In a mining village, it is rumored that Mariana Montenegro has a curse, since all the men that fall in love with her suffer a fatal accident sooner or later. Mariana is a romantic young woman who lives with her father, Attilio. Attilio is the mine owner, a powerful man capable of cruelty when crossed. He hides a dark secret: Mariana is not his daughter and what he feels for her is far from paternal love. Attilio has two sisters: Isabel and Marcia. Isabel, the elder, is kind-hearted, she loves Mariana and has raised her as if she were her own daughter. Marcia on the other hand is arrogant and vain, dresses in a masculine way and is hard on the miners. She is in reality a step-sister of Isabel. Cold-hearted she has never known what love is until Ignacio Lugo Navaro comes to town: a journalist who has come under a false name to search for his roots. Once he gets to know Mariana, Ignacio knows that he will never be able to love another woman and his feelings are reciprocated. However, Marcia is passionately in love with Ignacio, and is full of jealousy when she discovers that Ignacio and Mariana have married in secret. Full of fury, she reveals the marriage to her brother, and Attilio is determined to kill Ignacio without knowing that he is sentencing to death his own son, the product of the love he had with Lucrecia, the owner of the village restaurant. Destiny saves Ignacio's life when Attilio is hurt in an accident at the mine.