Rafael had stopped looking at women’s faces a long time ago. Not out of pride or contempt — but because he had already paid the price of a face once. Three years earlier he had loved a woman who disappeared exactly one week before their wedding, leaving a signed note: «I never loved you. Your family paid better».
Now he chose differently.
Seven women. Around a table. Covered in white silk — only their hands were visible. Rafael walked slowly past them, studying hands, not faces. His aunt Valeria watched from the background with a smile that never reached her eyes.
When he stopped at the seventh — everything froze.
On the left wrist there was a scar. Thin, almost invisible — but perfectly visible under the cold ceiling light.
Rafael held his breath.
Three years ago, Leila — the one who had left him — had broken a blue cotton vase in one of his hotels. She had cut her wrist collecting the shards. Rafael had no gloves at the time, had wrapped the wound in a napkin, and Leila had laughed, telling him: «You can buy half the world, but you still don’t know how to hold a piece of cloth». Rafael had smiled — and it was exactly in that moment that he had fallen in love with her.
The scar was in the same place.
In exactly the same shape.
— Not her — said Valeria from the background, her voice sharper than usual. — Her hands are rough. You’re choosing a wife, Rafael, not a servant.
Rafael didn’t answer. He slowly reached into his jacket pocket — and took out the ring. The same ring he had saved for his wedding night with Leila. That he had never placed on anyone’s finger. That he had carried in his pocket for three years — not with hope, but like a punishment.
He placed it in the open palm of the seventh woman.
The silence cut through the room like something alive.
— I choose her — he said quietly.
Valeria stepped forward. The smile had disappeared — replaced by something Rafael had never seen on Valeria’s face. Fear. Not surprise, not anger — fear.
— Rafael, think carefully — she said, pressing her voice down. — There are other women. More suitable, more—
— Remove the veil — said Rafael. Not to Valeria, but to the guards.
No one moved.
Rafael turned slowly toward Valeria. He wasn’t shouting. His voice was even calmer than before.
— Why are you afraid, Valeria?
One second passed. Then another.
The veil was removed.
Rafael had always said that there is a front that cannot be shown as a back — a moment, a second when someone has enough weight to break you, and it is precisely in that moment that you must not turn away.
But that woman had kept her hand open the entire time — when the others trembled, sweated, slowly curled their fingers. She — did not.
And now, when Rafael looked at her face — he understood everything.
Leila had left willingly, but not of her own free will. The signed note — was the work of Valeria’s hands. The money from Rafael’s family — was Valeria’s offer, no one else’s. And Leila — neither traitor, nor greedy, nor liar — Leila simply had a choice: leave or stay.
And she had chosen to leave, so that Rafael would never know the truth about Valeria.
Rafael looked at Valeria — and Valeria looked back at him — and understood that everything was over.
Rafael extended his hand to Leila.
— It’s time to go — he said.
And Leila — for the first time in three years — smiled.
