The car ride to the gala took seventeen minutes.
Sebastian sat beside Elise in the back seat, reviewing something on his phone. He wore a tuxedo the way other men wore armor, and his jaw was tight in a way that suggested the evening ahead felt like a battlefield.
At the fourteen-minute mark, he finally spoke.
"Listen," he said without looking up. "Tonight is important. The board will be watching. The press will be watching. I need you to smile, but not too much. Be warm. Be present. Don't talk about yourself or your family or anything that isn't approved small talk. Don't embarrass the name. Can you do that?"
Elise looked out the window at London sliding past. "I sold my mother's jewelry to pay for her surgery. I think I can manage not being embarrassing at a charity event."
Something flickered across his face. Not guilt. Not exactly. But the closest he'd come to acknowledging that she was more than a prop he'd hired.
"Good," he said, and returned to his phone.
The car pulled up to the venue. Vauxhall Gardens transformed. Lights strung between the trees like captured stars. Men in tuxedos, women in evening gowns, the kind of careful elegance that cost more than most people's annual salary.
Before they stepped out, Elise asked quietly, "Is there anything you'd like to know about me before we walk in?"
He paused. Looked at her for the first time that evening. For a moment she thought he might actually answer. Might actually ask her something real.
"No," he said.
They entered together.
The ballroom stopped moving for exactly two seconds when they appeared. Elise felt it like a physical thing, the weight of all those eyes landing on them and cataloging her, measuring her against whatever they'd expected Sebastian Harlow's wife to be.
She smiled.
Not the tight, performed smile she'd practiced in her room. A real one. The kind that came from somewhere genuine, some deep well of grace her mother had taught her before everything fell apart. She touched Sebastian's arm like they were partners instead of strangers. She tilted her head toward him like she found him interesting, like she wasn't aware of the fact that he was checking his phone every thirty seconds.
The ballroom began to move again.
They separated naturally. Sebastian moved toward his board members. Elise was drawn into conversations she didn't ask for. A woman complimented her dress and asked about the wedding. A man asked about her background and seemed disappointed when she answered honestly instead of inventing something impressive. She laughed when appropriate. She said kind things about people she'd just met. She performed the role of the new Mrs. Harlow with a precision that surprised even her.
And across the room, Sebastian watched.
She caught him doing it three times. Once while she was talking to the board chairman's wife. Once while she was accepting a glass of champagne. Once while she was laughing at something a tall man with warm eyes had said to her.
Each time, something shifted in his expression. It wasn't quite jealousy. It was closer to surprise. Like he was seeing her for the first time and couldn't quite organize what he was seeing into a category that made sense.
She was performing. She knew that. She was playing the role he'd hired her to play. But his watching made her want to perform better, to be more, to somehow make him understand that there was a real person underneath all this careful composure.
It was dangerous. She knew that too.
At ten o'clock, everything changed.
The ballroom doors opened. A woman stepped through wearing a dress the color of arterial red. She moved like she owned the room, like every eye was naturally hers to command. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders. Her smile was practiced and perfect.
And the moment Sebastian saw her, he froze.
Elise watched his entire body go rigid. His hand stopped mid-gesture in conversation with a board member. The phone he'd been checking disappeared. Every part of his attention snapped toward the woman in red like a compass needle finding north.
The woman saw him.
Her expression shifted from serene to something calculating, then settled back into serene. But Elise had seen it happen. Had seen the strategy behind it. This woman had come here knowing Sebastian would be here. This woman had planned this entrance.
Sebastian began moving toward her without saying a word to the people he'd been speaking with.
Elise watched him cross the ballroom in a straight line. Watched the way people parted for him automatically. Watched the moment he reached her and the way his whole face changed, softened, became someone she didn't recognize.
Catherine. It had to be Catherine.
The woman who still had his heart. The woman he'd married Elise to forget about and failed. The woman standing in a red dress like she owned him already.
Elise turned away before she had to watch him smile at her the way he'd smiled at her name in that lawyer's office.
She picked up a glass of champagne she didn't want and told herself very clearly: this changes nothing. This is what you signed up for. He never pretended otherwise.
But her hands were shaking slightly as she lifted the glass to her lips, and she couldn't convince herself it was true.
Because watching Sebastian Harlow forget that she existed the moment Catherine walked into a room had been far more painful than any cruelty he could have performed.
At least cruelty acknowledged your presence.
This was something else entirely.