From the top of the Torre Mendoza, on the fortieth floor, Madrid looked like a gleaming, silent model. Alejandro Mendoza, at just twenty-nine years old, had the world at his feet. Or at least, that’s what the business magazines said, dubbing him the “King Midas” of Spain, and the gossip programs that envied his perfect life. Heir to a colossal financial empire, Alejandro had tripled the family fortune in five years. He had yachts anchored in the Mediterranean, a car collection that would make any sheikh blush, and a mansion in La Moraleja that looked more like a museum than a home. And, of course, he had Isabella.

Isabella Ruiz, the most photographed woman in the country. Tall, statuesque, with a smile designed to sell perfumes and Vogue covers. They were the “golden couple.” But that afternoon, as the sun set, painting the Madrid horizon orange, Alejandro felt an unusual chill in his chest, an emptiness that no amount of money in his bank account could fill.

He’d been watching for months. Not with the eyes of a blind lover, but with the clinical precision of a businessman searching for loopholes in a contract. He noticed how Isabella’s eyes shone with a predatory intensity every time he gave her diamonds, but they dimmed, becoming glassy and distant, when he tried to talk about his fears, his weariness, or his dreams beyond money. She was there for the galas, the photos, the toasts with champagne that cost a thousand euros a bottle. But would she still be there if all of that disappeared?

The doubt had become an obsession, a slow poison. “Does she love me, or does she love the persona I’ve created?” he wondered every night as he watched her sleep, perfect and untouchable like a porcelain doll. He needed to know the truth. Not a half-truth, but absolute certainty, brutal if necessary.

It was then that the crazy and dangerous idea took root in his mind. He called his childhood friend and personal physician, Dr. Carlos Herrera. When he explained the plan, Carlos thought Alejandro had lost his mind due to stress.

“You want to pretend what?” Carlos asked, astonished.

“I’m paralyzed,” Alejandro declared, with a chilling calm. “I want to fake an accident. I want her to see me in a wheelchair, dependent, broken, unable to walk. I want to see if she stays to push the chair or runs off in her designer heels.”

Carlos tried to dissuade him, talking about ethics, about the madness of staging such a charade. But Alejandro was determined. His soul needed this trial by fire. They prepared everything meticulously: forged medical reports, a specially adapted room in the mansion, a high-tech wheelchair, and a story about a devastating car accident that had damaged his spinal cord.

The night before Isabella returned from a business trip to Barcelona, ​​Alejandro sat in that wheelchair in front of the mirror. He saw himself diminished, vulnerable. He felt the real terror of those who lose their mobility, even if his was just an act. He took a deep breath, feeling his heart pound against his ribs like a caged bird. He was about to destroy his perfect life to find a truth he might not like. He heard Isabella’s car engine pull into the driveway. The sound of gravel under the wheels was like the roll of an execution drum. There was no turning back now. He settled himself in the chair, let his hands fall into his inert lap, and waited for the moment that would change his destiny forever.

Isabella’s entrance was, as always, theatrical. Her heels clicked on the marble floor of the lobby before her perfume, an expensive and pungent fragrance, filled the room. She rushed in, calling his name, but Alejandro, trained to read body language in hostile boardrooms, noticed the detail: before embracing him, she paused for a split second. Her eyes didn’t seek his, but scanned the wheelchair, the immobile legs, the medical equipment. There was horror, yes, but it wasn’t the horror of pity, but rather the horror of disgust.

“Alejandro! Oh my God!” she exclaimed, kneeling down carefully so as not to wrinkle her silk dress. “They told me it was terrible. What do the doctors say? When will you be able to walk again?”

Alejandro dropped the bombshell, his voice cracking, playing his part: “They don’t know, Isa. It could be months… or years. Maybe I’ll never walk again. I’ll need help with everything. To bathe, to get dressed… my life has completely changed.”

He saw Isabella’s mask crack. A flash of pure panic crossed her eyes. She stood slowly, smoothing down her skirt, and began pacing the room, avoiding his gaze.

“But… we have the charity gala next week,” she stammered, more to herself than to him. “And the trip to the Maldives in October. Alejandro, this is… it’s very complicated. I have my career, my contracts. I can’t become a nurse overnight.”

The words stung, not because they surprised her, but because they confirmed her worst fears with insulting speed. Not even five minutes had passed and she was already calculating how her “disability” would affect her social life.

In the midst of that whirlwind of selfish excuses Isabella was beginning to weave, the door opened softly. It was Carmen, the housekeeper. Carmen had been working at the mansion for three years, but for Alejandro she had been little more than an efficient shadow: a silent figure who kept his world in order, always with her head down, always discreet.

Carmen carried a tray with tea and painkillers. When she saw Alejandro in the chair, the tray trembled slightly in her hands, but she didn’t drop it. Unlike Isabella, Carmen didn’t scream. She placed the tray on a side table and approached him. Her dark, deep eyes filled with tears, not of pity, but of a raw, human empathy. Without a word, she knelt down, straightened the blanket that had slipped from his legs, and placed a hand on his shoulder. The warmth of her hand penetrated Alejandro’s shirt, a firm, genuine touch that contrasted sharply with the coldness of the room.

“Mr. Alejandro,” she whispered, with her soft Galician accent, “we’re here. You’re not alone. We’re going to pull you through.”

Isabella, annoyed by the interruption and the intimacy of the gesture, took the opportunity to excuse herself. She said she had to call her agent, that the shock was too much, and left the room almost running, fleeing from the illness as if it were contagious.

The following days were a brutal revelation. Isabella barely appeared in the room. She spent her time on the phone, canceling plans in an irritated voice, or going shopping “to clear her head.” When she did come in to see him, she did so with a forced smile, keeping a discreet distance, as if the wheelchair were a force field repelling her vanity.

But Carmen… Carmen became his guardian angel.

Alejandro, maintaining his charade, appeared depressed, irritable, and sometimes cruel, testing the limits of those around him. Isabella lasted two days before announcing she was moving to a hotel because “the energy in the house was too heavy” and she needed to rest for a photo shoot. She left without looking back, leaving Alejandro with a bittersweet sense of triumph: he had the truth, but it hurt like an open wound.

Carmen, however, didn’t leave. On the contrary, she became omnipresent. When Alejandro had feigned “attacks of pain” in the early morning, Carmen would appear within minutes, with warm compresses and soothing words. She didn’t treat him like a useless invalid, nor like a millionaire boss. She treated him like a wounded man.

One night, the fourth of his experiment, Alejandro couldn’t sleep. Guilt and loneliness were suffocating him. Carmen came in with a book and sat in the armchair next to his bed. “If you can’t sleep, sir, perhaps it will help if I read to you a little,” she said simply. “Why are you doing this, Carmen?” he asked, dropping his mask of arrogance. “I’m not paying you to be my night nurse. Isabella’s gone. You should be resting.”

Carmen closed the book and looked at him with an intensity that disarmed him. “My grandmother used to say that when the night is darkest, that’s when we need a light the most,” she replied gently. “You’ve always been a good person, sir. Even though money sometimes puts a shell around your neck, I know you have a good heart. And no one deserves to go through this alone. Legs… legs are just one part of the body. You’re still you. Your mind, your soul… that’s intact. And that’s what matters.”

Alejandro felt a lump in his throat. This woman, whom he had barely greeted in three years, saw something in him that he himself didn’t know existed. They began to talk. Not about business, not about money. They talked about life. Carmen told him about her native Galicia, about the rain against the windows, about the smell of wet earth. She told him that she had come to Madrid to pay for her younger sister’s medical studies, sacrificing her own life so that another could save lives.

Alejandro discovered that Carmen was cultured, witty, and possessed a sharp intelligence that she concealed beneath her service uniform. She read the Russian classics, loved opera, and had a laugh that lit up the gloomy room. For a week, Alejandro fell in love. Not with runway beauty, but with the beauty of her soul. He fell in love with the way Carmen made his coffee exactly the way he liked it without him even asking, the way she arranged his hair with a tenderness that sent shivers down his spine, the way she looked at him: she didn’t see the wheelchair, she saw him.

On the seventh day, Alejandro decided he couldn’t take it anymore. The charade had to end. Not to expose Isabella—that was already done—but so he could get up, hug Carmen, and tell her the truth. Tell her he loved her. He planned to do it the next morning. He wanted to beg her forgiveness on his knees and start a new life.

But fate, with its cruel irony, intervened.

That afternoon, while Alejandro was supposedly at a physical therapy session away from home (actually, meeting with his lawyer to block Isabella’s access to his accounts), Carmen went into the office to clean. As she moved some papers on the desk, a document slipped to the floor. It was Dr. Herrera’s actual report, along with a notebook from Alejandro detailing the plan: “Day 4: Isabella distances herself. Carmen shows loyalty. The experiment works.”

Carmen read the words and felt the ground open beneath her feet. The air rushed from her lungs. It wasn’t paralysis. It was an experiment. A game. And she… she had been just another lab rat. All her sleepless nights, her prayers, her genuine anguish over his suffering, all of it had been manipulated so that a bored millionaire could test the loyalty of those around him.

Humiliation burned her face. She had fallen in love with him. She had allowed herself to feel something for this man, believing that their vulnerability had made them equal. But no. He was still the puppet master, and she the naive employee.

When Alejandro returned, the house was eerily silent. Isabella hadn’t come back, which was to be expected. But there was no smell of dinner. The kitchen was dark. “Carmen?” he called, feeling a pang of alarm.

He went up to the servant’s room. It was empty. The wardrobe was open, but there were no clothes. On the perfectly made bed lay a note and the uniform folded. The note read, in shaky handwriting: “Love isn’t something you prove, Mr. Mendoza. Love is something you give. And trust, once broken, can’t be mended with money. May you have a good life with your healthy legs and your ailing heart.”

Alejandro read the note and felt, for the first time, real physical pain, sharper than any paralysis. He shouted her name, ran through the mansion, went out into the garden. Nothing. She was gone.

Despair gripped him. In the following weeks, Alejandro Mendoza moved heaven and earth. He hired private detectives, searched train stations and airports. He went to the employment agency. Nothing. Carmen López had vanished as if she had never existed.

Alejandro broke up with Isabella in a two-minute phone call he didn’t even remember. His life of luxury now seemed like a stage set. Without Carmen, the mansion was a cold tomb. He realized he had all the money in the world, but he was the poorest man on earth because he had no one to share his truth with.

Two months passed. Hope was fading. One day, obsessively reviewing the few documents Carmen had left behind when she was hired, she found a piece of information she had overlooked: the name of the university where her sister studied. Santiago de Compostela.

Without a second thought, Alejandro boarded his private jet. He landed in Santiago in a torrential downpour, the same rain Carmen had spoken of with such nostalgia. He found Lucía, her sister, in the medical school cafeteria. When he introduced himself, she looked at him with a contempt that chilled him to the bone. She knew who he was.

“Have some dignity and leave,” Lucia snapped. “My sister cried for weeks because of you. You played with her. You made her feel like she mattered, only for her to discover she was part of a twisted game played by the rich.”

“I love her,” Alejandro interrupted, his voice breaking and his eyes brimming with tears, not caring that the students were staring. “I was wrong. It was the biggest mistake of my life. I was an idiot, blind, and a coward. But I love her. And I won’t leave here until I can tell her to her face, even if she rejects me. I just need her to know that what we felt in that room, those nights she took care of me… that was the only real thing I’ve experienced in years.”

Lucía looked at him, searching for the lie in his eyes, but she only found a desperate and broken man. She sighed, took out a paper napkin, and scribbled something. “She doesn’t want to see him. But… she goes every day at six in the evening to look at the sea from the breakwater, near the lighthouse. She says the sea heals her wounds. If you go, be prepared for her not to forgive you. I wouldn’t.”

Alejandro ran through the rain. He reached the breakwater soaked, his thousand-euro suit ruined, his heart pounding in his chest. In the distance, he saw a solitary figure watching the gray waves of the Atlantic crash against the rocks. It was her.

He walked slowly, fearing that if he made a sound she would vanish like a mirage. “Carmen,” he said when he was a few steps away.

She tensed, but didn’t turn around immediately. The sound of his voice seemed to anchor her to the ground. Finally, she turned slowly. Her eyes were red, tired, but still held that depth that had captivated him. Seeing him there, soaked, panting, without the arrogance of his office or the protection of his mansion, her expression softened a fraction.

“Are you still pretending, Mr. Mendoza?” she asked, her voice harsh.

“I’ve never been more real than I am now.” Alejandro took a step forward, but stopped when he saw her back away. “Carmen, forgive me. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I know what I did was unforgivable. I was afraid. I was afraid no one would ever love me for who I am. And in my stupidity, I almost lost the only person who showed me what true love is without asking for anything in return.”

He knelt on the wet ground, not caring about the mud or the cold. “You cured me, Carmen. Not of the paralysis, which was a lie, but of the loneliness, which was very real. You taught me that wealth isn’t in the bank, but in having someone to hold your hand when the world is falling apart. I love you. And I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you for every tear I made you shed.”

Carmen looked at him. She saw the powerful man kneeling in the mud, stripped of all artifice. She remembered the nights at the mansion, the shared laughter, the connection they had felt, and which, deep down, she knew hadn’t been feigned on his part, at least not in the feelings that arose afterward.

—Stand up, Alejandro —she said, using his first name for the first time without the “sir”.

Alejandro stood up, trembling. Carmen took a step toward him and touched his face with that warm hand he had missed so much. “My grandmother also said that we all deserve a second chance, but only if we’re willing to fight for it. Are you willing to fight, Alejandro? Because I’m not easy, and you’ll have to earn my trust every single day.”

“I will fight,” he promised, taking her hand and kissing it devotedly. “Every minute of every day.”

Carmen smiled, a small, shy smile, but enough to brighten the gray Galician afternoon. “Then you can start by buying me a hot coffee. I’m freezing.”

They walked back to the city together in the rain, but they no longer felt the cold. Alejandro Mendoza, the millionaire who had everything, had finally found the one thing he was missing: a truth that money couldn’t buy. And he knew, as he squeezed Carmen’s hand, that this was the best investment of his life.

A few years later, the newspapers no longer spoke of the solitary “King Midas.” They spoke of a philanthropist who, along with his wife Carmen, had opened rehabilitation centers and foundations for families in need. In an interview, when asked what the most difficult moment of his career had been, Alejandro looked at Carmen, who was sitting in the front row with her sister Lucía, who had already graduated as a doctor. “The most difficult moment,” he replied with a smile, “was learning that to truly walk, sometimes you first have to let someone teach you how to get up.”

And in that knowing glance between them, an immeasurable fortune shone.