I Married A Reclusive Billionaire To Save My Granddaughter’s Life. He Always Wears Black Gloves And Never Lets Me Touch Him. Today I Found Out The Horrifying Truth Underneath. What Do I Do Now?

The Sister’s Accusation

The second month, things shifted slightly. I started spending time in the library reading while Robert worked in his study. Occasionally he’d come down for a book, and we’d exchange a few words.

“You like mysteries,” he observed one evening, seeing my stack of detective novels.

“I like solving puzzles.”

“So do I.” He pulled a book from the shelf. “Have you read this one?”

“It was an old Agatha Christie. A dozen times.”

“Then we have something in common.”

He started leaving books on my sitting room table. First editions, rare copies, books I’d mentioned wanting to read. I never saw him do it, but I knew it was him.

I also noticed other things. He never touched anything with his bare hands. Door knobs, phones, even his coffee cup—he handled with gloves. At meals, he ate carefully, as if every movement caused pain.

And sometimes, late at night, I heard him pacing in his study above me. “Helen,” I asked one morning while she was cleaning my room, “what happened to him?”

She stopped dusting. “I’ve worked here 15 years. In all that time, Mr. Blackwell has never told me, and I’ve never asked. But you know, I suspect… but it’s not my story to tell, Mrs. Sullivan.”

The third month, Robert’s sister Diane made her move. She arrived unannounced one Tuesday afternoon, barging past Helen into the foyer where I was arranging flowers.,

“So you’re the nurse he hired to play wife?” she sneered.

Diane was my age, elegant and cold. “Did he tell you about the malpractice?”

My stomach dropped, but I kept my face neutral. “I think you should leave.”

“25 years ago, my brother was a brilliant surgeon. Then a patient died on his table. A routine surgery that went wrong. The family sued. Robert was cleared legally, but he couldn’t forgive himself.”

She stepped closer. “He destroyed his own hands because of it. Deliberately crushed them until the bones shattered. Said he didn’t deserve to heal anyone.”

“Get out.” Robert’s voice came from the stairs. I’d never heard him so angry.

“It’s true isn’t it, Bobby? You’re too damaged to be trusted with our father’s money. That’s why you hide up here. That’s why you can’t even touch another human being without gloves.”

Diane’s smile was vicious. “This marriage is a sham, and I’ll prove it. Helen, show my sister out.”

After Diane left, Robert stood in the foyer, his face pale. I waited for him to say something, but he just walked back upstairs.

The Truth Beneath the Gloves

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing the pain in his eyes, the way he looked when Diane threw his past at him. Around midnight, I heard a crash from above.

I should have stayed in my room. That was the arrangement. But I’d been a nurse too long to ignore someone in distress.

His study door was ajar. Inside, Robert sat on the floor amid broken glass from a fallen lamp. He was trying to pick up the pieces, but his hands were shaking, and he’d removed the gloves.

I saw why he always wore them. His hands were a mess of scars and misshapen bones. The fingers bent at wrong angles, the knuckles swollen and twisted. He’d destroyed them systematically, just as Diane said.

“Don’t,” he said without looking up. “Please don’t look at me.”

I knelt beside him. “Let me help.”

“I don’t need your pity.”

“Good, because I’m not offering it.” I carefully took the glass from his damaged hands. “But I am offering help. That’s what I do.”,

He finally looked at me, and I saw tears in his eyes. “She was 19. Sarah Mitchell. She came in for an appendectomy. Routine. I’d done hundreds, but something went wrong, and I couldn’t stop the bleeding. I couldn’t save her.”

His voice broke. “Her mother screamed at me that I’d killed her baby. She was right.”

“That’s not how malpractice works. Complications happen.”

“Not to me. I was supposed to be the best. I was arrogant, Margaret. I thought I was God, and a girl died because of it.”

“So you punished yourself.” I looked at his hands. “How long ago did you do this?”

“6 months after the lawsuit ended. I was drunk. I used a hammer.” He laughed bitterly. “Ironic, isn’t it? I saved lives with these hands, so I destroyed them.”

“The doctors said they could repair some of the damage, but I refused. I deserved this.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard a lot of stupid things in 40 years of nursing.”

He blinked at me. “You made a mistake. A tragic one. But you didn’t kill that girl. Complications did. And you’ve been punishing yourself for 25 years.”

I stood up, holding out my hand. “Get up.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. Take my hand.”

He stared at my outstretched hand like it was a foreign object. Then slowly, he reached up with those damaged hands and took it. His grip was weak, the bones grinding together in a way that had to be agonizing. But he held on, and I pulled him up.

“Tomorrow, we’re calling a specialist,” I said. “You’re going to get those hands treated properly. Physical therapy, pain management, whatever it takes.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because I’m your wife, you idiot. Even if it’s just on paper.”

I met his eyes, and because everyone deserves a chance to heal, something changed between us that night.