“I NEED COMPANY FOR A PARTY, WILL YOU COME WITH ME?” THE CEO SAID TO THE CONCIERGE. WHAT HE DID…
The sound of the mop against the marble floor was the only thing alive in the building as the clock struck ten at night. The hallway lights came on as Alejandra Mendoza walked along the spotless floor in her heels, dragging with her the weariness of another day as CEO of Mentec, the technology company she had built from scratch after fleeing Caracas.
As she left her office, she saw the man in the green overalls near the elevator. He was always there at that time, silent, invisible, part of the furniture for everyone… except for her that night.
“Excuse me,” he said, adjusting his jacket, “could you clean my office later? I’m going to keep working.”
The man looked up, surprised that she was speaking directly to him.
“Of course, Mrs. Mendoza,” he replied. “How late are you going to work?”
Alejandra stopped. There was something about her accent that didn’t sound Mexican.
“Where are you from?” he suddenly asked.
“From Colombia, ma’am. From Bogotá,” he replied, upright, with his hands resting on the mop.
There was a brief silence, filled with things that neither of them knew how to say.
—I’m from Caracas—Alejandra murmured, almost to herself—. Well… I was from Caracas.
The janitor’s eyes changed. He no longer saw just an elegant boss, he saw someone who had also had to start over.
“How long have you been here?” he ventured to ask.
—Seven years. I arrived in 2018, when everything became impossible.
He nodded with a painful understanding.
—We arrived four years ago —he said—. My daughter and I.
For the first time, Alejandra really looked at him. He was probably in his forties, with graying hair and large, strong hands. They didn’t look like hands made for holding a mop.
“What were you doing in Colombia?” he asked with genuine curiosity.
The man hesitated. He felt the conversation had gone too far.
—I worked at a university… in telecommunications —he finally replied.
The word “university” hit Alejandra like a ton of bricks. She looked at him in disbelief.
—Were you a teacher?
“I was,” he corrected with a sad half-smile. “Now I’m a janitor. Things change.”
There was a wounded pride in that sentence that she recognized instantly. It was the same tone she had used so many times when speaking about the family pharmaceutical company she lost in Venezuela.
“Yes… they change,” he whispered. “I had a pharmaceutical company in Caracas. It was part of my family’s business.”
“And now you have Mentec?” he asked, looking at the logo on the glass door.
“Now I have Mentec,” he replied. But his voice didn’t sound victorious, but tired. “I started over. From scratch.”
Diego—because only then did she dare to look at his name tag and read his name—noticed the way she lowered her gaze. That loneliness on her shoulders was the same he felt every day cleaning other people’s offices.
“It’s very late to be working,” he commented carefully.
“I have an important dinner with investors tomorrow,” Alejandra explained. “They could secure the company’s future.”
—She must be excited.
Alejandra let out a bitter laugh.
—I should. But I’m going alone. Again.
The confession slipped out before he could bite his tongue. Diego shifted uncomfortably; he wasn’t used to his superiors sharing their loneliness with him.
“He probably has a lot of friends,” he said, trying to be friendly.
“Friends,” she repeated, shaking her head. “When you’re a woman, a foreigner, and a business owner, you have partners, competitors, and acquaintances… not friends.”
Silence settled between them once more. Diego resumed his work, but with slower movements, as if he didn’t want the conversation to end yet.
“My partner, Roberto, always goes with his wife,” Alejandra continued suddenly. “And the main investor, Patricia, always asks about my companion, as if a woman couldn’t exist professionally without a man by her side. It’s ridiculous.”
“That’s the reality,” Diego said, without sarcasm, only with resignation.
Alejandra took a deep breath. She heard herself say:
—I need company for that party… Will you come with me?
The words came out so fast that they both froze. Diego dropped the mop; the metallic sound echoed in the empty hallway.
“Sorry… no, forget what I said,” Alejandra said quickly, feeling a blush rise to her face. “It was crazy. I don’t know why I said it.”
She turned away, embarrassed. Since when did a CEO invite her janitor to a business dinner?
“Mrs. Mendoza, wait,” he said.
She stopped, not daring to look at him.
“I can’t,” Diego whispered. “My daughter, my responsibilities…”
“I would pay you,” she blurted out, desperate.
The word hung between them, heavy, uncomfortable. Diego felt something inside him break. Once again, his dignity up for auction.
“It’s not about money,” he replied, hurt.
“It’s all about money,” Alejandra said, with brutal honesty. “Believe me, it’s all about money. The difference is whether you admit it or not.”
Diego thought about Luna, the prescriptions, the medications that cost more than a week’s wages, the sleepless nights wondering how to pay the rent. He thought about who he had been and who he was now.
“How much?” he finally asked, in a whisper.
“Enough to make it worth your time,” she replied.
Diego closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, he had made a decision that would not only change his life, but also hers… and that would confront them with the cruelest and most luminous parts of who they truly were.
When Diego arrived at his small apartment after midnight, he found Luna awake, surrounded by medical books and notes. At nineteen, her gaze held the maturity of someone who had lived too much in too little time.
“Dad, you’re late,” he said without taking his eyes off the screen.
—Extra work—he half-lie, leaving the keys on the table.
“Extra cleaning work at midnight?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
Diego sighed. Cheating on her had never been an option.
—The… the CEO asked me for something different.
Luna looked up, fixing her brown eyes on him, identical to his but sharper.
—Different how?
Diego sat down next to her.
—She needs me to accompany her to a business dinner… as her date.
“Did he ask you to be his date?” Luna put the pen down on the table.
“It’s not a date, it’s work,” he defended himself. “Well-paid work.”
—Dad —Luna took a deep breath—, you know these things can get complicated.
He looked at her with weariness and tenderness. She knew every sacrifice he had made since they left Bogotá, since his investigations had made the wrong people uncomfortable.
“Do you know how much your medication costs this month?” Diego asked, more gently.
Luna lowered her gaze.
“Six thousand pesos,” he replied. “Just the medication…”
No further explanation was needed.
“How much did he offer you?” she whispered.
“Enough,” he replied. “But I don’t want to do it if you think I’m betraying myself.”
Luna watched him silently. She remembered the respected professor he had been, the man who had sold his academic books to pay the deposit on that apartment.
“Okay,” he finally said. “But I want to meet her.”
And Alejandra, without knowing it, was about to face the most uncomfortable part of her own power.
The next day, Alejandra’s assistant appeared at her door.
—Mrs. Mendoza, there is a young woman who says she is from Diego Ramirez.
Alejandra frowned.
—¿Diego?
The young woman entered without waiting for an invitation.
—I am Luna, your daughter.
She was nothing like the image Alejandra had of a janitor’s daughter. She was firm, polite, with a quiet dignity that filled the office.
“I wanted to meet the woman who hired my dad as an escort,” he said bluntly.
The word “hired” sounded like an accusation.
—Please sit down—Alejandra replied, trying to maintain control.
Luna sat down, but did not lower her gaze.
“My father was one of the best telecommunications professors at the National University of Colombia,” he began. “He published in international journals and spoke four languages. I’m not telling you this to brag, but because I think you don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
Each sentence was a slap in the face to the idea that Alejandra had of Diego.
“You’re right,” she admitted, clasping her hands. “I don’t know. Tell me.”
Luna took a deep breath and summarized in minutes the collapse of an entire life: the investigation, the threats, the hasty escape, her autoimmune disease, the temporary jobs, cleaning floors as a last resort.
“Mexico has given us opportunities,” he finished, “but my father is still the same brilliant man he was in Bogotá. It’s just that now they treat him as if he were invisible.”
The lump in Alejandra’s throat became more evident.
—Luna, I didn’t mean to humiliate him—she said.
“He’s already humiliated,” the young woman replied, not cruelly, but sincerely. “The question isn’t whether you’re going to use him. You’re already using him. The question is whether you’re going to treat him with dignity or like an object to be rented for the night.”
Alejandra felt as if the glass floor she walked on every day was cracking a little. She had never imagined her proposal could look like this… but she was right.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked.
“Treat him like the professional he is,” Luna replied, “not like the desperate person he seems.”
When Luna left, Alejandra found Diego in the maintenance room, putting away cleaning supplies.
“We need to talk about tomorrow,” she said.
“Tell me what clothes I need to get,” he replied, trying to keep it professional.
—Before that… can you check something for me?
He took him to his office and showed him a technical diagram on the screen.
“My team believes there’s a bottleneck in the data transmission,” he explained. “I can’t figure out where the problem is.”
Diego approached the monitor and, for a few seconds, forgot about the uniform he was wearing.
“The problem isn’t the transmission,” he murmured. “It’s the protocol architecture. They’re using TCP where they should be using UDP. And these acknowledgments are creating unnecessary latency. If they adjust the load balancer and implement adaptive pressure…”
He stopped abruptly, as if waking from a trance.
—Sorry, it’s not my area.
“On the contrary,” Alejandra said, with genuine admiration. “It’s exactly your area.”
He looked at him differently, as if he finally saw the teacher behind the mop.
“About the dinner,” Diego added nervously. “I haven’t been to anything like that since I left Colombia. I don’t know if I can represent you the way you need.”
“You just solved in five minutes what my team couldn’t in weeks,” she replied. “I think you can handle a dinner party.”
What neither of them knew was that that night would not only give them an opportunity… it would also make them pay the price.
The Polanco boutique smelled of expensive perfume and impulsive decisions. Diego felt out of place among glittering crystals and suits that cost what he earned in months.
“I can’t let you pay for this,” he muttered uncomfortably, as the salesman measured his shoulders.
“We already talked about it,” Alejandra replied, checking ties. “It’s a business investment.”
When Diego came out of the fitting room wearing the suit, the mirror reflected an image she had almost forgotten: straight back, confident gaze, a man who had belonged in conference rooms, not cleaning closets. Alejandra looked at him and was speechless.
“You look like…” he smiled, almost proudly, “exactly who you are.”
In the luxury hotel, the marble and crystal chandeliers seemed designed to remind everyone who belonged there… and who didn’t. But Diego walked beside Alejandra as if he’d been doing that his whole life.
Patricia Guzmán, the investor, greeted them with calculated warmth.
“So you’re Diego Ramirez,” he said, shaking his hand. “I’ve heard about you.”
What followed was a dance of words. Diego spoke about telecommunications, about the difference between copying Silicon Valley models and creating solutions for Latin America, about the importance of understanding the local context. Patricia listened with genuine interest. Alejandra, silently, felt proud.
Roberto, his partner, watched everything with an annoyance that grew every minute.
“I don’t remember seeing you at the city’s technology circuit,” he finally remarked, with a strained smile.
—I worked more in academia —Diego replied calmly—. National University of Colombia. Twelve years as a professor and researcher.
Patricia nodded, impressed. Roberto gritted his teeth.
“And what exactly do you do now?” he insisted.
The silence grew heavier than the chandeliers in the hall. Diego sensed the trap.
—I work independently, mainly in consulting —he replied, not entirely lying.
Roberto smiled, but his eyes were cold.
“In our industry, we all know each other,” he said. “It’s strange that I’ve never heard of you.”
Diego looked at him with a calmness that one only has when one has already lost everything once.
—That’s precisely why it’s interesting when someone asks questions whose answer they already know—he replied, dropping the sentence with elegance.
The entire table tensed. Patricia intervened diplomatically and steered the conversation back to Mentec. However, the damage was done. Roberto had labeled Diego an intruder, and Diego had struck back.
At the end of the night, while they were waiting for the car at the valet, Roberto approached Alejandra.
“We need to talk about your decisions tomorrow,” he said. “I’m not sure you’re ready to run a company this size.”
Before Alejandra could answer, Diego turned to him.
“A confident leader doesn’t need to make others feel small to feel big,” he said quietly.
Roberto glared at him and walked away. Alejandra watched him, both admiring and worried.
“You’ve just made an enemy,” he whispered.
—I already knew it—Diego replied. —Now only he knows.
What neither of them imagined was how far that enemy would go to destroy them.
In the following days, the glass castle began to crack. First, an email from Patricia canceling the follow-up meeting. Then, clients “postponing” contracts. After that, the emergency meeting with Roberto.
“You brought a janitor as your date to the most important dinner of the year,” he spat, throwing a folder onto the table.
Inside were photos of Diego in the building in his uniform, copies of his contract with the cleaning company, even details of his immigration status. Alejandra felt nauseous.
“Diego is a qualified professional,” he insisted weakly.
“He could have been whatever he wanted,” Roberto replied. “Today he’s the man who cleans our floors. And you introduced him as a consultant.”
Meanwhile, on the other side of the building, Diego’s supervisor was calling him to his office.
“We have a problem,” he said, showing her the phone.
Photos of the dinner were circulating in Facebook and WhatsApp groups: “The janitor pretending to be a businessman,” “The CEO and her social experiment.” Diego felt his stomach drop to the floor.
“Your contract says you can’t have conflicts of interest with the tenants,” the supervisor added. “What you did looks very bad. Decide what you want: to keep working here or to keep pretending to be someone you’re not.”
That night, Luna found him sitting at the table, wearing his uniform and with a lost look in his eyes.
“What happened?” she asked, sitting down across from him.
Diego told her everything: the photos, the mockery, the threat of dismissal, the possibility that Alejandra would lose her investment.
“I felt important for a few hours,” he confessed. “And now the fall hurts twice as much.”
Luna listened in silence.
“Dad, that night at dinner you were just like you,” she finally said. “The you from Bogotá. The professor, the expert, the man I admired as a child. Do you really want to hide that man away forever?”
Before she could answer, her phone rang. An unknown number.
“Mr. Diego Ramirez?” a serious voice asked. “This is Carmen, Mrs. Patricia Guzman’s assistant. She wants to see you tomorrow at ten.”
Diego hesitated.
—After everything that happened?
—That’s precisely why—she replied. —Can he come?
She hung up, unaware that the call was the beginning of the second chance she had been waiting for but hadn’t dared to ask for.
Patricia received him in an office with a view of the city, away from prying eyes and whispers.
“I spoke with someone in Bogotá,” he said bluntly. “Dr. Carlos Mendizábal. He told me you’re one of the best telecommunications infrastructure specialists he’s ever met.”
Diego blinked, taken aback. Carlos had been his mentor, his friend.
“She also told me why you had to leave,” Patricia continued. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. My family fled Guatemala in the eighties. I know what it means to lose everything.”
He approached the window.
—I have three projects that need exactly what you know how to do. I want to hire you as a consultant.
Diego looked at her, unable to hide his surprise.
—After all the scandal?
—Precisely after the scandal—she replied. —I’m interested in people who show who they are even when the world tries to reduce them to a uniform.
He paused.
—But there is a condition.
“Whichever one you say,” he said, almost without breathing.
“I want you to fix things with Alejandra,” he continued. “She made a mistake, yes. But she saw you before anyone else. That says a lot about her instinct as a leader. I need partners who understand that a person’s value isn’t defined by what they do today, but by what they are capable of building.”
Diego left that office feeling something he hadn’t felt in years: hope. However, he still had an outstanding debt. Not to the investors, not to the company. To the woman who had seen the professor behind the janitor… the one he had left alone in the middle of the fire.
Six months later, with his credentials renewed and a professional future underway, Diego stood again in front of the Mentec building. This time he wasn’t wearing a uniform. He carried a folder under his arm and a decision on his chest.
It wasn’t Alejandra who sought him out first. It was Luna who showed up at her office, with the same determination as the first time.
“My dad has a permanent job offer from Patricia,” he said. “But he hasn’t accepted it because he says he has unfinished business with you.”
That afternoon, Alejandra found Diego in the lobby. He no longer seemed like just another employee. He seemed like himself.
They went up to the building’s rooftop terrace, where the city stretched out under an orange sunset.
—Patricia told me —Alejandra began—. About your credentials, your projects, your future.
“I haven’t decided anything yet,” he replied. “First I needed to be here.”
He stared at the horizon for a few seconds.
“I want to apologize for disappearing,” he finally said. “I thought that distancing myself was best for you, for your company, for your reputation.”
Alejandra looked at him, hurt.
“You never thought to ask me what was best for me,” she replied. “That dinner night was the first time in years I didn’t feel alone. And the next day, you were gone.”
Diego lowered his head.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “I just know that if I could go back, I would agree to go with you again… even knowing everything that happened.”
She smiled, holding back tears.
“I would too,” she confessed. “Because that night, for a moment, I wasn’t the CEO, or the immigrant, or the woman who has to prove she deserves her place. I was just Alejandra. And you were just Diego.”
He took a deep breath.
“That’s why I’m here,” he continued. “Patricia offered me an excellent contract. But before I decide, I want to propose something: that we work together, for real. Not as an experiment, not as charity. As partners. I know what Mentec needs to grow. I can design all the infrastructure. You do your thing, I’ll do mine. With the respect and salary that correspond to who we are, not to who we were forced to be.”
Alejandra looked at him for a long time.
“Roberto is going to go crazy,” she said, almost amused.
—Then perhaps it’s time for your company to reflect your values —Diego replied—, not those of someone who judges others by the uniform they wear.
Alejandra extended her hand. He took it.
—Partners—she said.
“Partners,” he repeated.
But neither of them let go of the hand right away. And, although they didn’t yet dare to say it out loud, they both knew that this partnership wouldn’t just change a company… it would change their lives.
Time passed, and what began as an uneasy agreement evolved into a new equilibrium. Mentec grew, expanding into Central America, then to other countries. Diego, with his credentials in order, became responsible for the entire technological architecture. Alejandra, freed from Roberto’s shadow, made the decisions she had always wanted to make.
Luna resumed medical school, her health stabilized, and the small apartment transformed into a shared home, first for two, then for three. The relationship between Diego and Alejandra ceased to be an awkward secret and became an everyday love: arepas in the kitchen, presentations with investors, discussions about expansion strategies, and bad movies on Sunday afternoons.
One ordinary night, in Alejandra’s apartment, Luna crossed her arms and looked at the two of them.
“I’ve only come to ask something,” he announced. “When are you going to stop acting like this is temporary and formalize what we all know?”
Diego almost choked on his coffee. Alejandra laughed.
That same night, in a kitchen smelling of arepas and wine, without a ring or a rehearsed speech, Diego knelt awkwardly.
—Alejandra Mendoza —he said, his voice trembling but firm—, do you want to marry me and build something that neither of us could have built alone?
She didn’t keep him waiting.
—Yes —he replied—. Yes, a thousand times yes.
There was no banquet hall, no distinguished guests. Just a civil ceremony, Luna as a witness, Patricia as the godmother, and a simple meal in Coyoacán. But for them, who had lost so much, that simplicity was the greatest luxury.
Years later, in a bright apartment in Roma Norte, moving boxes were piled up everywhere. Some said “Luna – books,” others “Mentec – home office,” others “Kitchen.”
Diego was preparing Sunday breakfast: Venezuelan arepas, Colombian stew, and Mexican coffee.
“Has the doctor woken up yet?” asked Alejandra, entering wearing a UNAM t-shirt.
“An hour ago,” Diego smiled. “She’s finishing packing. Apparently, the residents hardly sleep.”
Luna was about to move near the hospital where she would begin her immunology residency. She had arrived as the daughter of a refugee janitor. She was leaving as a doctor. It wasn’t a coincidence. It was a consequence.
When they finished loading the last box into the car, the farewell was a mixture of tears, jokes, and promises of Sunday visits.
Upon returning to the apartment, the silence was strange.
“How does it feel to officially be an ’empty nest’ couple?” Alejandra joked, hugging him from behind as he washed the dishes.
“It feels like the beginning of something new again,” Diego replied. “Just you and me. No running away, no hiding who we are, no apologizing for what we’ve built.”
In the afternoon they went out onto the balcony. Mexico City stretched out before them, chaotic and beautiful, like the map of their lives.
“Do you think we would have met if we hadn’t gone through everything we went through?” Alejandra asked.
Diego thought about it for a moment.
“Probably not,” he said. “You would have stayed in Caracas, I in Bogotá. Two parallel lives that never intersect.”
—What if we had met here, but from the beginning as “professional successes”? —she insisted.
“Perhaps we would have had an easier story,” he admitted. “But I don’t know if it would have been as profound. We learned to see each other’s dignity when the world didn’t. We met each other at our worst… and yet we still chose to stay.”
Alejandra rested her head on his shoulder.
—For years I thought “together” was a word for others —he confessed—. For people with orderly lives, with stable families. And look at us. Refugees, immigrants, piecing together a future with what we have left.
“And yet,” Diego said, kissing her forehead, “we’re here. Together. With a company that reflects what we believe in, with a daughter who is fulfilling dreams we thought were lost, with a home that wasn’t in any original plan.”
The city gradually filled with lights. They remained silent, savoring something that for years had seemed impossible: the peace of knowing they didn’t have to prove anything to anyone.
They weren’t the perfect CEO and the prestigious professor they once dreamed of being. They were much more than that. They were two people who had met at the lowest point in their lives and had decided to believe in the version of each other that no one else saw.
One day, years ago, a desperate woman said in an empty hallway:
“I need company for a party… Will you come with me?”
No one imagined that the real celebration wouldn’t be that dinner with investors, but the entire life that would follow that question. A life where worth wasn’t measured in titles or suits, but in the ability to get back up again… and in the courage to take the hand of someone who, like you, refused to be defined by the uniform they wore.
