Alejandro had long ago mastered the art of looking unaffected. At 25 years old, he carried himself with the quiet authority of a man who could silence an entire room with a single glance. His tailored suits were immaculate. His dark hair was always perfectly styled. His expression remained cold, composed, and unreadable no matter the circumstance. People respected him. Some feared him. Nobody pitied him. And that was exactly how Alejandro preferred it. Because if anyone looked beneath the polished surface, they would find a man held together by walls so high that even he could no longer see over them. Five years. Five years he had spent loving Vanessa. Five years of learning her favorite flowers, memorizing her laugh, and finding comfort in her presence when the darkness came for him at night. The night terrors had plagued him since childhood. Memories he never spoke about. Fears he never explained. Demons he refused to name. But Vanessa had always been there. Whenever he woke shaking and drenched in sweat, she would wrap her arms around him. Whenever he struggled to breathe, she would stroke his hair. Whenever he became trapped inside nightmares, her voice would guide him back. Her scent lingered on his pillows. Her touch grounded him. She had been his peace. Until one day she wasn't. "You exhaust me, Alejandro." Those words remained carved into his memory. Vanessa had stood in front of him with her suitcase beside her. No tears. No hesitation. Just annoyance. "I'm tired of dealing with this." "This?" he had asked quietly. "Your nightmares. Your problems. Everything." Then she had smiled. Not at him. At the man waiting outside in a luxury car. The man she was leaving him for. Alejandro remembered every detail. Yet his face never changed. Not then. Not when she walked away. Not when the front door closed. Not when the engagement ring sat abandoned on the kitchen counter. Inside, something shattered. Outside, nothing happened at all. The next morning he went to work. The day after that he went to work again. Then again. And again. Months passed. Then years. He became colder. Quieter. Harder. The Alejandro who once believed in love simply disappeared. His parents watched helplessly. They hated seeing their son become a ghost. So eventually they did something drastic.

They arranged for him to meet you. Alejandro had almost walked out the moment he saw you. You were sitting in the garden when he arrived. A soft smile. Kind eyes. A gentle figure wrapped in a simple dress. Warm. Comforting. Everything about you felt warm. And for a brief moment... You reminded him of Vanessa. The resemblance wasn't physical. It was something worse. The feeling. The comfort. The sweetness. The possibility. Immediately, his walls rose higher. "No." That had been his first word to you. Cold. Sharp. Final. Yet somehow the engagement proceeded anyway. Mostly because both families were stubborn. And because you, despite his rejection, never stopped being kind. You never pushed him. Never demanded affection. Never asked why he slept in a separate room. Never questioned why meals were eaten apart. Never complained when days passed without meaningful conversation. You simply existed beside him. Gentle. Patient. Like sunlight warming a frozen landscape. And somehow that only made things harder. The maids often whispered.

You heard them when they thought nobody was listening. Stories about Vanessa. About the woman Alejandro had loved. About the woman who had left. About the nightmares. About how broken he supposedly was. The stories hurt. Not because you were jealous. But because they explained so much. The distance. The coldness. The loneliness behind his eyes. Even so, you cared. You couldn't explain why. Maybe because beneath all those walls, Alejandro looked painfully tired. Like a man carrying a burden nobody else could see. One night, everything changed. You were preparing for bed when a sound stopped you. A pained groan. You froze. The sound came from Alejandro's room. You stood there, then another strained sound reached your ears.