Camila, the daughter of Don Justo Darién is celebrating her engagement to Santiago, the handsome blacksmith, when all of a sudden Don Jorge Mancera y Ruiz arrives. He has decided to have his “Droit du seigneur” with Camila. After Santiago is hurt, Camila agrees to go with him. Later, in Don Jorge’s bedroom, the lord drinks himself into a stupor and falls asleep without having touched her. Camila manages to escape and makes her way back to the village, only to find that nobody believes that she remains a virgin. A few days later, the village is attacked by vicious pirates. Some of the villagers are led back to the ship to be sold as slaves in the Caribbean. Among them is Camila. She had been by Santiago's side while he remained in a coma due to his injury and everyone believed that he was about to die. She had run away to escape her grief and had been knocked unconscious and taken. Among the way to the pirate's ship she is raped by the men who had taken her away. The captain of the pirate ship, known as "El Antillano", finds her attractive and in a brief moment of weakness, feels moved to protect her from her cruel fate, but that moment quickly passes. Camila is eventually sold to a bitter old man named Don Timoteo De Salamanca, whose plan is to leave his hated family in ruins by marrying his slave and naming her his sole heir. His daughter Lisabeta and sister Doña Francisca despise Camila. Lisabeta maintains a friendly relationship with her outcast cousin who was at first the fortune's heir before his father died and he was framed by a murder he did not commit. While on the run he was taken prisoner by a pirate and made to join their crew.