The Stolen Cure

Thalassa POV:

Downstairs, I heard the doorbell ring, which meant the specialist had arrived. I closed my laptop and listened to the sounds of the house shifting into high gear, staff moving, voices murmuring, Cassian being helped down the stairs by his valet because he still hadn't learned to navigate the house on his own, even after eight months.

I should go down. I was his wife, after all. But I knew what would happen if I did. The specialist would look at me with that mix of curiosity and pity that people always had when they saw the mask for the first time. Cassian would tense up, embarrassed to have me there. Someone would suggest, politely, that perhaps I should wait elsewhere while they conducted the examination.

It was easier to stay here. Easier for everyone.

So I stayed in my little hidden room, surrounded by old furniture and boxes of memories that belonged to someone else, and I worked on my other secret.

Because being the Miracle Doctor wasn't the only thing I did with my free time. I was also a writer.

Lyra St. James, the name on the covers of my books, which currently occupied spots three, seven, and twelve on the New York Times bestseller list. Psychological thrillers, the sort with twists that made people stay up way too late reading and then complain about being tired at work the next day. My editor loved me because I delivered early and never caused drama. My readers loved me because I wrote books that made them feel things. My publisher loved me because I made them money.

Nobody knew who I was. My editor had never seen my face. My agent had signed me based on a manuscript I'd submitted with a note saying I valued my privacy and would only communicate via encrypted email. They'd agreed because the book was too good to pass up, and by the time it became a bestseller, I'd already established that Lyra St. James was a mystery and that was part of the appeal.

So here I was. Thalassa Miravel, invisible wife. The Miracle Doctor, savior of last resort. Lyra St. James, bestselling author. All the same person, all hidden behind a mask, all living in the same house with a man who had no idea who he'd married.

Sometimes I thought about telling him. About sitting him down and explaining everything, showing him my work, letting him see the real me. But then I remembered the way he looked at me, or rather the way he didn't look at me, and I knew it wouldn't matter. He hadn't married me because he wanted me. He'd married me because his family owed mine a debt, and I was the payment.

It was my father's fault, really. Not the debt part, but the part where he'd made Cassian's father promise to take care of me after the fire. My father had been dying, and he'd been worried about what would happen to me, scarred and alone and with no one to look out for me. So he'd called in a favor from Marcus Deveraux, an old business associate, and Marcus had offered a solution: marry his son. Cassian needed a wife to maintain the family image, and I needed protection. It was practical, businesslike and nothing to do with love.

Cassian had agreed because his father told him to, and because at the time he'd been between girlfriends and it didn't really matter who he married as long as she was quiet and stayed out of the way. I'd agreed because I had nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to.

That was five years ago. Five years of living in this house, being ignored by my husband, treated like furniture by the staff, and hiding my true self from everyone.

Five years of saving lives and writing books and building a reputation that nobody would ever connect to the masked woman in the corner.

Five years of waiting for something to change.

Downstairs, I heard raised voices. Cassian, shouting about something, probably the specialist touching him wrong or asking too many questions or existing in his general vicinity. The shouting was normal. What wasn't normal was the voice that answered him, calm and professional and female.

I crept to the top of the stairs and listened.

"The procedure is risky, Mr. Deveraux, but the success rate is extremely high. I've performed it 17 times with no failures."

My blood ran cold.

That voice. I knew that voice. I'd heard it in consultations, in conferences, in the brief period of my life when I'd moved in medical circles and thought I had a future ahead of me.

It was Dr. Elara Vance, one of the most respected ophthalmologists in the country. And she was describing my procedure. The one I'd developed. The one that was supposed to be mine.

I gripped the banister so hard my knuckles went white. How did she have my procedure? I'd never published it, never presented it, never shared it with anyone except...

Except my mentor. Dr. Aris Thorne, the man who'd taught me everything, who'd been like a father to me after my own died. I'd trusted him with my research when the fire happened, asked him to keep it safe until I was ready to come back.

And he'd given it to Elara Vance instead.

I stood there at the top of the stairs, listening to this woman explain my life's work to my husband, and I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time.

Rage. Pure, burning, righteous rage.

But underneath it, something else. A cold, clear certainty.

If Elara Vance was here, if she was going to perform my surgery on Cassian, then she was going to succeed. The procedure was perfect, I'd made sure of that. Cassian would see again. And when he did, he would finally look at me, for the first time in our marriage.

I had no idea what he would see when that happened. But for the first time in five years, I was about to find out.

I went back to my hidden room and pulled out my laptop. There were things I needed to check, people I needed to contact. If Elara Vance thought she could steal my work and get away with it, she was about to learn a very painful lesson.

The Miracle Doctor wasn't just a title. It was a warning.

Downstairs, the consultation continued. Upstairs, I started planning.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I realized that today, for the first time in a very long time, I actually felt alive.