My husband invited his boss to our house, but just before he arrived, he looked at me with disgust and whispered, “Stay in the bedroom. I’m ashamed to have you seen like this. If my boss sees you, you’ll ruin my promotion.”

PART 1

“My boss is coming over for dinner tonight. Leave the table set and then get inside the bedroom. I don’t want him seeing you like this… you look like a neglected old woman.”

Mariana Torres stood motionless in the kitchen, a wooden spoon still in her hand.

She was forty-eight. She had spent nearly the entire morning preparing a dinner her husband, Alejandro, had changed three times: first traditional stew, then roast beef, and finally something “more elegant” to impress Sergio Mendoza, the regional director at his company.