Plot Summary
Daniel Luna and his wife Martha Parejo (played by Marcela Gallego) are a successful and semi-famous couple living among Bogota's upper crust society. They work in the same office, where Martha is a celebrity marriage counselor/television personality (much like Dr. Phil in America), and Daniel is a lawyer and professor specializing in divorce law. In the opening episode, Martha is about to release her newest book, which is an exaltation of her ostensibly perfect marriage. Martha's reputation as a counselor is built on honest and straightforward communication between couples. In one chapter of her book— a chapter highlighted by the book's publisher— Martha states that Daniel was often sexually inadequate, but that they have managed to overcome his inadequacies and build a successful marriage based on trust and honesty. However, both trust and honesty crumble for the celebrity couple when Daniel, who has not yet read Martha's newest book, discovers that the entire nation of Colombia believes he is sexually inadequate, which (the directors of the novela imply through various sex scenes) is not true.
Martha's book release has a pernicious effect on their marriage, which begins to crumble after Martha finds out that Daniel had a brief sexual encounter with one of his students, Veronica Davila (played by Manuela Gonzalez), who is infatuated with Daniel and who, as the viewers gradually find out, is insane.
During the same time period, the Lunas have hired Fabiana Rivera, a beautiful twenty-one-year-old college student, to help them take care of their two children. Fabiana is from a lower-class family, and she is dazzled by the Luna's rich style of living and by the charm her new boss, Daniel. As Martha and Daniel's relationship continues to deteriorate, the two decide to separate, and Daniel increasingly comes to rely on Fabiana to help him cope with raising his children while separating from his wife. Fabiana and Daniel fall in love, and after sharing various furtive kisses (accompanied by feelings of guilt and confusion), they culminate their romance sexually in a hotel.
Fabiana and Daniel make plans to run away together, but their plans are shattered when Martha, distraught because her separation from Daniel has become a national scandal fueled by the gossip driven media, accidentally overdoses on anti-depressants. Daniel mistakenly believes that his wife tried to commit suicide, and Martha does nothing to disabuse him of the belief in hopes that his feelings of guilt will help save their marriage.
The sexual consummation between Fabiana and Daniel, followed almost immediately by Martha's overdose, takes place during the first third of the novela's 160 episodes, and the rest of the narrative arch involves Daniel struggling between his love for Fabiana and the desire not to hurt his family, and Fabiana's doomed attempts to forget about Daniel. Fabiana continues to work in the Luna household for a time (where she continues to have brief romantic encounters with Daniel), but she leaves after Martha discovers that she and Daniel slept together. Fabiana and Daniel separate, and Fabiana briefly gets engaged to her childhood friend, Edwin Paipa (played by Luis Fernando Salis). But neither she nor Daniel can overcome their illicit love for one another. In the end, the two protagonists cast aside social restrictions against their relationship and the objections of their respective friends and families, and get married.
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