Chapter 8 - FIVE MINUTES
I saved the intercom recording.
Then I pressed the button.
“You can leave the flowers outside.”
Javier looked directly into the camera.
“Clara.”
“What do you need me to sign?”
His face changed.
“What?”
“I heard you.”
“It’s not what you think.”
That sentence should have been printed on our wedding invitations.
Elena stood beside me, arms folded.
“Ask him about the ring,” she whispered.
“Where is my mother’s jewelry?”
“With your documents.”
“Return all of it to Inés.”
“I don’t know this woman.”
“You know her email address. She sent it to you.”
He rubbed his forehead.
For the first time, he seemed to understand that the door wasn’t opening.
“Mom borrowed against expected revenue,” he said. “That’s all.”
“In my name.”
“It’s a family business.”
“I wasn’t part of it.”
“You own the property.”
“That doesn’t make my permission automatic.”
A neighbor approached the entrance.
Javier stepped aside and tried to follow her in.
Elena opened the speaker.
“Do not let him inside.”
The neighbor stopped.
Javier backed away, furious.
“You want the whole building hearing this?”
“I want you to leave,” I said.
His voice dropped.
“If those bookings collapse, you lose too.”
“Explain.”
He looked down at the flowers.
Then he set them on the pavement.
“You’ll understand when you see the paperwork.”
He left before I could ask another question.
The paperwork arrived the next morning.
A settlement proposal from a lawyer he had hired.
Javier would return my belongings.
Mercedes would stop using my company name.
In exchange, I would acknowledge the loan, permit the existing events at the house, and describe the restaurant incident as an unfortunate misunderstanding.
There was also a clause asking me to withdraw complaints where legally possible.
I read it standing at Elena’s kitchen counter.
They were offering to stop taking things if I agreed they had been entitled to take them.
Inés called.
“Do not answer him.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“There’s an attachment you should see.”
It was a schedule of reservations.
Not one wedding.
Seven events.
Deposits totaling more than €52,000.
At the bottom was an eighth entry marked pending.
Corporate retreat.
Full property access.
Sixty attendees.
The date was ten days away.
May you like
Beside it, in Javier’s handwriting, were four words.
Owner approval already secured.
