"Nobody expects you to pretend when you think nobody is looking." Elle's voice was gentle as she recalled the night before while standing in the kitchen doorway like she had the night before.
Damon was too engrossed in his coffee to look up.
"There's nothing to talk about."
"You were on the floor holding a broken frame and shaking."
"And you were where you weren't supposed to be."
Damon's remark stung and made her flinch.
"So what? I'm just a contract, right? I don't get to care?"
With the piercing, frosty gaze of a stormy sky, Damon finally turned his look to her. "Exactly."
With that, he walked out, leaving coffee's fragrance mingling with raw wounds, fresh yet unhealed.
Hours Later. At the Penthouse Closet.
Elle is standing in the wardrobe room as she notices govers that are not only expensive but also unfamiliar and foreign to her.
With her mouth opened in disbelief, she couldn't fathom it got even better, with Lydia, Damon's assistant, strutting in holding heeled covers of sacred importance.
"You'll be wearing this for the gala. Hair up. Minimal jewelry. We want "elegance with restraint". A defiant, yet incredulous, 'yeah right, dude' escaped from the part of Elle that yearned to be responsible for her life.
Lydia showed no discernible reaction with her unpadded eyes.
"Do I look elegant to you?" I used to wear second-hand jeans and sneakers with holes. "Does that sound like I'm trying to be classy?"
"Do you even blink?"
"You scream headline. Not that it's important, but that's what matters tonight."
Later That Night, At the Charity Gala
Bright flashes of light. Golden chandeliers. Laughter that sounded so awkward.
Elle and Damon stood on the red carpet, and Damon had his hand placed on her back seductively.
"Smile," he said quietly but firmly. "Remember, the cameras love happy couples, and they make the best headlines." She turned and smiled, but not for the cameras. This time, she was warming up to his game.
Reporter: "Mr. Shaw, your wife is beautiful. How did you meet?"
Damon: "Wrong delivery. Right time."
Elle: "Every accident is an accident until it is not."
With the laughter and cameras clicking, the illusion was working…until it didn't.
Inside the Ballroom
Damon was off in the corner of the room in a business huddle with two of the board members, and Elle was heading to the hors d'oeuvres.
She hadn't had the chance to grab a mini quiche when a hand behind her rang out over the noise.
"Oh, how the tables have turned; you must be the new model."
Elle turned.
Tall. Sleek. Ice-blonde hair. Eyes that could cut steel.
Veronica Vale.
Damon's ex-fiancée, "Veronica." Elle said without a quiji.
"Sweetheart, this little PR game, it will not go far."
Elle raised an eyebrow in amusement. "You really took time out of your Botox-busy schedule for that?"
A smile slowly crept onto Veronica's face.
"It's clear to see you don't belong to his elite class. He's struggling with damage control."
"You're the buffer, the puppet, the intermission before he gets serious again." Elle took a step. "I know I'm not his type. However, currently, I'm his wife. And that's the only label this world cares about."
Veronica leaned closer as she spoke, not hiding the malice.
"Sweetheart, your past is something to be worried about, though, and that sentiment on your way is not a good thing."
The Penthouse, Several Hours Later
Damon completed his retreat. Elle rid herself of her heels and walked to her room barefoot, still warmed by the confrontation.
The gala seemed to be over. Something to keep in mind is that Elle and Damon seemed to be the only two contacts in the world to the unfinished databanks on his side of town.
This was the best part of the stay. Elle was on her cot, and in her hand was the phone. She wondered if she was featured on the front.
Then she notices it.
Every tabloid in the world was sizzling.
BREAKING NEWS: A PHOTOGRAPH OF DAMON SHAW'S NEW WIFE KISSING A MYSTERIOUS MALE HAS EMERGED. The believed recent photo was identified by many as her ex-boyfriend, Silas Monroe. The question that remains: has Elle Monroe not moved on from her previous life?
Now is the time to reflect upon the denial and upon the time when she thought she was the happiest. Elle was sitting on her bed. A photo, taken years ago, that no one thought anything of. But this photo is what's worth the silence, as it has her, against all odds, not forgotten. Silas,her exboyfriend. The one who, before everything, entered a contract with sunlight cascading over her hair and a timestamp that was taken down.
The part was when she thought gleefully that they, Damon and herself, were the only two contacts in the world to the unfinished databanks on his side of town.
Damon, now she knew, was not.
From the databanks on this side of the town. So, she was in his arms. A husband, Silas, the one who remembers him marrying gracefully. A body double of herself upon the bed. The cot, the uncredited contract, with all the oldness that is fogged with irreplaceable memories.
There's this, what "his" and "hers" meant before everything.
Her device rang with a text message from a number she didn't know.
"I'll make sure he knows, or I'll make sure he knows differently." – V.
Her stomach felt as if it had dropped. Someone was walking down the hallway, and the sounds were loud and purposeful.
Suddenly, there was a loud knock at the door.
The voice of Damon was eerily quiet. "Elle. I want you to unlock this door."
She felt the fresh weight of the door and was astonished how much it was shaking.
But in this moment… she felt ridiculed.
It was as if the truth of the marriage was there with them, waiting to take a look at them both… and she realized her life story was there with her too.
And it was ready to destroy the whole thing.