Ana Paula lives in Chiapas where she is studying nursing; her devotion for sick people came up while she took care of her ill Aunt throughout her long agony. When she was about to graduate, she met Bruno, Rogelio Montero's lawyer. Bruno offered her a job nursing his boss who became paralytic and got stuck in a wheel chair after having an accident. The pay is good so she takes the job in order to financially support her aunt Rosaura, who has been like a mother to her and her brother Miguel ever since they were kids.
Ana Paula arrives in "La Hacienda Del Fuerte” to look after Rogelio and she is surprised to learn that he is a bitter, resentful man mostly because Vanessa, his shallow former fiancée, left him after the accident.
In the hacienda also lives Cynthia, Rogelio's sister, who is in fact kept there by her brother since he forced her to stay and take care of him in exchange for keeping the lifestyle she is used to have. To avoid boredom, she began an affair with Efraín, the Hacienda's foreman; he actually falls in love with her, but she is only using him for fun. With them also lives their nanny, María, who has always acted as a loving mother to Rogelio and Cynthia, and who is not able to ever leave them.
Rogelio's arrogance and bad mood make it very difficult for Ana Paula to work with him, so one day she decides to quit. She has an accident in the river and she is rescued by Gustavo Durán, a handsome and good hearted engineer. They fall in love but their plans are frustrated when Gustavo has an accident. Gustavo's father, who is also named Gustavo, dies. And Ana Paula believes Gustavo, her boyfriend is dead instead of Gustavo's father.
Rogelio has also fallen in love with Ana Paula. He sends Bruno to look for her and ask her to come back to the hacienda as his nurse and offers triple the pay. At first she refuses, but afterwards, when Miguel is blamed for crashing a truck in which he loses three of his right hand's fingers and two pedestrians are injured and later die, it could send him to jail for life. Rogelio offers to help pay all the surgery and medical bills as well as the legal fees, which amounts to two million pesos, if Ana Paula agrees to his marriage proposal. She accepts to make the sacrifice in order to help her brother, so she marries Rogelio and signs a prenuptial contract for one-year marriage with the promise that Rogelio helps Ana Paula's family and in return she keeps him company and be the señora Montero.
Gustavo comes back looking for Ana Paula but Rosaura, considering the marriage of her niece with Rogelio as the solution to all her financial problems, decides to lie to Gustavo, telling him that Ana Paula is not interested in him anymore. Gustavo feels disappointed and decides to forget her.
After returning to the Hacienda, the life of Ana Paula as Rogelio's wife is a living hell, one she had never imagined. She will have to deal with Cynthia's humiliations and envy; she will also have to manage her brother's problems, as well as Bruno and Rosaura's greed. Although, as time passes and Rogelio's cold and harsh demeanor began to change so do Ana Paula's feelings for Rogelio. And on top of that, she will meet again with Gustavo, the love of her life, knowing that perhaps, he may never be for her...
