It's 1908 in Renada, Spain. Raquel Lagut wants a child. She cannot have one because she’s barren. Berta can and does have a child with Raquel's rich, young lover Juan who’s given Raquel his fortune. The child is called Raquel. Then, Juan who feels he’s been used by both women, kills himself, and Raquel, now wealthy, brings up the child, Raquel. In 1918, Raquel and Berta die in the flu epidemic and the Yanez family, friends of Raquel and Berta, is entrusted with Raquel's money and adopts the ten year old Raquel. It's now 1926, and Raquel, now eighteen, wants to leave home and get married for love. Her stepfather has lost all the money he was given by Raquel to the infamous, conman Charles Ponzi and is now broke. Her stepfathers, without her knowledge, marries off Raquel to the rich Alejandro Gomez who pays off his debts.

Raquel, realizing she was purchased by Alejandro for her looks, asks him whether he loves her for who she is. Alejandro refuses to acknowledge that he loves Raquel for herself alone and not for the fact that she’s his wife and legally his possession. She has his child, a boy. He thinks he is beyond being deceived by her and has an affair with another woman. Raquel, feeling she's unloved and depressed, has an affair with a Count, who does love her for who she is. When she confesses to Alejandro of her affair, he places her into a sanatorium because he’s convinced she’s insane and can't believe she cheated on him. To get out, she denies the affair to him and the Count and says it was only a hallucination. She then becomes ill and before she dies asks Alejandro again if he loves her for herself and not because he bought her. Alejandro tells her he does loves her for herself alone. She then dies, and, vowing to find her in death, he kills himself.

It’s 2015 in Connecticut, United States. The time is six years after the financial crisis. Limen Alejandro Gomez, an ailing, wealthy stock trader and the grandson of Alejandro Gomez, owns a family run hedge fund in Greenwich, Connecticut. The body of Clea Gomez, his wife, has just been laid to rest in the garden behind the Gomez estate. Barbara Gomez, his eighteen year old, step-daughter, arrives from a private school in Switzerland and confesses to her mother Bea Frank, Limen’s mistress (who’s lived with Limen and Clea for many years), that Limen molested her when she was eleven.

Barbara wants revenge. She wants Bea to get Limen to put her name in his will; otherwise she’ll tell the media he molested her. Bea learns that Limen wants to leave his fortune to his unborn grandchild but can’t because his son, Ernesto, and daughter-in-law, Frances, hate each other, and refuse to have sex. They also want to be put in his will. Limen asks Bea to intervene. She does so by seducing Ernesto, and then getting rid of Frances. Then, when the fortune is within her grasp she loses both Limen and her daughter, Barbara.