The floor was tiled with large black and white tiles. In front of the wide, curved staircase was a black and white emblem embedded in the floor. Sam remained curious in front of it.

"Anita's ancestors were noble Spaniards. Miguel explained, pointing to the stairs with the sports bag in her hand. "You're welcome."

Anita happily scurried to the right and shouted: "In the kitchen, in 30 minutes."

Miguel stomped up the stairs in front of Sam. "Here she is always completely over-excited." he mumbled grumpily through clenched teeth.

Sam, still quite stunned, followed him in silence.

The staircase on the first floor merged seamlessly into a long gallery with four doors, from which two corridors led off into the two wings. Miguel turned silently to the right. The passage bent forward at right angles. At the end, Miguel pushed open a door and motioned Sam to step in front of him. Hesitantly, Sam set her candy-colored ballerinas on a thick, cream-colored carpet.

In front of her lay a comfortable living room, with elegant white leather sofas and apricot-colored armchairs. Cabinets made of shiny burl finished off the harmonious picture.

Miguel slid past the amazed Sam and opened the door to another room. "Your bedroom."

Sam followed him in a trance and clapped his hands over his mouth in delight.

The bedroom was decorated in blue tones. In the middle was a huge four-poster bed with an abundance of midnight blue and white silk pillows.

Miguel parked the sports bag on a delicate glass table and opened both doors to the balcony. "You have to take a look at the view." Reluctantly, Sam stepped onto the balcony under which she had just walked. Two white rattan loungers stood on blue-flecked granite. Sam stepped to the wrought-iron, white-painted railing.

Miguel stepped beside her and pointed his arm to the left. "There are the vineyards."

Sam looked in the direction he was pointing. There are lawns in gentle hills. Sam saw the typical parallel rows of vines planted on a gently rising mountain.

"Over there is the lake."

Sam looked to the right. Pretty far back she saw a dark, irregular surface. She looked at Miguel incredulously. "Pinch me."

Miguel laughed hard. "Maybe later." He looked at the clock. "In 25 minutes, down the stairs and then left through the door, be on time, Anita does not have fun with her food." He hesitated. Sam felt he had something to say to her and looked at him expectantly.

But Miguel just passed his hand over his neck in embarrassment. "See you soon."

With these words he left Sam. She watched him and heard him close the door to her living room. Sam looked at a door that led to another room between two light blue cupboards. Curious, she pushed open the door. Your own bathroom. Sam felt like Cinderella.

She went to the four-poster bed, made a slow piourette and dropped onto the pale blue satin ceiling. With outstretched arms, she looked at the gauzy fabric over her head. "Yes, I think it's going to endure here."

Sam sat hunched over a plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce in the kitchen. Uneasy silence had spread between Miguel, Anita, and her. This was not the gluttonous silence that came with a meal together. Sam's spaghetti seemed to swell in her mouth. Annoyed, she dropped her cutlery on the plate. She looked at Miguel. "What's going on here?"

Miguel seemed to have been waiting for a cue. He stopped poking around in his food and looked at Sam seriously. "Good that you ask, we need to discuss a few things."

Anita looked at him sharply. "Miguel!"

Miguel wiped his mouth with his white cloth napkin. "Oh, listen to Anita, this cuddly course is a single farce, so who are you kidding about here, you, me ..." He pushed his chin in Sam's direction. "... their?"

Anita rose angrily from her chair. "You know that it was she who defended her children's honor, something that you were not able to do, where were you when your greasy brother took over my children, where were you? looked away and ignored it? "

Sam looked blankly between the two.

Miguel got up and stepped back from the table so hard that his chair clattered to the floor behind him. He shouted at Anita. "Your children, it's my children too, I would give my life for them, you know that." Angry and deeply hurt, he looked reproachfully at Anita.

Anita threw her napkin on her spaghetti and glared at Miguel. "It was your brother, Miguel, your brother." She lowered her head and spoke in a barely audible voice. "The same disgusting blood flows through your veins."

Miguel's face twisted as if under a heavy blow.