He looked at her with tears in his eyes.
“My real name is Sebastian Montemayor.”
A pause.
“And for ten years, I hid from the world because I needed to know if someone could love me without knowing my face.”
Clara stared at him in shock.
Everything suddenly made sense.
The rumors.
The wheelchair.
The cruelty.
The test.
It had all been a carefully created mask.
And now, standing in front of her, was the man behind it.
But before Clara could say anything, Sebastian whispered:
“There’s one more secret you need to know…”
His expression changed.
And this time, Clara saw real fear.
“Your father didn’t just lose 50 million pesos through gambling.”
“He was involved in the reason I had to disappear.”
Clara’s smile faded.
“What are you talking about?”
Sebastian looked toward the locked cabinet in the corner of the room.
“The night your father sold you to me…”
“He wasn’t trying to save himself.”
“He was trying to hide what he did to my family.”
And Clara realized their marriage had never been an accident.
It had been part of a secret that had been buried for years.
