He Took My Eyes for Another WomanChapter 1
My husband was the one who had me taken.
Not some faceless enemy. Not a stranger lurking in the dark. It was the man who once lifted my paint-smudged fingers to his lips and told me I was the reason he could still dream. The man who said my art was his light.
Only now did I understand that the light he wanted was literal.
I drifted awake wrapped in the sting of disinfectant and the taste of metal in the back of my throat. Machines hummed softly around me, but it was the voices that cut through the haze first.
“Sir… are you certain about this? Using Mrs. Whitmore’s corneas for that patient is—”
“She gave me a child,” a man answered evenly. “She lost her vision bringing my daughter into this world. I’m restoring what she paid with. What belongs to me, I take responsibility for.”
Julian.
My husband.
A daughter.
So it wasn’t just an affair. He hadn’t simply strayed. He’d built a family with her.
My chest tightened until it hurt to breathe. Every brush stroke I had ever painted for him, every late night in the studio while he leaned against the door watching me like I was the greatest thing he’d ever known—it all curdled into something rotten. The marriage I thought I had was nothing but a mural flaking off a cracked wall.
Then another voice drifted in. Softer. Female.
“Julian… the surgeon said the transplant was successful. I should be able to see again soon.”
“You went blind after giving birth to Isolde,” he replied gently. “You’ve never even looked into her eyes. She’s your mirror.”
A pause. Then he added casually, like he was discussing grocery lists, “When Elara wakes up, I’ll explain that you’re the caretaker I hired. And Isolde will be the orphaned daughter of a deceased friend. She won’t ever notice what’s missing. In more ways than one.”
Seraphine sounded uneasy. “But if you and Elara have another baby someday… won’t Isolde end up forgotten?”
A short laugh followed, cold as ice. “Elara won’t carry again. I had that implant taken care of. Isolde is my only successor.”
That was the moment something inside me shattered completely.
He hadn’t only taken my sight.
He had decided my future, my body, my art—my entire existence—would be sacrificed so his precious first love could have everything back.
Seraphine’s tone melted into syrup. “You always make things happen, Julian.”