I Smiled On the Operating Table

When my best friend, Sienna Cross, found out I was married to a millionaire genius designer, she decided my life should belong to her.

She wanted my face, my name, and my spot beside him.

I was shaking when she strapped me to the operating table.

Sienna smiled, thinking I was terrified.

In truth, I was just trying to hold back my laughter.

After all, she wasn't the only one anticipating this day. I was even more excited for it than she was.

The Face I Let Her Steal

As I lay on the operating table, I sobbed until I could hardly breathe. "Sienna, please... don't do this. I'm begging you. I can't lose Adrian."

I had always been terrified of being in pain, but what frightened me more was the thought that she might change her mind halfway through.

Sienna lifted my chin with a gloved hand, the back of it cold against my cheek. "I've wanted this face for a long time."

A strange, feverish light flickered in her eyes.

"Sienna, Adrian will lose his mind without me. Please... just let me go." My tears rolled down my face and fell onto her hand.

She leaned closer and slowly licked them away. "Weren't we best friends, Leola? You always gave me everything. Now, I'm only asking for your face... and Adrian."

Her lips curved into a smile. "You should be grateful. You would've been dead long ago if my face hadn't been ruined so suddenly."

I looked at the madness in her eyes and listened to her speak of Adrian as if he were some flawless prize.

I nearly started giggling.

'Perfect? Is she seriously calling him perfect? A violent drunk of a man who breaks me down day by day before waking up with his lips dripping with insincere apologies? Fine. If that is the perfection she wants, then she can have him.'

Sienna glanced aside.

Chester Middleton, who had been waiting nearby, stepped forward and placed the anesthesia mask over my mouth and nose.

The drug robbed me of my senses almost at once.

Sienna swiftly flitted out of the room, already lost in the future she thought she had stolen. I finally released the breath I had been holding and smiled. "Chester, let's begin."

...

When I married Adrian Shaw, everyone called him a washed-up designer who had used up all his talent.

Back in school, one of my professors often spoke of him with genuine regret, praising the brilliance of his early work as if the world had lost something precious.

I became obsessed with those designs.

Then, I met him, completely by chance.

And yes, I fell for his face.

After that, I chased him with everything I had until he finally admitted I was his girlfriend.

I had been foolishly convinced that he was my happily ever after, even when he whispered another woman's name—Wendy Olson—in his sleep.

Even my professor told me I had married above my station.

Our families came