Replaced By A Pregnant Substitute

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.

---

Ila POV:

The fire alarm was a screeching symphony of chaos, and it was my escape. While nurses and security guards scrambled to contain the blaze I' d started, I slipped out of the hospital suite, a ghost in a borrowed gown. The smoke was my shield, the panic my cover.

I found a payphone in a deserted corner of the hospital lobby, the plastic receiver cool and solid in my trembling hand. My fingers, clumsy from disuse, fumbled with the coins. There was only one person in the world who could help me now. One person whose promise was a lifeline in this raging sea of betrayal.

The line connected after a single ring, cutting through the static of an intercontinental call.

"Dario," I breathed, my voice a raw whisper.

"Ila?" His voice was a deep, rich baritone, instantly recognizable even after five years. It held a warmth that I hadn't realized I'd been starving for. "Is that really you?"

"It's me," I said, tears I didn't know I had left beginning to well. "Dario... you once told me that if I ever needed anything, if I ever wanted to come back... you said the door to Milan would always be open. Does that promise still stand?"

There was no hesitation. "For you, Ila? Always. My god, I have missed the sound of your voice." The raw emotion in his words was a stark contrast to the cold pragmatism I' d heard from Jaxon. "What's happened? Are you alright?"

"No," I said, the single word a testament to the wreckage of my life. "My situation... it's complicated. My identity has been... compromised. It will take time to get the proper paperwork, to disappear from here."

"I have people who can handle that. Don't worry about the details," he said, his tone shifting, becoming sharper, more commanding. This was the Dario I remembered, the fashion mogul whose influence spanned continents. "The only thing that matters is getting you out safely. Jaxon Kent is a powerful man, and a possessive one. He won't let you go easily."

The accuracy of his statement sent a chill down my spine. "I know. That's why... that's why I need to die."

The line went silent for a beat. "Ila, what are you saying?"

"A fire. An accident. A body burned beyond recognition," I explained, the plan forming in my mind with chilling clarity. "It's the only way he'll stop looking for me. It's the only way I can truly be free."

Before Dario could respond, a pair of strong arms wrapped around me from behind, pulling me into a hard, desperate embrace. The scent of smoke and expensive cologne filled my senses.

"Ila." Jaxon's voice was a ragged sob against my hair. "Thank god. I thought I'd lost you. I thought you were in there..."

His body trembled against mine, his grip so tight it was almost painful. He was holding me as if I were the most precious thing in the world, a treasure he had almost let slip through his fingers.

Mark, Jaxon' s friend, appeared at his side, his face pale and smudged with soot. "He was a madman, Ila," Mark said, his voice shaking. "He ran back into the flames, screaming your name. He wouldn't leave until the firefighters dragged him out."

I looked at Jaxon then. Really looked at him for the first time with my own eyes in five years. His tailored suit was scorched, his hair singed at the tips. Angry red burns blistered the back of his hands and neck. He looked exhausted, terrified, and so deeply, achingly in love with me that it almost made me forget the words I' d overheard.

Almost.

How could this man, who ran into a burning building for me, be the same man who condemned me to a life of darkness? How could this desperate, trembling love coexist with such a cold, calculated betrayal? The contradiction was a dizzying, nauseating puzzle. My heart, a stupid, traitorous organ, ached with a phantom pain for his injuries.

Just as I felt myself wavering, a soft, timid voice cut through the air.

"Jaxon?"

It was Kamila. She stood a few feet away, her hand resting protectively on her swollen belly. She looked like a ghost of me-the same dark hair, the same delicate features, but her eyes... her eyes were different. They held none of the fire, none of the passion Jaxon had once claimed to love in mine. They were soft, placid, and utterly calculating.

Jaxon' s body went rigid. He slowly released me, the warmth of his embrace vanishing as if it had never been there. He took a half-step toward her, creating a physical and symbolic distance between us.

"Kamila, you shouldn't be here," he said, his voice strained. He turned back to me, his eyes pleading. "She' s just... a helper. A new staff member."

A helper. The lie was so blatant, so insulting, it was almost laughable.

Kamila' s lower lip trembled. She looked at me, then at Jaxon, and began to make a series of small, intricate movements with her hands. Sign language. My blood ran cold. It was a private language Jaxon had created for me in the first year of my blindness, a way for us to communicate intimately in a crowded room.

He was using our language with her.

His own hands moved in response, his gestures gentle, reassuring. I didn't need to be fluent to understand the meaning. He was telling her not to worry. He was telling her everything was okay.

He then looked at her stomach, a genuine, breathtakingly soft smile touching his lips. He signed again, a question.

Kamila beamed, her whole face lighting up. She signed back, a flurry of excited movements. Then, her voice filled the silence, sweet and melodic. "He's kicking! Jaxon, he's kicking!" She looked down at her belly. "We should call him 'Leo'. After your grandfather. And if it's a girl... maybe 'Hope'?"

Leo. Hope. The names we had chosen together. The names for the child I had lost.

The memory ripped through me, raw and brutal. Three years ago. A slip on the icy steps of the villa. The sharp, cramping pain. The blood. Jaxon had been on a business trip, and the staff, under his strict orders not to disturb him, hadn't called a doctor for hours. By the time they did, it was too late. I had miscarried our baby, alone in that cold, empty castle. Jaxon had returned a week later, his grief overshadowed by a strange, detached pragmatism. "We can try again, Ila," he'd said, as if we'd simply lost a set of keys.

Now, here he was, radiant with joy over a child with my replacement, using the names we had picked for our lost baby.

The last vestiges of my foolish, lingering love withered and died. The ache in my heart was gone, replaced by a hollow, echoing void. He wasn't complicated. He wasn't torn. He was simply a man who had moved on. His love, once a blazing inferno that I had centered my life around, was now a gentle, domestic hearth warming another woman' s home.

And I was left out in the cold.

"Ila," Jaxon said, turning back to me, his face a mask of earnest concern. "Let's get you back to your room. You need to rest. I' ve arranged for a new helper, a nutritionist, to look after you. This is Kamila."

Kamila gave a small, deferential bow of her head. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Kline."

Miss Kline. Not Mrs. Kent-to-be. Not Ila. The demotion was subtle, but clear.

Jaxon draped his scorched jacket over my shoulders. The gesture, which once would have felt like a loving embrace, now felt like a shroud. He guided me away, his arm around my waist, while his other hand reached back, his fingers intertwining with Kamila's.

I saw it all. I saw him lead her to a private kitchenette, his movements full of a gentle domesticity I had never witnessed. He, who had a team of personal chefs, was now carefully washing vegetables for her.

"Just a light soup," he murmured to her, his voice a low, intimate rumble. "Good for you and the baby."

He fussed over her, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, his touch lingering on her cheek. He treated her not like a priceless work of art to be admired from a distance, as he had with me, but like a comfortable, cherished part of his everyday life.

He brought a bowl of soup to me, the aroma rich and savory. "Here, Ila. You need to eat."

I took the bowl, my fingers numb. I watched as he fed Kamila a spoonful of his own, blowing on it first to cool it down, his eyes filled with a doting fondness that was a knife in my gut.

I drank the soup. It tasted of ash. My eyes were dry. My heart was a stone in my chest.

It was over. He loved her. He truly, deeply loved her.

And in that moment, I knew that faking my death wasn't enough. I had to utterly and completely annihilate the woman he thought I was, so I could finally become the woman I was meant to be.

The war had just begun.

---

Ila POV:

The days that followed were a masterclass in psychological torture, and I, the blind woman, was the most observant person in the room. I played my part to perfection. I was the fragile, sightless fiancée, dependent and docile. I let them lead me, feed me, and talk around me as if I were a piece of furniture.

Dr. Evans, my long-time ophthalmologist, came for his weekly check-up. He shone a light into my eyes, and I forced myself not to flinch, to give no indication that the piercing beam was anything but a familiar pressure against my lids.

"The swelling is down," he told Jaxon in the hallway, his voice carefully neutral. I stood just inside the bedroom door, pretending to search for a dropped hairbrush. "There's a real chance, Jaxon. Her vision could return."

A sliver of hope, sharp and painful, pierced through my resolve. To see the world again, to see the ice, to see... what? The man I loved doting on another woman? The life that was stolen from me? The hope curdled into a bitter acid in my throat. It was too late. Seeing wouldn't fix a damn thing.

So I would remain blind. In their eyes, at least. It was the perfect camouflage. My only goal was to survive the next few weeks until Dario' s plan was in place, until my new life, my new identity, was ready.

"No," Jaxon's voice was a low, cold command from the hallway, oblivious to my presence. "We don't want that."

Dr. Evans was stunned into silence for a moment. "What? Jaxon, for five years, this has been our goal."

"Our goal was to manage her condition," Jaxon corrected him, his tone chillingly precise. "Her blindness... it' s better this way. For everyone. Kamila has had enough stress. If Ila' s sight returns... it would complicate things."

He admitted it. He had been deliberately keeping me in the dark. For five years, he had dangled the carrot of recovery in front of me, all while ensuring I never reached it. All for her. For the imposter.

The wedding ring on my finger, the 'Eternal Heart,' suddenly felt like a shackle. My fingers closed around it, squeezing so hard that the sharp edges of the pavé diamonds bit into my palm. A drop of blood, warm and sticky, welled up and dripped onto the pristine white carpet. I didn't feel the pain.

I stumbled back into my room, my breath coming in ragged gasps. My body trembled with a rage so profound it left me weak. I bumped into the large, framed wedding photo on my dresser-a life-sized portrait of Jaxon kissing my cheek, his eyes closed in seeming adoration. It crashed to the floor, the glass shattering.

A tear, hot and solitary, finally escaped and tracked a path down my cheek. Then another. And another. Until I was choking on silent, wracking sobs. The grief was a physical thing, a monster clawing its way out of my chest. Then, as quickly as it came, it was gone, replaced by a hollow, echoing laughter that sounded like breaking glass.

I knelt, carefully picking up the photo from the wreckage. I carried it to the shredder in Jaxon's home office, a machine he' d once boasted could destroy corporate secrets. I fed our smiling faces into its hungry maw. The grinding noise was the most satisfying sound I had ever heard.

"Ila?" Jaxon's voice came from the doorway. "What was that noise? Are you okay?"

I turned, my face a perfect mask of serene blindness. "Just getting rid of some old files, darling. Things that have mistakes in them."

He walked over, peering at the confetti of paper in the bin. "This looks familiar..." he murmured, but his attention was already drifting. He was a man who only saw what he wanted to see.

Just then, Kamila appeared in the doorway, holding a massive bouquet of lilies. "Happy birthday, Ila!" she chirped, her smile wide and dazzling.

My throat closed up. The cloying, sweet scent of the lilies, a flower I was violently allergic to, filled the air. I doubled over, coughing, my eyes streaming with genuine, painful tears.

"Oh, goodness!" Kamila rushed forward, a look of faux concern on her face. She clamped a hand over my eyes. "Don't peek! Jaxon has a surprise for you!"

She guided me, stumbling and choking, to the dining room. There, on the table, was a birthday cake. A mango mousse cake. And a single, mocking candle.

"We wanted to celebrate you!" Kamila said brightly. "I hope you like it. Mango is my favorite."

Jaxon beamed at her, stroking her arm. "You're so thoughtful, Kami." He turned to me. "Make a wish, Ila."

I stood there, the scent of lilies and mango suffocating me. My lungs burned, my eyes felt like they were on fire. I looked from the cake to Jaxon' s smiling face, to Kamila' s triumphant one.

My voice, when it came, was terrifyingly calm.

"Today is not my birthday, Jaxon."

His smile faltered. "What? Of course it is."

"No," I said, my gaze unwavering. "Today is the anniversary of our son's death. The son I miscarried while you were in Tokyo, closing a deal. And I," I added, my voice dropping to a whisper, "am deathly allergic to mango."

The color drained from Jaxon's face. The doting smile vanished, replaced by a flicker of horrified recognition, of guilt. For a split second, I saw the man I used to love, the man who would have moved mountains for me.

But he was gone.

I turned and walked out of the room, leaving him with his cake, his imposter, and the ghost of our dead child. I didn't need to see his face to know the truth. He had forgotten. He had forgotten me.

A noise from downstairs woke me. I cracked my eyes open to see Jaxon sitting by my bed, his silhouette dark against the pale moonlight. He had been watching me sleep. For a terrifying moment, it felt like old times.

"Ila," he whispered, his voice thick with a counterfeit tenderness. "I'm so sorry about yesterday. I... I don't know what I was thinking. Let me make it up to you."

He offered me a glass of warm milk, just as he used to. He told me he'd arranged a private concert in the garden, a string quartet playing my favorite Debussy pieces. It was a perfect replica of a thousand other nights we'd shared.

I said nothing. I refused his touch. I let the milk grow cold.

His jaw tightened. The gentle façade cracked. "Fine," he clipped, his patience gone. "Be that way." He scooped me up into his arms, ignoring my rigid posture. "But you will come and listen to the music I arranged for you."

He carried me out to the stone terrace, the night air cold against my thin silk nightgown. I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself.

Down on the lawn, Kamila was already waiting, a theatrical smile on her face. But my eyes weren't on her. They were on the large, covered cage beside her.

Jaxon set me down in a chair, then immediately went to Kamila's side. He wrapped her in a thick, fur-lined coat, his hands lingering on her waist. "Are you warm enough, my love?" he murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple. "You and the baby need to be careful."

My love. The baby. Each word was a fresh wound.

Kamila preened under his attention. "We're fine, Jaxon. Now, are you ready for the main event?"

With a dramatic flourish, she pulled the cover off the cage.

Inside, pacing restlessly, was a full-grown Siberian tiger. Its eyes, glowing like embers in the dim light, fixed on me. A low, guttural growl rumbled in its chest.

Jaxon clapped his hands together, oblivious. "A tiger! Ila, isn't it magnificent? Kamila arranged it all. A private performance, just for you."

A performance. For a blind woman. The cruelty was breathtaking.

Kamila blew a kiss towards the tiger. "Isn't he beautiful? I call him Rajah."

The tiger ignored her. Its gaze was locked on me, its body tensed, ready to spring. This wasn't a performance.

This was an execution.

---