You sit at the far edge of a Zurich ballroom, half-hidden behind a column draped in white roses. Crystal chandeliers scatter light across satin-draped tables, champagne towers gleaming. Laughter rolls over the room like music—but it’s not yours.
You swirl the last inch of wine in your glass, pretending not to count the minutes until escape.
Every glance catches Mariana at the head table, radiant in lace. Every lowered gaze brings whispers: She came alone. She doesn’t belong. You’ve faced billionaires’ tempers, but the soft cruelty of strangers hits differently. Then the air shifts, cold as winter.
He slides into the chair beside you as if it were made for him. Tall. Perfectly dressed. Heads turn before you even see why. He leans close. “Pretend you’re with me,” he murmurs. Your pulse stutters. Joke? Trap? Favor you didn’t ask for?
“They’re trying to hand me a date I don’t want,” he says, nodding toward a pair of watchers. “And they’re using you as entertainment.”You should refuse. Walk away. But whispers sharpen your fury. You lift your chin. “How far does this performance go?”
A half-smile cracks his perfection. “Leave it to me.” His arm drapes across your chair; attention shifts like a tide. “Name?“Alejandro Morel.”The Wolf of Zurich. Untouchable. Terrifying. Now beside you.
He introduces you as “someone important,” not a plus-one. The room bends to his words. He pours wine, deflects insults with a line so sharp it becomes a joke at their expense. You laugh once—small, genuine, startling.
By day, you’re a journalist chasing offshore trails; by night, Alejandro’s “girlfriend” at galas and boardrooms. You learn to move through marble halls without shrinking, answer intrusive questions with polite precision, read the power in the room like a map.
Behind his control, cracks appear: a tightened jaw at mention of his father, a lingering gaze at abstract paintings, silence that hums with memory.Then you find the name: CB Holdings. “Caymans.” “Special purpose vehicles.” A trail that reeks of something hidden.
One night, Alejandro asleep, tie loosened, phone still in hand, you trace signatures, documents, transactions. The handwriting is his. Pulse racing, you realize: truth is inches from you.
Before you can confront him, the truth reaches Alejandro. He storms your apartment, pages in hand, voice sharp: “Don’t say my name like you have the right.” Hurt undercuts his anger. “You came close for your story,” he says.
You admit it. “Yes. I noticed irregularities. I couldn’t ignore them. But I don’t want you guilty.”You don’t sleep that week. Part of you wants to protect him. Part of you knows the truth demands daylight. An anonymous message lands: “It’s Ernesto Vidal.
Not Alejandro. Be careful.” The danger isn’t just financial—it’s personal.A black car shadows you. Two men follow. Alejandro intercepts, voice low and lethal: “Touch her, and you won’t have hands left to regret it.” They vanish.
You realize the protection you never asked for has nothing to do with money—it has everything to do with survival.You publish the exposé at dawn: forged approvals, diverted funds, Vidal’s fingerprints everywhere. Alejandro is vindicated.
Vidal disappears into shadows. But danger doesn’t vanish. You’re abducted, tied, facing Vidal’s knife. You refuse to betray Alejandro. Doors slam. Law enforcement floods in. Alejandro moves like a storm—precise, fast, terrifying. Blood. Pain. Fear. He kneels beside you, hands shaking, whispering, “Don’t close your eyes.”
Recovery is antiseptic, beeps, hours stretching. He stays. He listens. He admits trust was weakness until you entered his life. For the first time, he lets you be unpredictable.
Months pass. Investigations uncover deeper corruption, older than Vidal, buried long before Alejandro took control. An assistant named Elise hands over folders, handwritten notes, and a photograph—Alejandro’s father shaking hands with a man tied to a past fraud.
A missing girl, a vanished life, a hidden cost. The stakes are human now.Threats continue: anonymous texts, coordinates, timestamps. “If you print her name, you’ll become the next missing person.”
And yet, you keep writing. Alejandro stands beside you—not as a CEO, but as a man choosing bravery over power. Marriage comes quietly, privately. No spectacle, no society page. Just honesty, trust, and pancakes he promises to learn to make.
Walking past the column where you once tried to disappear, you pause. He slips his hand into yours. “That night, I thought I was saving myself from a forced date.”You answer, “That night, I thought I was just surviving a wedding.”
You kiss your forehead like an apology to every version of yourself that ever felt unwanted. For the first time, no more pretending. You belong—because you finally believe you do.