The silence between Damian and me in the days following Lena's visit wasn't empty; it was a loaded thing, a minefield of unasked questions and accusations we'd left hanging in the foyer. He moved through the mansion like a silent storm cloud, his presence a pressure change that made the staff flinch and me brace. He was waiting—for what, I wasn't sure. An apology? Compliance? A sign that his fortress still held.
The invitation arrived not as a request, but as a verdict.
Elara's face was a study in practiced neutrality as she presented the silver tray. "For you, Mrs. Hart."
The card was thick enough to be a weapon, the Hart Memorial Hospital crest gleaming under the chandelier's light. My name, *Aria Hart*, was engraved beside his in flawless script. This Friday. Black tie.
A cold dread pooled in my stomach. A gala. A room full of sharks in silk and satin, all of whom knew a version of me I had forgotten. A performance I hadn't rehearsed.
I found him in his study, a fortress within the fortress. He stood at the window, a glass of whiskey untouched in his hand, his reflection a dark silhouette against the city's indifferent glitter.
"Damian."
He didn't turn. "You've seen it."
"I can't go."
"You will." The words were flat, absolute. "It is not a choice. Your absence would be a headline. 'Reclusive Hart Wife Still Unwell.' 'Strain in Billionaire Marriage Rumored.' It would hurt the foundation. It would be an opening for every vulture circling us." He finally turned, his eyes meeting mine in the glass. "Including Lena."
"So I'm to be your shield," I said, the bitterness sharp on my tongue. "Arm candy with amnesia. A living, breathing PR statement."
He set the glass down with a soft, definitive click and turned fully. "You are to be my wife. In public, we present a united front. We are strong. We are unbreakable. That image is a wall. And tonight, you will help me hold it."
"What if the wall cracks?" My voice trembled despite my resolve. "What if I have a panic attack in the middle of five hundred people? What if I call someone by the wrong name? What if I look at you and…" I swallowed the terrifying thought. "What if I don't know who you are?"
Something flickered in his eyes—a crack in the granite. He crossed the room until he was close enough that I could see the weary lines at their corners, smell the faint, clean scent of his soap. He didn't touch me.
"You will know me," he said, his voice low and fierce, a vow whispered in a chapel of his own making. "Some part of you, deeper than memory, has always known me. Trust that."
His certainty was a lifeline and a chain.
The night arrived with the inevitability of a tide. A team of strangers transformed me in my room, their hands efficient, their compliments hollow. They sculpted my hair, painted my face, fastened me into a gown of liquid midnight that felt more like a uniform than a dress. The woman in the mirror was a Hart. Impeccable. Impenetrable. A stranger.
Damian waited at the foot of the stairs. In his tuxedo, he was a carving of power and severe elegance. His gaze as I descended was an appraisal—of an asset, a weapon being polished for deployment. He offered his arm.
"You look appropriate," he said.
The word was a deliberate pinprick. Not beautiful. Not his. *Appropriate.*
The Grand Laurent's ballroom was a sensory assault. A cacophony of clinking crystal, murmured wealth, and perfume so thick it was hard to breathe. A sea of faces turned as one the moment we stepped through the doors. The air itself seemed to contract, then swell with the heat of a thousand curious, calculating stares.
Damian's hand was a brand on the small of my back, guiding, claiming, warning.
"Damian! A sight for sore eyes!" A man with a laugh like grinding gravel engulfed Damian in a backslap. "And Aria! Radiant, as always. Fully mended, we hope?"
The script Elara had drilled into me surfaced automatically. "Thank you. It's a journey, but I'm getting there."
"Can't remember a thing, eh?" the man's wife chirped, her eyes gleaming with ghoulish fascination. "What a peculiar blessing."
"A blessing," I repeated, my smile feeling carved from wood.
"Or a curse." The voice was a silken snake sliding through the chatter.
Lena Moore materialized from the crowd like a phantom in a sheath of venom-red silk. Her smile was a surgical incision. "To lose the very years that made you… you. It must be like trying to read a book with the most important chapters ripped out." Her icy eyes held mine, missing nothing—the slight tremor in my hand, the way I leaned into Damian's solidity. "So disorienting. For everyone."
Damian's arm became an iron bar across my back. "Lena. Your concern is as noted as it is unnecessary. Excuse us."
He steered me away, his body a shield, his movements taut with a violence barely leashed.
The whispers began as we moved, a hissing undercurrent beneath the music.
*"...does she even know where she is?"*
*"...heard they had separate rooms before the accident..."*
*"...look at him, he's practically holding her up. Like a doll..."*
*"...pity. She used to have such fire..."*
Each murmur was a tiny shiv. The ballroom walls seemed to lean in. The diamonds at my throat felt like a choke chain. Damian's grip was the only thing tethering me to the earth, and yet it was also the weight threatening to pull me under.
He guided me to a secluded alcove thick with the scent of lilies. "Breathe," he commanded, his voice a low rumble against my ear. His body blocked the room, creating a pocket of relative silence. "Look at me. Only me."
I fixed my eyes on his face—the sharp blade of his nose, the shadowed intensity of his gaze. In this moment of unraveling, he was the only fixed point.
"I need to leave," I gasped.
"Soon. We exit on our terms. Calmly. Together." His thumb stroked a hidden spot on my spine, a gesture that felt both calculated and instinctively soothing. "One more dance. For the cameras."
The orchestra slid into a slow, aching waltz. He led me onto the floor, his hand firm on mine, his other a steady pressure on my back. I was a marionette, my steps mechanical, my body rigid.
"You are doing exactly what is required," he murmured, his lips close to my temple. To the room, it would look like a lover's whisper.
"They see a broken thing," I whispered back, the humiliation a hot coal in my chest.
"Let them see what they want. Perception is a currency. Tonight, we dictate the exchange rate."
He spun me, a graceful, controlling turn. Over his shoulder, through the shimmering crowd, I saw Lena. She stood by the champagne fountain, surrounded by admirers, her glass raised not in toast, but in a slow, deliberate, mocking salute aimed directly at me.
And in that instant, the fog of panic parted.
This wasn't a party. It was a theatre of war. The ballroom was a battlefield. Damian and I, however fraught our alliance, were one side. Lena and the whispering, watching crowd were the other. The territory being contested was my past, my sanity, my very identity.
The music faded. Damian held me for a beat longer than necessary, his body sheltering mine from the applause. When he released me, my legs were weak, but my mind was clear, sharpened by a new and icy resolve.
As we moved toward the exit, a united front for the flashing cameras and avid eyes, I leaned into him, my public smile perfectly intact.
"I understand the game now," I said, my voice low and steady in his ear. "But the next time we take the stage, I want to know the whole script."
He glanced down, a flicker of surprise—and something that might have been the faintest ghost of respect—in his eyes.
He gave a single, almost imperceptible nod.
We left the gilded cage of the ballroom, the whispers cresting behind us like a wave. But the silence of the town car was different. It wasn't the quiet of defeat.
It was the quiet before a counterattack.
Lena had shown me the house of mirrors. Damian had shown me how to navigate it without shattering.
Now, it was time to learn who had built it in the first place. And for that, I would need more than a script. I would need the truth.