Pecados ajenos

Telemundo's Story Synopsis

Natalia and Adrián are strangers who live in different cities but discover in an instant that they belong together. They were both married for over twenty years, and each has two beautiful young children. Their lives are quite similar—and both are unhappy and frustrated. Destiny brings the two together when they are each on the verge of divorce.

When the pair falls madly in love, they face opposition from Elena, Adrián's hysterical, paranoid and resentful wife, Rogelio, Natalia's alcoholic husband who humiliates her, and Inés, who envies and hates Natalia while pretending to be her friend. Meanwhile, Ágata, Natalia's despotic mother-in-law, terrorizes the heroine's life and has stripped her of the fortune which she inherited from her parents. Ágata teams up with Manuel, a treacherous and ambitious villain, to plot Natalia's worst tragedy: separating her from her most beloved treasure, her children.

Natalia and Adrián search for love, companionship and fulfillment on a road full of bitterness, disappointment and misunderstanding. Their story is closely related to that of their respective children. They must find love amid family conflict, jealousy and betrayal. In the end we discover it was all a dream by Natalia while in a two-year coma, and that everything is about to happen as she dreamed it.

Plot

The story begins in West Palm Beach, Florida, when Natalia decides to leave her husband, Rogelio. She is tired of twenty years of domestic violence and marital rape by Rogelio and the constant insults of threats by Mrs. Ágata, her mother-in-law. Natalia informs Ágata and Rogelio that she and her kids are leaving the mansion that night and that the legal divorce will be taken care of days after. Intent on teaching Natalia a lesson, Ágata calls Inés (Natalia's supposed best friend who actually despises Natalia) and the two agree on carrying a plot they had been planning for months.

That night, Natalia goes to her friend Monica's going-away party at Inés' house. Monica, Natalia and Inés' friend, was hired at a job in Pompano Beach and will be leaving that night. At the party, Inés and Manuel (Inés' lover) spike Natalia's martini and, when she passes out, take Natalia to Inés' room where Manuel rapes her. Inés calls Ágata, who arrives shortly after with Rogelio and Natalia's kids, Luis and Gloria. From everyone's point of view, it appears as if Natalia and Manuel are having an affair and have just been caught in bed together, as no one believes it is rape. Rogelio, Luis, and Gloria leave in tears with Ágata, who thanks Inés. Natalia regains consciousness and breaks a lamp on Manuel's head in anger, killing him. Inés, who Natalia still believes to be her friend and has no idea helped plan the whole thing, tells Natalia to run away because the police are coming. Natalia goes to Monica's house, who is packing up to leave for work, and explains everything that just happened. Monica tells Natalia that she should go to Pompano Beach with her while Inés clears up the misunderstanding with the police. Monica, Natalia, and Monica's friend Georgina leave for Pompano but have a car accident. Monica and Natalia are okay, but Georgina dies inside the exploding car. Because her body is left unrecognizable and because Natalia's ID is left inside the car with her, the police believe it is Natalia the one who is dead.

Meanwhile, in Pompano Beach, Adrian Torres, who works in magazine ad marketing, is on the verge of divorce with his crazy wife Elena after twenty years of a horrible marriage. Elena is obsessed with the idea of Adrian cheating on her and because of that has physically assaulted many women Adrian frequents at work. What Adrian doesn't know is that Elena is mentally ill and is unaware that his wife actually has vivid hallucinations of him making out with other women. Nonetheless, Elena has become very dangerous and violent and Adrian believes it is best for him and their kids if they divorced as soon as possible.

Back in West Palm Beach, Ágata has made sure to fill her grandson and granddaughter's minds with lies about Natalia and Manuel's supposed affair. When they receive the news that Natalia died in a car crash while "escaping" to Pompano Beach, only Luis is devastated by the news. Though she never planned on killing Natalia, Ágata is glad about her reported death because that puts an end to the divorce issue. Had the divorce gone through, Natalia would have kept her fortune in its entirety, leaving Rogelio and Ágata with nothing. But now that Rogelio is widowed, he and Ágata have complete control of Natalia's estate. Additionally, Luis's life becomes a living hell at the mansion with Natalia's absence because he is gay and Rogelio beats him for it. Also, Inés discovers that Manuel is not actually dead but hears that Natalia is. However, Natalia calls Inés and Inés learns that she is alive. This foils Inés' plan, who was planning on seducing Rogelio and marrying him now that Natalia was dead. She tells Natalia to pretend to be dead for a while, while she sorts things out with the police, convincing Natalia that the minute she reveals she is alive, the police will arrest her for Manuel's death.

In Pompano, Natalia is staying at Monica's apartment and Monica is working at her job. Her boss is Adrian. One day Adrian pays a visit to Monica's apartment and meets Natalia, instantly becoming mesmerized by her beauty. But Elena has followed Adrian to the apartment. Convinced, in her insanity, that Natalia is another one of Adrian's lovers, Elena tries to shoot her with a handgun, but misses. Adrian apologizes for Elena's abnormal behavior and sends her to an asylum. Adrian and Elena's kids, Freddy and Denisse (both in college but living at home), are saddened by the news of their mother in an asylum but understand it is for the best. They, too, are going through their own personal problems. Denisse, the oldest, is pregnant by her boyfriend Ricky, who forced her to sleep with him. Freddy, who really likes a girl named Maria who always evades him, finds out Maria and her mother are abused and beat at home by Maria's father, a violent sexist man named Anselmo.

Back in West Palm Beach, Inés and Rogelio are now married. Ágata, because Inés helped her set up Natalia's rape, is fine with the marriage. Charlie, Inés' son, and Gloria, Rogelio and Natalia's daughter, like each other but Ágata disapproves of the relationship and the two start dating in secret. Ágata forbids the relationships because Inés has told her that Charlie is actually Rogelio's son, a product of a short romance Inés and Rogelio had twenty years ago before his marriage to Natalia. Gloria gets pregnant, hoping that a baby would be reason enough for Ágata for force marriage upon them, but upon learning they are siblings and have committed incest, she decides to abort and run away from home. She stays at Elsa's apartment, a friend of hers who ran away from home months ago because she couldn't stand seeing her parents argue all the time. Elsa confesses to Gloria that in order to pay for school and the apartment, she became a prostitute. Elsa convinces an emotionally weak Gloria to become a prostitute too. Natalia, who has been keeping in touch with her son Luis all this time, learns from a series of events that Manuel is not dead and that Inés and Ágata set her up. She and Adrian, who are now unofficially going out, go to West Palm to confront Natalia's enemies. Meanwhile, Elena is out of the asylum.

United States broadcast

Changes

When Telemundo announced this project in its 2007 upfront presentation, it was titled "El Otro Lado del Amor" ("The Other Side of Love"). The network then launched promotional teasers on July 2, 2007 calling the show "Pecados Ajenos". In addition there were multiple cast departures: Aylín Mújica as Ines Vallejo, Susana Dosamantes as Agata Mercernario, Alex Sirvent, Alfredo Torres (went to Madre Luna ), Géraldine Bazán as Gloria Mercernario (took a role in Victoria) and Alejandro Chabán who simply avoided playing a mild mannered homosexual teenager. Telemundo was quick to premiere Pecados Ajenos in order to replace a newly premiered telenovela Sin Verguenza due to the disappointing ratings it generated within the first two weeks at the time slot.