Instead she shifts the umbrella higher over the girls and asks, “Do you have somewhere to go?”
The answer is no.
No family who would choose you over reputation. No wife. No house, apparently, because a mansion can become inaccessible the moment richer people decide your body invalidates your claim to it. No friends close enough for midnight humiliation. Men who drink with magnates at charity galas are rarely the same men who come fetch them from bus stops after fertility specialists turn them into defective merchandise.
So you do something you have not done in years.
You tell the truth.
“No.”
Daniela exhales through her nose.
Not surprised.
Just understanding too quickly.
She looks at the twins, then back at you.
“Come with us.”
The sentence lands so cleanly it almost hurts.
You shake your head automatically. “No.”
One of the little girls frowns. “Why not?”
Because pride is ridiculous and still somehow alive. Because five hours ago you was the kind of man who did not enter rooms without assistants announcing him. Because your shoes cost more than whatever apartment Daniela goes home to and yet are now full of rainwater. Because being rescued by a former employee while your own wife and in-laws celebrate your removal somewhere behind gated stone feels like a punishment written by a novelist with no interest in mercy.
Daniela reads something in your face and says, more firmly this time, “Mr. Montiel, you are soaked, and the girls are tired, and I’m not leaving you here.”
The little one without the missing tooth nods seriously. “That would be rude.”
Something wild almost rises in your throat. Laughter, grief, maybe both tangled together.
You look down at your empty hands.
Then at the twins.
Then at Daniela.
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