“It doesn’t,” I said. Knowing that Martin had loved my sister was devastating and I didn’t think anything would make it better. “But if you truly like me, then answer this. What was all that nonsense about looking through my father’s drawer? You know what’s in there?”

“A chess board.”

“Yes. What’s so important about a chess game?”

He covered his face with his hand. “My father lost this entire plantation over a chess game.”

“What?” I didn’t think I’d heard him right.

“My father became consumed with chess. It was all he thought about night and day. At first, it was just a hobby. He just wanted to learn the game, but then he started buying books, learning all the tricks, all the possible combinations. He had manuals sent from Spain and some from the United States that he translated into Spanish vehemently. He studied them thoroughly. He would pose problems that he tried to solve all day long. He stopped working. All he wanted was to master the game. Your father took advantage of that. Don Armand was an innate chess player, and my father couldn’t stand it. One day, they made a bet. My father was out of his mind by then. One day, he just came and told me and my mother that he’d lost the hacienda. Just like that.”

So the hacienda belonged to Martin?

“It ended up killing my mother. Her heart couldn’t take the shame of having to move to the guest house and everybody in town knowing it. She tried for a while, but it eventually killed her.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said. His father couldn’t have lost his fortune to a game of chess, could he?

“That chess set you saw belonged to my father. It’s the board they used for the bet. Armand kept it as a trophy.”

I felt sorry for him, for the loss of his mother, of his father’s legacy, but at the same time, I was outraged.

“Is that why you’re still here?” I said. “Why you want the hacienda so badly?”

He didn’t answer.

“You thought that by marrying Angélica, you would get the hacienda, the entire plantation back?” I shook my head in disbelief. “But Laurent wasn’t in your plans, was he? And now, you thought you could get it through me?”

“No. I told you, I’m fond of you, I’ve developed feelings for you. I know it looks bad, but I’ve never felt such a strong connection to any other woman. That’s why I was never faithful to Angélica. I now see that Angélica was an obsession, a habit, and not much else.”

“But it’s also convenient that I’m Armand’s oldest daughter.”