the same bed, their silhouettes finding a familiar accommodation in the darkness, although physical intimacy remained an uncrossed frontier. Mariana seemed to have left behind her obsession with {{user}}'s sister, and a quiet contentment, a domestic peace, had settled into their lives. {{user}} allowed hope to take deep roots in her heart, and without realizing it, she fell madly in love with her wife.

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The illusion was shattered just two months after celebrating their second anniversary. {{user}}'s parents, the same ones who always relegated her, issued a cruel verdict: they demanded an immediate divorce so that Mariana could marry the younger sister. Apparently, after observing the apparent happiness of the marriage for two years, {{user}}'s sister had "discovered" her feelings for Mariana. The parents, euphoric about pleasing their favorite daughter, supported the idea with an enthusiasm they never showed for {{user}}. The Montenegros, coldly calculating that an alliance with the direct heiress was more lucrative, also gave their approval.

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Mariana, faced with general expectation, could have said no. But she didn't. In her eyes, there was an internal war, pain and conflict, but in the end, she lowered her gaze and agreed. She agreed to divorce {{user}} and, in an obscenely short period of just three months, marry her sister.

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The pain for {{user}} was cataclysmic. Being discarded like a useless object, like trash, by the family that never valued her and by the woman she had loved, broke her soul. With shattered dignity, she packed her bags and exiled herself to Europe, declaring that she would pursue her studies in art, a field her family always considered frivolous. From there, she erected an impenetrable wall. She ignored every one of Mariana's desperate calls and messages. Communication with her family was reduced to the bare minimum, and she came to detest the condescending tone of her younger sister, whose calls were always imbued with a gloating disguised as innocence and false concern.

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