Beatriz’s room exuded the sweet scent of jasmine, but the atmosphere was one of biting coldness. She walked to the window, surveying the farm grounds, before turning to her confidante, her gaze fixed and determined.
“Listen carefully, Rosa, I don’t want a repository of affection or anything that resembles love,” said Beatriz, her voice as firm as the whip she never needed to use.
“You’re going to convince Juliano to do just one thing. He will come into my room and nurse me until I have a son. If he manages to give me this heir, I myself will sign his manumission papers and he can disappear from this farm forever.”
Rosa felt a shiver and adjusted her apron, shaking her head with a fear that went beyond mere obedience.
“Yes, oh, you don’t know what you’re asking for. You can’t take it anymore,” whispered the maid, approaching with wide eyes. “All the women who tasted Juliano ended up lost, in love with him. What he has isn’t normal, ma’am. It’s bigger than a ruler, it’s large, it’s thick, and it seems to be under a spell. He is not the kind of man you use and then forget.”
Beatriz let out a dry laugh, untying the knot of her corset with arrogant disdain.
“Yes, I can handle it, Rosa. I am not all women. I don’t want a husband, a lover, or anything like that. I just want his blood to continue my name. He will give me this child, and I will continue to own everything, including myself.”
Rosa sighed, knowing that her boss’s stubbornness would be either her downfall or her liberation.
“Well, yes. I’ll speak to him later today, but then, when the lady’s body is burning and her mind can’t think of anything but him, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The manor house of the Santa Aliança farm seemed to breathe under the weight of the night’s silence, interrupted only by the creaking of old wood and the distant hooting of an owl. Upstairs, in a room that exuded the expensive scent of jasmine and lavender, Beatriz paced back and forth, her steps muffled by the Persian carpet. The glow of the candles reflected in her eyes, which held no sweetness, but the hardness of someone who had inherited an empire and was willing to do anything to prevent its collapse.
“Did you understand correctly, Rosa?” Beatriz’s voice was like a silken whip, low and dangerous.
Rosa, her trusted maid and the only person who knew the secrets Beatriz hid beneath her tight corset, wiped her sweaty hands on her white apron. She trembled slightly, not from cold, but from terror at what was about to unfold within those walls of adobe and luxury.
“I understand, mistress. But I ask you to consider this: Juliano is not like the others. There is a mystery about that man, a strength that the other women in the slave quarters say is immense. They say that whoever tastes it loses their mind.”
Beatriz stopped in front of the gold-framed mirror, adjusting a strand of hair that had escaped from her perfect hairstyle. She let out a dry, disdainful laugh that echoed coldly through the room.
“Judgment? Now, Rosa, look at me. I command 500 men in this land. I decide who lives and who dies ever since my father passed away. Do you really think I’m going to lose my mind over a slave? It’s a pink tool, a biological tool, nothing more.”
“My cousin is trying to contest my will, claiming that I have no descendants. I need an heir, and I need one now.”
So she sat down on the edge of her bed, whose immaculate linen sheets seemed to be waiting for a sacrilege. She didn’t want a husband. A husband would mean handing over the keys to the farm and her autonomy to a man of her class who would surely try to tame her. She preferred hidden sin to public servitude.
“Go get him,” Beatriz ordered without looking back. “Tell him that if he does what I command, if he is efficient and gives me a son, I myself will sign his manumission papers and give him land far from here. But warn him, if he dares to raise his eyes to me without permission, or if he thinks that this act gives him any right over me, he will know the whipping post before he knows paradise.”
Rosa nodded, swallowing hard, and left the room, leaving Beatriz alone with her thoughts. That’s how she felt her heart racing, a physical reaction she detested. For her, the body was just a burden that needed to be managed. She took off her jewelry, feeling the weight of the gold leave her neck, but keeping the armor of arrogance intact.
Minutes later, heavy, slow footsteps were heard in the hallway. The door creaked as it opened. Juliano entered. He was taller than Beatriz remembered. The candlelight sculpted the muscles of his broad shoulders and his chest, tanned by the harsh sun of the fields. He didn’t go in with his head down like the others. His eyes were dark, deep, and held a quiet intelligence that immediately unsettled Beatriz. He smelled of earth, of clean sweat, and of something else, something primal that made her stomach churn.
“Come closer,” she said, struggling to keep her voice steady, though the air in the room seemed to have suddenly grown thicker.
Juliano took two steps forward. He didn’t say a word, but his presence filled the space in a way that no luxury furniture could. Beatriz walked around him like a buyer assessing merchandise at a fair, but her fingers trembled as she reached out to touch his shoulder, feeling his warm, firm skin.
“Do you know why you’re here, Juliano?” she asked, stopping in front of him, forcing him to look down to meet her.
“Rosa explained the terms to me.”
“Yes.” His voice was a deep baritone that seemed to vibrate on the floorboards of the room. “You want a child and I want my freedom.”
“Exactly.” Beatriz hissed, trying to regain her position of power. “There will be no kisses, no caresses, and above all, no love. You will come here, deposit your seed, and leave before dawn. You are merely a means to an end.”
“Did you understand your role?”
A small, almost imperceptible smile appeared on Juliano’s lips. It wasn’t a mocking smile, but one of someone who saw beyond the woman’s icy mask.
“I understood perfectly, yes, Beatriz, but you must know. The land may be fertile, but the plow needs to be strong to open the furrow.”
Those words, laden with a double meaning that Beatriz pretended not to understand, made her face burn. She pointed to the bed, her hand visibly trembling now. The blood pact was sealed. She believed she was buying a future for her empire, but she had no idea that, by opening that door, she was handing the key to her own chains to the man she called a slave.
“Say goodbye to your life as you know it, Juliano. If you fail, you rot in the slave quarters. If you succeed, you are reborn. Now blow out the candles. I don’t want to see the face of my sin.”
The darkness in Beatriz’s room wasn’t total. The waning moon filtered through the cracks. Venetian blinds cast streaks of silvery light onto the carpet. In the center of the room, she stood, enveloped in a silk nightgown that resembled liquid armor. When Juliano took his first step into the room, she did not greet him with the courtesy she would extend to a guest, but with the invisible whip of her tongue.
“Stand still there, where the light doesn’t reach you completely,” she ordered, her voice laden with forced disgust. “Don’t forget that you smell of slave quarters and muddy earth. To me, you’re nothing more than a beast of burden that I’ve decided to use for a task my horses can’t accomplish.”
Juliano remained motionless. He did not flinch in the face of the insult. On the contrary, his silhouette seemed to grow larger in the shadows, his broad shoulders blocking the little light that came from the hallway. His silence was what irritated Beatriz the most. She wanted him to beg, to tremble, to acknowledge the abysmal distance that existed between her blue blood and his slave blood.
“What is it? Did the cat eat its tongue, or does your species only understand shouted commands?”
She continued, moving closer just enough to feel the warmth emanating from his body.
“Take off those coarse clothes. I don’t want the touch of that cheap fabric coming into contact with my linen sheets. Do what you have to do, but don’t you dare touch me with your hands. Use only what is necessary for the job.”
Juliano began to undress with a deliberate slowness, a calmness that bordered on insolence. Each piece of clothing that fell to the floor seemed like a challenge to Beatriz’s authority. When he finally stood before her, she felt the air escape her lungs. Even in the dim light, his anatomy was an affront to her supposed superiority. He was a work of brute strength and physical perfection, something none of the city’s posh suitors could ever dream of being.
“Get out of here!”
She commanded, her voice faltering slightly for the first time.
“And close your eyes. I don’t allow you to look at my face while you’re serving me. You’re not a lover, Juliano. You are a receptacle, an instrument. Remember this when you smell the fragrance of this bed. You don’t belong here.”
Juliano obeyed, lying down on the cold silk bedspread. The contrast was stark. His dark, masculine skin contrasted sharply with the virginal whiteness of Beatriz’s sheets. He closed his eyes, but his voice echoed low, like distant thunder.
“The lady talks a lot about class and birth, a lady of pleasure or pain, the blood that runs is the same color. The lady can try to hide in the dark, but the body doesn’t lie. My job will be done, but don’t blame the animal if the mount is too heavy for its delicate nature.”
Beatriz felt a wave of fury mixed with an unfamiliar chill. She approached the bed, determined to maintain her disdain until the very last second, treating this encounter as an unpleasant business transaction. She positioned herself over him, trying to feel the touch of his warm skin against hers, keeping her face turned away.
“Shut up and do your part,” she hissed.
However, when physical contact finally occurred, the barrier of insults she had built began to crumble. Beatriz realized with growing dread that it wouldn’t be easy to treat that man lightly. The weight of Juliano’s presence and the force he emanated were realities that no law or property title could annul. In that darkness, she tried to maintain her class superiority, but her own body began to betray her, recognizing in Juliano an authority she never imagined finding in a man she considered inferior. The humiliation she intended to inflict on him was ironically beginning to backfire on her, for while she insulted him outwardly, inwardly Beatriz was beginning to feel the first glimmer of a thirst that no command could quench.
The room, plunged into a dense twilight, seemed to have shrunk. The air was thick with the scent of Beatriz’s lavender soap and Juliano’s masculine, earthy odor. So, she kept her teeth clenched, her face turned to the wall, refusing to offer any humanity to the man who was under her sheets. She wanted it to end quickly. He wanted the service to be a forgettable footnote in his biography of power, but the theory of the cold transaction crumbled the moment physical contact became inevitable.
When Juliano moved, Beatriz felt the first wave of shock. It wasn’t just the brute strength of a man who spent his days carrying sacks of coffee and taming wild horses. It was something anatomical, something that defied the logic of its own resistance. Rosa’s words echoed in her mind like a funeral bell: “That’s not normal, miss, it’s bigger than a ruler.” At that moment, Beatriz’s arrogance was crushed by the reality of the flesh.
“Wait,” she whispered, her voice losing its authority and taking on a tone of panic.
Juliano, however, was following her orders. She had asked him for efficiency. She had asked him to be the beast of burden. He moved forward with a slowness that was almost psychological torture. And Beatriz felt as if her body was being invaded by a force she was unable to contain. The sharp pain and the feeling of overwhelming fullness made her lose her breath. The bed linen, once a symbol of her luxury, now felt rough against her burning skin.
“Stop!”
The scream escaped her throat, cutting through the silence of the mansion. She tried to move away, but Juliano was like a granite mountain. The physical pain was mixed with the humiliation of feeling small and vulnerable for the first time in her life. Beatriz, the woman who swayed governors and decided the fate of hundreds, felt physically dominated. She felt that her inner structure would be shattered by the very tool she herself had summoned.
“Are you doing this on purpose? Do you want to hurt me? Do you want to get revenge on me for being your owner?”
Juliano immediately recoiled, sitting on the edge of the bed. The moonlight illuminated his broad back, marked by years of work, but his face remained in shadow.
“I only followed what you demanded,” he said, his voice in a deep, calm tone that irritated her even more. “The lady said I was an animal. Animals don’t measure their strength; they simply follow their nature.”
Outraged, Beatriz wrapped herself in the sheets, trembling with pain and anger. Cold sweat trickled down her temple. She felt violated not by the act itself, but by the realization that she had no control over Juliano’s body, nor over her own.
“Get out of here! Get out now, you savage. You tried to dishonor me with this brutality. You’re a monster, Juliano. Rosa was right. You’re a mistake of nature.”
Juliano rose with a dignity that seemed insulting. He put on his coarse clothes without haste, while Beatriz continued to hurl insults, desperately trying to recover the shattered ice mask.
“I’m leaving, ma’am,” he said, already near the door, “but you know that the pain didn’t come from my will, it came from the fact that you are too small for what I have to offer. Pray that your heir doesn’t need as much strength as you claim to have.”
The door slammed shut, leaving Beatriz alone in the dark, hugging her pillows, sobbing with pure hatred. She swore to herself that she would never call him again. She swore she would send him to the stocks the next morning, but as the pain throbbed in her body, a strange and forbidden sensation began to creep into her mind. The shock of that attempt had left a mark that was not merely physical. She hated him. But for the first time in 30 years, Beatriz felt truly awake.
The following day was an ordeal of appearances. Beatriz tried to focus on the farm’s accounting books, but the numbers seemed to dance before her eyes, transforming into the shadows of Juliano’s shoulders. The pain she had felt the previous night had subsided to a dull, warm throbbing between her thighs, a constant reminder of her physical fragility in the presence of that man. She had spent hours vowing to send him to the most distant fields, but as the sun set, her pride gave way to a dark, chemical need.
“Rosa,” she called at dusk, her voice strangely hoarse, “Bring him back tonight.”
The maid said nothing, only nodded with a look that said, “I told you.” Beatriz pretended not to see. This time, when Juliano entered the room, there were no insults. Beatriz wasn’t standing, defiant. She waited, seated in the armchair, enveloped in almost total darkness. The silence was absolute, thick as molasses. Juliano didn’t ask anything, nor did he apologize for the previous night. He knew that being there again was the greatest surrender he could offer. Without any order whatsoever, he began to undress. The sound of clothes falling to the floor was the only noise in the room.
Beatriz walked to the bed, her movements slow, almost ritualistic. She lay down and, this time, didn’t close her eyes. She wanted to see what scared her. As he drew closer and the weight of his body pressed against the linen again, Beatriz felt her heart pounding against her ribs. She braced herself for the pain, for the shock of the ruler that had wounded her before. But Juliano, as if sensing her terror, acted with a calculated patience that was more dangerous than brutality. He used weight, heat, and force gradually, allowing her body, albeit reluctantly, to mold itself to that impossible dimension. The silence was broken only by their heavy breathing.
Beatriz felt the resistance of her muscles give way; what began as a painful invasion transformed, millimeter by millimeter, into a sensory expansion she never imagined she could endure. She endured it, she tolerated what seemed unbearable, and at the moment when physical fulfillment was complete, something inside her mind clicked. It wasn’t just a mechanic, it wasn’t just a depository for an heir. An overwhelming pleasure, emanating from a depth she didn’t know existed, surged up her spine like a wildfire. Beatriz felt a tingling sensation in her fingertips. Her vision blurred and the room seemed to disappear. She entered a trance-like state where the notions of fate and slavery, of luxury and slave quarters, were incinerated.
She found herself gripping Juliano’s arms, not to push him away, but to make sure he didn’t stop. Her nails dug into his dark skin, marking the man she should despise. The climax came like a coup de grâce, leaving her breathless, trembling, and completely at the mercy of her sensations. When Juliano finally turned away, Beatriz remained motionless, staring at the ceiling, her chest rising and falling in spasms. She was in a trance, her mind clouded by a satisfaction bordering on mortal sin. She had gotten what she wanted. His seed was there. But as Beatriz watched Juliano’s silhouette quietly getting dressed, she realized the price of that night. She was no longer the same, in control of herself. Her body now knew a master, and the silent, lethal addiction had just taken root in her icy soul.
Weeks passed, and the ovulation calendar, which had once been Beatriz’s sacred guide, became just an irrelevant piece of paper stored in a drawer. The heir, the official reason for all that shadow play, had not yet shown any sign of life. For any other woman in her position, this would be a cause for anxiety or frustration. For Beatriz, it was the perfect alibi.
“Rosa, he should come again tonight,” she said, without taking her eyes off the sugarcane fields as she drank her morning coffee on the veranda. “The method has not yet been effective. We need consistency.”
Rosa served the coffee in silence, but the clinking of the porcelain betrayed her nervousness. She saw what was happening. Thus, she no longer had the dark circles under her eyes from administrative fatigue, but rather the feverish glow of someone who spends the early hours of the morning awake, consumed by a hunger that cannot be satisfied with food. Beatriz became a silent observer. During the day, she stood behind the heavy curtains of her office, watching the courtyard. Her eyes searched for only one figure, Juliano. She could hear heavy burdens being carried, the sun making his skin shine like polished obsidian. She watched the focus on the muscles of his back, the same ones she scratched in the silence of the night, and felt a dangerous possessiveness growing in her chest.
“He’s mine,” she thought, her fingers gripping the curtain fabric. “Every drop of sweat, every fiber of that muscle, I bought his service. He belongs to me.”
But the truth was the opposite. The addiction had taken hold in a lethal way. As evening fell, Beatriz felt a growing irritability, an agitation that only calmed when she heard his heavy footsteps in the upper hallway. Juliano’s service was no longer a mechanical act to father a child. It was the only thing that made her feel alive. In the bedroom, the nights became longer. Beatriz no longer demanded total darkness, allowing a single candle to burn until the end. She had become addicted to the way he dominated her, to the way his immense and relentless body forced her to forget who she was. She, who had always been the mistress of everything, now longed for the moment when she would be subjugated by his power.
During one of these encounters, Juliano stopped, observing her with eyes that seemed to read her soul.
“Yes, you are changing,” he whispered, his voice vibrating against her neck. “The heir is the excuse, but your body no longer knows how to lie.”
“Shut up,” she answered, though without any conviction. “You are here to serve. Just serve.”
She pulled him closer, burying her face in his shoulder. Beatriz knew she was crossing a point of no return. She didn’t just want a child; she wanted the feeling of power and surrender that only that man could provide. Her empire outside seemed small compared to the empire of sensations that Juliano built inside that room. The addiction was silent, but the chains that now bound her were far stronger than any iron she had ever placed on a slave’s feet.
The midday sun beat down on the central courtyard of the farm. But the coldness emanating from Beatriz was capable of freezing the souls of those around her. She stood on the stone balcony with her riding crop in hand, not to use, but as a symbol of her wavering authority. Below, the workers organized themselves, and among them, Juliano remained motionless, his head slightly tilted, but his eyes fixed on the horizon.
“This man is lazy,” Beatriz’s voice whipped through the air, drawing everyone’s attention. “Rosa, why hasn’t Juliano finished loading the sacks yet? He thinks that because he’s under my direct orders at night, I have the right to loaf around during the day.”
A murmur ran through the slaves. Juliano didn’t move, but Beatriz saw the muscle in his jaw clench. She needed this. She needed to humiliate him publicly to convince herself and others that he was still just property, a piece of meat she possessed.
“Increase his load,” she ordered the overseer with a glint of hatred in her eyes. “And what if he falters? Catch up on lost time with your leather. I don’t tolerate insolence on my lands.”
She turned her back and entered the main house, her heart racing. In the office, her hands trembled so much she could barely hold the pen. The hatred she displayed was, in fact, a shield against the terror of being in love. She hated him for being necessary. She hated him for having seen her nakedness and vulnerability, but above all, she hated herself for counting the minutes until sunset.
When night finally fell, the silence of the mansion became oppressive. Beatriz heard her bedroom door open. Juliano entered, still sweaty from the extra work she had imposed on him, the marks of dust and effort evident on his broad chest. Beatriz tried to maintain a mask of cruelty.
“You took your time? I thought the exhaustion from the sacks had finally bent your knees,” she said without looking at him.
Juliano walked slowly towards her. He didn’t stop at a respectful distance. He invaded her personal space until she felt the heat of his exhausted body. With a rough hand, he lifted her chin, forcing her to look at the man she had just humiliated in front of everyone.
“Could you shout outside, Beatriz?” he whispered, his voice hoarse and laden with an authority that made her tremble. “You can treat me like a dog in front of your people, but in here we both know who’s begging.”
Beatriz’s pride crumbled in a second. The tears of anger and longing that she had been holding back all day finally overflowed. She grabbed him by his coarse shirt, pulling him towards her with a desperation bordering on agony.
“Silence,” she sobbed, but the kiss that followed was a silent confession.
That night, the cruelty of the day transformed into a wild surrender. Among the silks of the bed, the iron lady disappeared, giving way to a woman who sobbed with pleasure and need, begging for the touch of the man she swore to despise under the sun. The fight against the feeling was lost. Hatred was merely the fuel that made the fire of desire burn even more intensely.
The smell of fresh coffee, which had once been the balm of Beatriz’s mornings, suddenly became unbearable. That morning, the Lady couldn’t even bring the cup to her lips. Her stomach churned violently, and she barely had time to reach the porcelain bowl before being overcome by a deep nausea. Rosa, who observed everything from the corner of the room, didn’t need words. The glint in the maid’s eyes was a mixture of triumph and worry. The village doctor was summoned under the strictest secrecy. After a quick examination and a few discreet questions, he cleaned his glasses and smiled at the most powerful woman in the region.
“Congratulations, Mrs. Beatriz. You carry life in your womb. The seed has taken root.”
The news, which should have been the pinnacle of her strategic victory, fell upon Beatriz like a death sentence. She was pregnant. The heir, the reason for all that madness, finally existed. But instead of relief, she felt a frigid emptiness. If the child was on the way, Juliano’s service was officially over. That night, she summoned him, not to bed, but to the center of the room, under the full light of all the candlesticks. Beatriz wanted to regain her dignity. She wanted that meeting to be purely bureaucratic. She sat in her leather armchair, trying to hide the pallor of her face.
“The doctor confirmed it today, Juliano,” she said, her voice cold, trying to ignore the tightness in her chest. “I got what I wanted. You fulfilled your part.”
Juliano remained still, the candlelight highlighting the scars of work and the innate nobility of his face. He didn’t smile, he didn’t celebrate. Instead, he took a step forward, and Beatriz noticed that he no longer had the look of a slave who fears the whip, but that of a man who knows the value of what he has given.
“So, the deal is done, ma’am,” he said with a haughtiness that disarmed her. “The heir is growing there under your heart. I gave you what none of your equals could give.”
He extended his large, calloused hand, not to touch her, but in a gesture of demand.
“Where is my freedom? You gave your word of honor. Where is the paper that says I am the master of my own steps?”
Beatriz looked at his hand and then at those dark eyes that had seen her in a trance, that had known her in her most primitive form. The document sat on the desk, ready to be signed. But looking at Juliano, she realized that signing that document meant never again feeling his warmth, never again hearing his hoarse voice in the dark, never again being dominated by that force that had addicted her. The seed was planted in her womb, but the roots of addiction were buried deep in Beatriz’s soul. She stared at the man who had made her a mother and, in a cruel silence, realized she wasn’t ready to let him go.
The silence that followed Juliano’s question was suffocating. Beatriz felt the weight of the parchment under her fingers inside the desk drawer. It was a small piece of paper, but it carried a man’s destiny. She looked at Juliano, standing there with that dignity that now infuriated her. If she handed over that paper, he would walk out of those lands, cross the farm gate, and never look back. The idea of Juliano being free, free to touch another skin, free to never be hers again, provoked in her a physical pain sharper than any pregnancy.
With a swift movement, she snatched the document. Juliano’s eyes gleamed for a second with the hope of freedom. But instead of signing, Beatriz held the paper with both hands and, fixing her eyes on his with desperate cruelty, tore it in half. Then she tore it again until the pieces fell like dirty snow onto the Persian rug.
“What are you doing?” Juliano’s voice lowered to a dangerous tone, disbelief turning into contained fury.
“I am the law on this farm, Juliano,” Beatriz hissed, rising and ignoring the dizziness that overcame her. “Do you think a child in the womb is a guarantee of success? Many seeds die before harvest. I told you that you would have your freedom if you gave me an heir. Well, an heir is only an heir when he breathes, when he cries, when he survives childbirth.”
She walked up to him, her arrogance masking her fear of losing him.
“The contract has changed. You will not have freedom now. You will remain confined to this farm under my care until this baby is born healthy. If he is stillborn or if something happens to me during childbirth, you will rot in the slave quarters for the rest of your days.”
Juliano took a step forward, clenching his fists. For a moment, Beatriz thought he was going to break her in half. The tension between the two was almost electric.
“You have no honor,” he said, the words coming out like live coals. “You’re not afraid for the baby. You’re afraid to be alone in this big house with your money and your ice. You break your word because you’ve become a slave to my body.”
Beatriz’s slap echoed in the room, hitting Juliano’s face hard. He didn’t even move his head, he just kept looking at her with a contempt that burned her from the inside.
“Get out!” she shouted, her voice choked with emotion. “Go back to the ashes and thank me for not sending you to the stocks for your insolence. You’re staying, Juliano. You are mine until I decide otherwise.”
Juliano turned his back without saying anything more. Beatriz collapsed into the armchair, clutching her stomach. She had won. He would remain there. But as she looked at the torn pieces of his freedom on the floor, she knew she had just turned the man she secretly loved into her fiercest enemy. The addiction had turned her into a jailer, and she knew that from that moment on, his service would never taste the same again.
Peace on the Santa Aliança farm was an illusion that Beatriz tried to maintain at all costs, but the eyes of Carlotta, her younger sister, were always too sharp to be fooled by long silk skirts and authoritarian orders. Carlotta was the opposite of Beatriz, frivolous in appearance but deeply observant. For weeks, she had noticed Juliano’s trail through the corridors of the Big House and, especially, the change in her sister’s expression. Beatriz no longer had the pallor of a widow worn out by work. She had the blush of someone who knew forbidden secrets.
Carlotta entered Beatriz’s office without knocking, breaking the heavy silence of the afternoon. She walked over to her sister’s desk and, with a feline grin, tossed a torn piece of paper onto the accounting books—a fragment of the manumission paper that Beatriz had destroyed days before.
“You’ve always been terrible at hiding your sins, Beatriz,” said Carlotta, her voice laden with amused malice. “Freedom, heir, Juliano. What is that? A contract for the purchase and sale of a soul?”
Beatriz felt the blood drain from her face, but she maintained her composure.
“That’s none of your business, Carlota. Get out of here.”
“Ah, but it is my business, yes. I saw how you looked at that slave in the yard. I saw him go into your room when the lights go out. And now, seeing you nauseous every morning?”
Carlotta leaned over the table, her eyes shining.
“You hired the slave quarters stud to save your inheritance, didn’t you? What a pragmatic and, I imagine, enjoyable solution.”
Beatriz stood up furiously.
“Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Do I know exactly what I’m talking about?” Carlotta retorted, her voice now in a tone of somber confession. “I noticed him too, Beatriz. I saw how big that man was. I saw the strength he exudes. And if you, the inviolable saint, couldn’t resist and ended up addicted to him to the point of tearing up his freedom to keep him close, then the merchandise must be divine.”
Beatriz felt such a strong pang of jealousy that it became physical. Carlotta approached her sister and took her arm, speaking softly, almost like a bedroom secret.
“I won’t tell our cousin or the village anything. In exchange for my silence, I want only one thing. Lend Juliano to me for a few nights. My bed is cold, and I want to experience the service that softened the Iron Lady so much.”
Beatriz’s world spun. The idea of Juliano touching Carlotta, of Juliano using that strength and that intimacy with another woman, and worse, with his own sister, was a poison that instantly spread through her veins.
“Have you gone mad?” Beatriz hissed, her eyes bloodshot. “He’s not an object to be borrowed.”
“Oh, no,” Carlotta laughed, a cold, cutting laugh. “I thought it was just a biological tool, as you yourself must have said. If it’s just a service, why the selfishness, sister? Unless you love him. And if you love him, Beatriz, the scandal will be much bigger than a simple pregnancy.”
Beatriz was speechless, trapped between the fear of exposure and the agony of jealousy. Carlota left the office with a victorious sway of her hips, leaving behind a sister who, for the first time, realized that the heir was the least of her problems. The real danger was that her addiction now had witnesses, and her heart, once made of stone, was about to be torn apart by envy.
Carlota’s proposal acted in Beatriz’s blood like the venom of a pit viper. Throughout the night, she did not sleep a wink, tormented by the mental image of Juliano, the man who had seen her in her greatest vulnerability, who had taken her breath away and driven her mad, touching her sister’s skin. Jealousy wasn’t just a pain, it was a corrosive fever that made her sweat profusely. She realized, with deafening horror, that the original inheritance contract had been buried beneath layers of possessive and unhealthy passion.
At dawn, Beatriz sent for Juliano. She didn’t wait for him to enter the room. She intercepted him in the back hallway, out of Carlota’s sight, yet close enough for her fury to be felt.
“Listen carefully to what I’m going to tell you, Juliano,” she hissed, gripping his arm with a force that made her nails dig into his skin. “If I see you looking at my sister, if I find out you’ve exchanged a single word with her, or if you approach Carlota’s chambers, I swear I’ll have your tongue cut out.”
Juliano stared at her with that exasperating calm, his chest rising and falling slowly. He noticed the dark circles under her eyes, the trembling in her hands, and the almost mad glint in her eyes.
“Are you afraid, mistress?” he asked in a low, deep voice that seemed to vibrate in Beatriz’s chest. “Afraid that I’ll discover that other skins aren’t as cold as yours? Or are you afraid that I’ll realize you no longer control your own heart?”
“Shut up,” she reacted, her voice choked with anger. “You’re mine. I bought your time. I bought your services, and I control your body. You have no right to look at another woman, much less someone of my blood.”
Beatriz realized the moment the words left her mouth how pathetic she sounded. She was no longer the great rancher giving orders. She was a desperate woman trying to enclose a territory that was never truly hers. She realized that what she felt for Juliano no longer had anything to do with the heir growing in her womb, nor with the upkeep of the ranch. She wanted him entirely, and the idea of sharing him was like being burned alive.
“I’m not an exhibition animal in your yard, Beatriz,” Juliano said, freeing himself from her grip with an ease that humiliated her. “Did you tear away my freedom? She keeps me prisoner here like a trophy, but jealousy is a cell where she has locked herself in. I will do my job, but don’t expect me to ask permission to be a man.”
He walked away, leaving Beatriz alone in the dark hallway. She leaned her head against the wooden wall, breathing with difficulty. A possessive rage consumed her. She spent the rest of the day watching every window, every door, every shadow in the courtyard. The poison of jealousy had changed everything. Now, Beatriz was not only fighting to have a child. She was fighting a losing battle to ensure that the man she called her slave remained the absolute master of her forbidden desires.
Beatriz’s guilty conscience had become more unbearable than the weight of her pregnancy. Looking at herself in the mirror, she no longer recognized the woman she saw. Her eyes were sunken with jealousy, and her soul was stained by the breaking of a sacred promise. She realized that, by enslaving Juliano through desire, she had become the true prisoner. Love, that word she avoided as if it were a curse, throbbed in her chest along with the heartbeat of the son he had given her.
She sat down at her desk, her hands trembling but determined, and drafted a new letter of freedom. This time, she stamped the family wax seal with such force that he almost broke the seal. She summoned Juliano to her office in broad daylight, defying Rosa’s curious glances and the whispers coming from the slave quarters. When he entered, Beatriz did not stand up. She held out the paper, keeping her arm stiff so he wouldn’t notice how much she was trembling.
“Take this,” she said, her voice coming out as a harsh whisper struggling not to break. “This is your definitive, irrevocable freedom. The notary has already been notified. You are a free man, Juliano.”
Juliano slowly took the document, his eyes fixed on her, trying to decipher what had changed.
“But there’s a condition,” Beatriz continued, standing up and walking to the window so she wouldn’t have to face that gaze that undressed her. “You must leave now. Take a horse, gather your belongings, and go far away from these lands. Go where I will never again smell your scent, where I will never hear your name, and where the trace of your existence can no longer reach me.”
A stubborn tear ran down her face, but she quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand, refusing to break down in front of him. She believed that if she physically distanced herself from him, the addiction would die. If he disappeared over the horizon, she would return to being the iron lady.
“Go away, Juliano,” she repeated, her voice choked with emotion. “I’ve already given you what you wanted. Now give me back the peace that you stole.”
She expected to hear the sound of his footsteps receding, the sound of the door slamming, and the silence of her freedom finally being restored. But what she heard was only the silence of his presence, still standing there, observing the paper in his hands, as if freedom, without her, had lost the brilliance he had so longed for.
The silence that followed Beatriz’s order was cutting. She expected the sound of freedom, the tapping of Juliano’s heels against the floorboards, the creaking of the door, and the gallop of a horse leaving, never to return. However, what she heard was only the clinking of the manumission paper being calmly folded. Juliano didn’t move an inch toward the exit. Beatriz remained with her back turned, her shoulders rising and falling with short breaths.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked, her voice trembling. “You have what you wanted. The world is yours now, Juliano. Get off my land.”
Sensing his approach, Beatriz gripped the window frame. Juliano stopped right behind her. The heat energy emanating from him was the same that had ignited her on so many nights. But the energy he projected now was different. It wasn’t the aggression of a used man, but the determination of a free man.
“You’ve spent your life giving orders, Beatriz,” his voice was low, vibrating behind her. “But you can’t control destiny as easily as you control the harvest. I took this paper, and it’s the treasure I’ve most desired, but it doesn’t force me to run away.”
Beatriz turned abruptly, her face bathed in tears she could no longer hide.
“You hate me. I treated you like an animal. I denied you your voice. I used you to secure my name. Why are you still here?”
Juliano took a step forward, invading the space she was trying to protect. He extended his hand and, for the first time, without an order or the cloak of darkness, gently touched Beatriz’s face.
“In the beginning, I hated you. Yes. I hated your coldness and your arrogance,” he confessed, looking deeply into her eyes. “But amidst the insults and the nights of silence, I saw who you truly are. I saw the woman who carries the weight of the world on her shoulders and who is terrified of being loved. I saw the iron mask fall every time you sought refuge in my arms.”
Beatriz let out a choked sob, but he didn’t stop.
“I’m not leaving because I fell in love with this woman you’re trying to hide. And more than that,” he lowered his hand until he touched Beatriz’s belly, where the baby was kicking lightly. “This heir you so desperately wanted has my blood. It’s not just a contract or a company clause. He’s my son. And no man, not even the fear of one, will take away my right to watch him grow and teach him to be truly free.”
The Iron Lady had crumbled. She clung to Juliano’s arms, burying her face in his chest, crying no longer from hatred or addiction, but from overwhelming relief. The man she had tried to enslave was the only one who held the key to freeing her from herself.
Months passed, and nature imposed its truth upon Beatriz’s body. The belly that she had previously hidden under painful corsets and heavy silk shawls now displayed a curve that no amount of stitching could camouflage. The Iron Lady no longer walked with the lightness of before. Her steps were slow, marked by the weight of the life she carried and the audacity of his choices.
The Santa Aliança farm, once a stronghold of secrets, had become the center of a whirlwind of whispers that passed through the gates and arrived at the village. Juliano no longer wore the rags of the slave quarters. As a free man, he moved around the Big House with a presence that commanded respect, but his freedom was used in a way that no one understood. He refused to leave Beatriz. He was her shadow, her support during bouts of nausea, and the only one who dared to confront her difficult temperament on days when she was tired.
“The vicar and the ladies of society are at the gate,” Rosa announced, her voice trembling. “They say they’re coming for a charity visit, but everyone knows they’ve come to see if what they say in the markets is true.”
Beatriz felt a pang of anxiety, but Juliano, who was polishing a piece of harness near the window, stood up and placed a firm hand on her shoulder.
“Let them in, Beatriz,” he said, his voice calm and powerful. “You shouldn’t bow your head to those who have never had the courage to live their own truth.”
Beatriz took a deep breath and ordered the doors to be opened. The scandal erupted the moment the visitors entered the room. To see Beatriz like this, visibly pregnant and without a husband, would have been enough to shake the foundations of the local aristocracy. But to see her being supported by a former slave who treated her with a silent and protective intimacy was like a blow to the face of everyone present.
“This is an immoral outrage!” exclaimed one of the ladies, covering her face with her handkerchief. “Where is this child’s father, Beatriz? And what is this man still doing in this house?”
Beatriz lifted her chin, feeling Juliano’s hand burning against her back like a shield.
“The father of this child is exactly where he should be,” she replied, her voice clear and without a shadow of a doubt. “And as for your morals, they’re not enough to pay my bills or warm my bed. Juliano is a free man and is here of his own free will. Whoever isn’t satisfied with my hospitality can leave through the same door they came in.”
The scandal was official. The rumors now had names and faces. But while the guests left indignantly, Beatriz looked at Juliano and smiled. She had lost the respect of society, but she had gained something money could never buy: the freedom to no longer have to hide. Juliano’s service had transformed into companionship, and the hidden scandal was now the banner of a woman who had finally decided to be the mistress of her own destiny.
The storm that lashed the sugarcane fields that night seemed to reflect the battle raging inside the main room of the house. Beatriz, the woman who had always had absolute control over everything, was now surrendered to a force she could not dominate. Sweat bathed her pale face, and her cries, though muffled by the thick walls, echoed the desperation of a labor that had dragged on for hours. Rosa ran around with basins of warm water and clean cloths, but the village doctor, visibly tense, shook his head. Beatriz was exhausted, and the child seemed reluctant to come into the world. That’s when the door burst open.
Juliano entered. By the standards of that time, the presence of a man, and even more so of a former slave, in the delivery room was an aberration, a sacrilege against good morals.
“Get out of here,” the doctor shouted. “This is no place for you.”
Juliano didn’t even look at him. He walked to the head of the bed and, ignoring any class or gender protocol, held Beatriz’s hand with a firmness that seemed to transmit his own life to her. Beatriz’s slender fingers dug into his calloused hand, finding there the only anchor capable of preventing her from drowning in pain.
“Look at me, Beatriz,” Juliano whispered, ignoring the chaos around him. “I didn’t leave when you told me to. I won’t let you. Breathe with me. Our child needs you.”
His touch worked a silent miracle. Beatriz opened her eyes, finding the strength she lacked in those dark eyes that so fascinated her. She gave one last cry, a sound that carried all her pain, her wounded pride, and her reborn love. Suddenly, the silence of the storm was broken by a new sound, a vigorous, sharp, and life-filled cry. The doctor, still stunned by Juliano’s presence, cleaned the child and placed her in her mother’s arms.
Beatriz and Juliano leaned together to see the fruit of that service that had begun with disdain and ended in surrender. It was a girl. The little heiress was living proof that the world’s barriers were fragile in the face of desire. She had luminous skin, a soft cinnamon tone that perfectly blended the blood of both of them. She had Beatriz’s noble features and high brow, but Juliano’s vigor and dark, striking eyes.
“Look,” whispered Beatriz, tears falling onto the baby’s face.
“She has her strength, Juliano, and her soul, Beatriz,” he replied, kissing her forehead.
In that room, while the rest of the world outside still debated laws and prejudices, a new lineage was being born. It wasn’t just a girl. It was proof that flesh and heart had overcome the chains.
Sunday morning dawned with a golden sun that seemed to wash away the wounds of the Santa Aliança farm. In the central courtyard, where before only dry orders and the distant crack of whips had been heard, a lavish table had been set under the shade of the immense mango tree. Beatriz, wearing a light silk dress, without the suffocating corsets of yesteryear, carried the little heiress in her arms. Beside her, not as a doormat, but as the master of that house, Juliano wore a white linen shirt, his freedom stamped in every gesture of protection towards his wife and daughter.
Beatriz ordered everyone to gather, from the farm workers to the employees. She climbed the first step of the veranda and looked at those people who seemed like a divinity.
“For a long time, I thought that power came from my surname and the lands I own,” she began, her firm voice reaching even the furthest gates. “But I was wrong. Power comes from the courage to embrace who we love.”
She looked at Juliano and, in front of everyone, held his calloused hand. A murmur of shock ran through the crowd, but Beatriz did not waver.
“Today I make official what destiny has already sealed. Juliano is no longer a free man only on paper. He is my partner, the father of my daughter, and the co-owner of this farm with me. From today onward, the chains have been broken, not only the iron ones, but those of my own heart.”
Rosa, overcome with emotion, wiped her tears with her apron. She had witnessed the entire journey, from the night Beatriz called Juliano with disdain, to the moment she became dependent on his soul. The service that had begun as a cold-blooded and desperate transaction to secure an inheritance had transformed into a dynasty of love.
Juliano took the floor, his deep voice bearing authority and tenderness:
“This empire will no longer be built on suffering, but on respect. Our daughter carries the blood of two worlds, and she will grow up knowing that no man is less than another because of the color of his skin or the cradle where he was born.”
The little girl, in Beatriz’s arms, opened her eyes, Juliano’s intense and striking eyes, and let out a small babble, as if baptizing this new era. Beatriz rested her head on Juliano’s shoulder, inhaling the scent of earth and freedom that had captivated her since their first encounter. She only wanted an heir to maintain control, but ended up finding a master for her passion and a partner for her life. There, under the blue sky, the old world of the elite died to give way to a new empire, where the only absolute law was the force of love that had united the impossible.
