Cherished by My Cripple Husband

CLARA 

"If you don’t put on that dress, Clara, I will make sure you never walk out of this basement alive."

My mother’s voice poured like ice water down my spine. She didn't call me her daughter; she hadn't used that word for me in eighteen years. To Eleanor Montgomery, I was a ghost, a humiliating secret, a curse that had ruined her perfect life the moment I took my first breath.

I huddled on the cold concrete floor of the storage cellar, rubbing my bruised wrists. I could feel tears welling in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.

"Please, Mother," I whispered, my voice raw. "Evelyn is the one engaged to him. I’m not even allowed to be seen in public. How can you ask me to do this?"

A sharp slap cracked across my face. My head snapped to the side, my cheek burning with a familiar, blistering heat.

"Keep her name out of your mouth," my father, Richard Montgomery, barked from the doorway. He stepped into the dim light, his handsome face twisted in utter disgust. "Evelyn is fragile. Do you really expect our precious gem to marry a crippled monster? Gabriel Vance would break her in half."

"So you want him to break me instead?" Tears burned behind my eyelids, but I forced them back. I refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

"You're worthless anyway," my mother sneered. She tossed a shimmering white wedding gown onto the dusty floor at my feet. "Your sister has a bright future. She is destined for greatness. You? You are just a spare pair of organs we kept around in case Evelyn ever needed a donor. Today, you finally make yourself useful."

They were forcing me to be a substitute bride.

Everyone in the city knew the name Gabriel Vance. He was a giant of the financial world, a ruthless billionaire whose corporate takeovers left wealthy families bankrupt overnight. 

But two years ago, a horrific car crash had left him paralyzed from the waist down. Since then, he had become a recluse—a tyrant ruling from his dark mansion on the hill. 

Rumors whispered that he bled his rivals dry, tortured his staff, and ruined anyone who dared to look at him with pity.

When the Montgomery empire began to collapse three months ago, my father begged for a bailout. Gabriel agreed on one condition: a bride from the Montgomery bloodline to seal the deal. Eagerly, my parents had offered Evelyn, pitching her as the perfect high-society wife.

That was until yesterday, when a rumor leaked from the Vance estate. Gabriel’s previous three fiancées had all vanished from public view, supposedly sent away in pieces after upsetting him.

Evelyn had thrown a hysterical tantrum, screaming that she would rather die than spend her youth nursing a bitter, paralyzed beast. And so, my parents turned their eyes to the basement. To me. The hated twin. The invisible sister.

"Put it on," my father commanded. He reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a syringe. "Or I will inject you with enough drugs to carry you down the aisle as a corpse. The Vances just need a girl in a white dress to sign the papers. They won't care if you're awake."

I stared at the gleaming needle, my heart pounding against my ribs. The tension in the cellar was thick enough to choke on. I knew he wasn't bluffing. He had locked me away for days without food before. He had wiped my name from the family records. To him, my life had zero value.

"I'll put it on," I choked out, dropping my gaze to the floor.

"Good." My mother checked her diamond watch. "You have ten minutes. If you try to run, the guards outside will break your legs. And believe me, Gabriel Vance won't mind if his bride matches his wheelchair."

The door slammed shut, plunging me into the dark once more.

My hands shook violently as I unzipped the silk gown. It was made to fit Evelyn, smelling faintly of her signature French perfume. When I pulled the lace over my bruised shoulders, it hung loosely around my waist—a harsh reminder of how starved I was compared to my pampered twin.

Could I escape? I glanced at the cellar window, barred with thick iron. There was no way out. I was being delivered into the jaws of a lion to save the sister who had spent her entire life tormenting me.

Ten minutes later, the door unlocked. My mother marched in, dropped a lace veil over my head, and pinned it so tightly it pulled at my scalp. The thick fabric completely hid my face, covering the dark bruise blooming on my cheek.

"Not a word," she hissed, her nails digging into my upper arm as she dragged me up the stairs. "You walk down that aisle, you sign the certificate, and you go to his estate. If you reveal who you are before the marriage contract is officially filed, I will find you, Clara. And I will make you regret ever being born."

I was shoved into the back of a black limousine. The drive through the city felt like a march to my death. Rain lashed against the tinted glass, blurring the neon lights outside. Every red traffic light felt like a ticking clock.

When the car finally stopped, high-end classical music drifted out from the grand church, mixing with the low murmurs of hundreds of elite guests.

My father grabbed my elbow, his grip painfully tight. "Keep your head down and walk, girl. Don't ruin this."

I was led down the long aisle. Through the hazy veil, I could feel the weight of a hundred stares. Cruel whispers echoed off the high marble ceiling.

 *"Look at her... poor girl, marrying that monster..."*

 *"I heard Gabriel Vance destroyed his last assistant just for looking at his legs."*

 *"The Montgomerys are brave, selling their golden daughter to a beast."*

They thought I was Evelyn. They felt pity for the golden child, completely unaware that the girl walking toward the altar was the unwanted shadow.

At the front of the altar sat a massive, custom wheelchair.

The man sitting in it was built like a fortress. Even confined to a chair, Gabriel Vance radiated a dangerous authority. He wore a dark charcoal suit, his broad shoulders bursting through the fabric. His jawline was sharp enough to cut glass, but the left side of his throat bore a faint scar sliding beneath his collar.

As I reached the foot of the altar, my father shoved me into position before backing away frantically, desperate to distance himself from the man in the chair. 

I stood there, trembling beneath the lace, my heart hammering so hard I thought it would shatter my ribs.

Gabriel didn't look at the priest. He didn't look at the crowd. His icy gaze locked directly onto me.

Slowly, he raised a hand. He reached out, his long fingers catching the edge of my veil.

"Wait—" I gasped in a panicked whisper.

Before I could pull away, Gabriel yanked the veil completely off my head. The church lights flooded my face, exposing my trembling lips and the bruise on my cheek to the entire crowd.

Gasps echoed through the room.

Gabriel leaned forward in his wheelchair. He didn't see Evelyn’s flawless beauty. He saw me. His eyes narrowed, cold and sharp.

"You're not Evelyn." His voice ripped through the quiet church—deep, rough, and terrifyingly calm.

The air in the room instantly turned to ice. In the front row, my parents froze, their faces draining of color.

Gabriel lowered his hand, his eyes burning into mine with an intensity that stole the air from my lungs.

"Who the hell are you?"