Rodrigo swallowed hard.
“How long?”
“Seven months.”
His heart began pounding.
“Seven months…” he repeated slowly.
The numbers aligned perfectly.
His face went pale.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Gabriela looked at him steadily.
“I tried.”
Those two words hit him harder than any accusation.
“I came to your house,” she continued softly. “Three weeks after the divorce.”
Rodrigo frowned in confusion.
“You came?”
She nodded.
“Valentina answered the door.”
Rodrigo turned instinctively toward his fiancée, who stood a short distance away.
Valentina’s expression hardened slightly.
Gabriela continued calmly.
“She told me you were busy building a new life. She said you didn’t want to see me.”
Rodrigo’s chest tightened.
He had never known.
Never even imagined that Gabriela had come looking for him.
For a moment, guilt washed over him so strongly that he had to look away.
“And after that?” he asked quietly.
Gabriela lifted her chin.
“After that, I decided the child would be mine alone.”
Rodrigo stared at her.
“You were going to raise our child without telling me?”
Her eyes softened slightly.
“You had already chosen your path, Rodrigo. And I chose mine.”
Silence fell again between them.
From where she stood, Valentina watched the entire scene unfold.
She realized quickly what was happening.
The child Gabriela carried was almost certainly Rodrigo’s.
And suddenly the carefully planned future she had imagined began to feel uncertain.
Rodrigo looked again at Gabriela.
At the woman he had once loved.
At the woman who had worked beside him in the fields.
At the woman who now stood before him, strong and independent, carrying a life he had unknowingly helped create.
“Why didn’t you hate me?” he asked suddenly.
Gabriela smiled faintly.
“Because you never betrayed me, Rodrigo.”
“You simply wanted a different life.”
He lowered his head.
“And you?”
“I already had the life I wanted.”
At that moment, a small movement beneath her hand caught Rodrigo’s attention.
The baby kicked.
Gabriela’s eyes softened as she felt it.
Rodrigo stared in amazement.
“That was…?”
“The baby,” she said gently.
Without thinking, he stepped closer.
“May I…?”
Gabriela hesitated only a moment before nodding.
Rodrigo carefully placed his hand on her belly.
For the first time in his life, he felt the unmistakable movement of his unborn child.
His eyes filled with emotion.
In that single moment, something deep inside him shifted.
All his dreams of expansion, wealth, and success suddenly seemed far less important than the life growing beneath his hand.
Behind him, Valentina understood that everything had changed.
This was not simply an encounter with an ex-wife.
It was the moment Rodrigo realized he was about to become a father.
And some realizations cannot be undone.
Rodrigo slowly withdrew his hand and looked into Gabriela’s eyes.
“What happens now?” he asked.
Gabriela picked up the bundle of firewood again.
“That,” she said calmly, “is something you will have to decide.”
Then she turned and began walking back toward the small estate.
The same land she had always loved.
Rodrigo remained standing in the road, watching her disappear among the trees.
For the first time since the divorce, he no longer felt certain about the future he had chosen.
Because sometimes, life gives us everything we thought we wanted…
Only to remind us of what truly matters when it is almost too late. Rodrigo stood on the road for a long time after Gabriela disappeared among the trees. A gentle breeze moved the leaves, but inside him everything felt unsettled.
His thoughts were fighting each other.
A new life with Valentina…
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