From the day I was born, Robert forced me to keep bandages wrapped around my face and forbade me, with absolute severity, from ever taking them off. Only after my wedding, on my wedding night, did I finally find the courage to remove those strips of cloth. And when I looked into the mirror, what I saw made my knees give way beneath me…
I had been born into extraordinary wealth. Our family lived in an enormous mansion, surrounded by dozens of servants who hurried to satisfy every request. Private bodyguards watched over us, expensive cars waited in the driveway, and luxury filled every corner of our lives—the kind of life most people could only imagine.
From the outside, it must have seemed as if I were one of the luckiest children in the world. But the truth was nothing like that. From my very first breath, my life felt less like a blessing and more like a prison sentence.
On the day I came into the world, Robert gave a strange and terrifying order.
“Cover her face at once. No one is allowed to see it.”
The doctors exchanged stunned looks. Still, not one of them dared to challenge one of the most powerful billionaires in America.
From that moment on, my face was always hidden beneath white bandages. Only tiny openings were left around my eyes, nose, and mouth so I could see, breathe, and eat.
When I grew old enough to understand that other children did not live this way, I once asked Robert the question that had been haunting me.
“Why can’t I take the bandages off?”
He let out a heavy sigh and turned his gaze away from me.
“Because you were born with a terrible deformity,” he said. “If people saw your face, they would be frightened. I am only trying to protect you.”
His words shattered me, and I began to cry. Robert merely placed a hand on my head and stroked my hair as if that could soften the cruelty of what he had said.
“One day,” he murmured, “you will understand that I did the right thing.”
And because I was a child, I believed him.
I was not allowed to leave the estate while I was growing up. I had almost no friends at all. The only people who came to see me were tutors, governesses, and instructors hired by Robert. They taught me how to cook, how to manage a household, how to sit properly at a dinner table, and how to speak respectfully to Ethan, the man who would one day become my husband.
Every day, they repeated the same lessons until they sank into me like commands.
“A woman must know how to be a good wife.”
“Her husband must always come first.”
“Your most important duty is to build a strong family.”