Chapter 1

Five years ago, my fiancé, tech billionaire Jaxon Kent, went missing. When I reported it, I became the laughingstock of Seattle. The police told me his real fiancée was an actress named Kamila.

But I was the one living with him, hidden away in his coastal villa. I was his secret, his ghost, while she wore my identity for the world.

After a fall at the police station, a miracle happened: I regained my sight. The first thing I overheard was Jaxon telling a doctor not to let my vision be restored.

He said he' d fallen for my replacement. That a blind, dependent wife was better for him now that his substitute was pregnant with his heir.

He had built me a castle not to protect me, but to imprison me. He had given me the 'Eternal Heart' diamond, then sold our love for a cheap copy.

My life was a lie. My future was stolen. And the man I loved was a monster.

So I set the castle on fire. As the flames consumed the monument to my stolen life, I whispered to the inferno, "Your love is tainted, Jaxon, and I don't want it anymore."

Chapter 1

Ila POV:

Five years ago, on our anniversary, Jaxon Kent went missing, and when I reported it to the police, I became the laughingstock of Seattle.

The air in the police station was thick with the smell of stale coffee and indifference. My guide dog, Luna, whined softly, her body pressed against my leg. My fingers, numb from cold and fear, tightened around the handle of my white cane.

"Ma'am, can you please repeat the name of the missing person?" the officer asked, his voice laced with a weary patience that felt more insulting than outright hostility.

"Jaxon Kent," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "He's my fiancé. We've been engaged for five years."

A snort of laughter erupted from a nearby desk. "Jaxon Kent? The tech mogul? Lady, are you sure you haven't been watching too much TV?"

My chin lifted. "I am Ila Kline. I believe you can verify my identity." My name, once whispered in arenas and splashed across magazine covers, now felt like a foreign word in my own mouth.

The officer sighed heavily and tapped on his keyboard. A moment later, his chair squeaked as he leaned back. "Ila Kline... the figure skater? The one who went blind in that accident five years ago?" He looked at me, his gaze a mixture of pity and suspicion. "The records say you're registered as blind. But there's no record of any engagement to Jaxon Kent."

"That's impossible," I whispered, the floor feeling like it was tilting beneath me. "We live together. In his villa on the coast."

"Ma'am," the officer said, his tone turning condescending. "Jaxon Kent is a very public figure. His fiancée is Kamila Myers. They've been together for years. In fact, they just announced her pregnancy this morning."

A cold wave washed over me, so intense it felt like drowning. "No... that's not right. Kamila Myers... she's an actress who looks a little like me. Jaxon hired her for a commercial once, but he said he found her presence unsettling. He would never..."

"Unsettling?" The officer chuckled, turning his monitor for his colleague to see. "Doesn't look very unsettled here. They're all over the news."

The tinny sound of a television broadcast filled the room. I couldn't see the images, but the cheerful anchor's voice was a blade scraping against my soul.

"Tech billionaire Jaxon Kent and his fiancée, actress Kamila Myers, were seen this morning leaving a prenatal check-up, looking blissfully happy. The couple, who have been inseparable for the past five years, are expecting their first child..."

The world tilted and went silent. A sharp, piercing pain shot through my head, a pressure building behind my eyes that was more agonizing than any physical blow. My cane clattered to the floor.

Five years.

Five years ago, Jaxon had knelt before me, the brilliant diamond of the 'Eternal Heart' ring sliding onto my finger. His voice, thick with emotion, had echoed in our sun-drenched living room. "Ila, my star. You are the only one. Marry me. Be Mrs. Kent."

Five years ago, when that actress Kamila Myers had been suggested for a campaign, Jaxon had recoiled. "Her eyes," he'd said, his own dark ones filled with distaste. "They're too calculating. They're nothing like yours, Ila. Yours hold the entire galaxy."

Five years of a public substitute. Five years of living as a ghost in my own life, while another woman wore my identity, my future, and was now carrying his child.

The pain behind my eyes intensified into a blinding white flash. A scream ripped from my throat, raw and animalistic. I stumbled backward, away from the disembodied voice on the television, away from the laughter of the officers, away from the lie that had become my life.

My foot caught on the leg of a chair. I pitched forward, my head connecting with the sharp corner of a metal filing cabinet with a sickening crack.

Darkness, absolute and familiar, consumed me.

But this time, as I drifted into the black, I heard a voice. A panicked, desperate cry that I knew as well as my own heartbeat.

"Ila! Oh god, Ila, no!"

It was Jaxon.

A sliver of light pierced the darkness.

At first, I thought it was a dream. A cruel trick of my damaged mind. For five years, my world had been a tapestry of sounds, smells, and textures. Light was a forgotten language.

But it was there. A blurry, indistinct shape of white. A ceiling.

I blinked. The light sharpened. Colors bled into the periphery-the pale blue of a curtain, the gleam of a silver IV stand. I could see.

The shock was a jolt, as powerful as any electric current. I could see.

A hushed conversation drifted from the hallway, pulling me from my daze. A man's voice, low and strained. Jaxon's.

"How is she, Mark?"

"She's stable," another voice replied, calm and professional. "The blow to her head was severe, but ironically, it seems to have dislodged the pressure on her optic nerve. It's a miracle, Jaxon. Her sight might be fully restored."

A pause. I held my breath, waiting for Jaxon's relief, his joy.

Instead, his voice came out flat, devoid of emotion. "Restore it? No. We can't let that happen."

The words were a punch to the gut. I pressed my hand to my mouth, stifling a gasp.

Mark sounded confused. "What are you talking about? This is what we've been hoping for, for years!"

"Things have changed," Jaxon said, his voice dropping to a near whisper, a conspiratorial tone that made my blood run cold. "His family's corporate board would never accept a disabled partner. That's why I had to use Kamila in the first place, as a public substitute. It was only supposed to be temporary."

"A substitute?" Mark's voice was incredulous. "You've been living a double life for five years? And what now? Kamila is pregnant!"

"I know," Jaxon's voice was ragged, a strange mix of guilt and something else... something softer. "It wasn't supposed to get real. But Kamila... she's been there. She understands the pressure, the demands of my world. Over time... things happened. I developed real feelings for her."

His confession was a series of sledgehammer blows, each one shattering a different piece of my heart. He hadn't just used a substitute. He had fallen in love with the imposter.

"Jaxon, this is insane," Mark warned. "Kamila is not the saint you think she is. Do you remember her brother? The one with the gambling debts? The hit-and-run that blinded Ila was never solved..."

"Don't," Jaxon's voice was sharp, cutting. "Don't you dare bring that up. Kamila is a good person. She's just had a hard life. She's carrying my child, Mark. My heir."

Silence hung in the air, thick and suffocating.

"And Ila?" Mark finally asked, his voice heavy with a sorrow that mirrored my own.

"Ila will never know," Jaxon said, his tone chillingly confident. "She's safe in the castle I built for her. She's blind. She's dependent on me. She'll never find out the truth."

The truth.

My eyes, my newly opened eyes, drifted across the room. On the wall opposite my bed hung a series of framed charcoal sketches. Portraits Jaxon had drawn of me in the early days. Me on the ice, mid-spin. Me laughing in the rain. Me sleeping, his hand possessively on my cheek even in the drawing.

Each one was a testament to a love I had thought was epic, unbreakable.

He had painted a masterpiece of devotion, then sold it for a cheap copy. He had built me a castle, not to protect me, but to imprison me.

A bitter, broken laugh escaped my lips.

My gaze fell to the bedside table. A box of matches, left behind by a careless visitor. My fingers, steady now, reached for them.

One by one, I pulled the sketches from the wall, the glass of the frames cold against my skin. I piled them in the center of the lavish hospital suite's sitting area.

I struck a match. The small flame flickered, a tiny, defiant star in the wreckage of my world.

I dropped it onto the pile of lies.

Flames licked at the edges of the paper, consuming the image of my smiling face, turning Jaxon's declarations of love to ash.

I walked over to the bed, the fire's heat warming my back, and with a single, deliberate motion, I swept the remaining burning embers onto the pristine white sheets.

The fire alarm began to shriek, a fitting soundtrack to the inferno in my soul.

"Your love is tainted, Jaxon," I whispered to the empty room, the smoke stinging my newly opened eyes. "And I don't want it anymore."

The door to the suite burst open, but it wasn't a nurse or a doctor. It was Jaxon, his face a mask of frantic terror.

His eyes met mine across the flames, and for a single, horrifying moment, I saw not the man I loved, but a monster.

And I knew I had to escape him, or I would be burned alive.

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