They Mocked Her as Worthless — Until Fate Delivered Her Into the Hands of an Apache Warrior, and a Love Story No One Expected Began

Don Patricio Vázquez de Coronado, a 60-year-old man whose gray hair spoke of decades spent building the family empire. Daughter of Opulence

He gazed at his daughter from his office window with a mixture of disappointment and cold calculation.

His other five children had made advantageous marriages that had expanded both the family’s fortune and political influence.

But Jimena, his only daughter, had become a burden that grew with each year she spent unmarried.

The night of the grand ball of the social season had arrived as a last desperate chance.

Doña Guadalupe had commissioned the most expensive dress money could buy, made of royal blue silk with gold thread embroidery, hoping the opulence of the outfit might distract attention from her daughter’s corpulent figure.

But as Jimena descended the marble staircase into the main hall, the murmurs and pitying glances were like daggers piercing her soul.

“Who would want to dance with such a whale?” the young Count of Salvatierra had murmured, not bothering to lower his voice.

His words were greeted with nervous snickers by other young men of high society, who saw Jimena’s humiliation as a cruel form of entertainment.

The young woman felt as if the marble floor had opened beneath her feet, but she maintained the composure that years of aristocratic education had taught her.

Throughout the evening, Jimena sat next to the older matrons, watching other young women her age dance elegantly with suitors who would never approach her.

Her mother-of-pearl fan trembled slightly in her hands as she tried to maintain a dignified smile, but inside she was crumbling piece by piece.

When the dance ended and the family returned home in their gilded carriage, the silence spoke louder than any reproach.

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