The gala turned out to be considerably worse than anything Silveria had managed to properly imagine during the anxious days leading up to it.
Cameras exploded into sudden motion the very moment their car pulled up outside the grand venue, reporters shouting overlapping questions before she and Damien had even fully stepped out onto the curb together. Damien's hand found the small of her back almost immediately, firm and steady, guiding her carefully through the surrounding chaos with the practiced ease of someone who had clearly done this a hundred times before, even though she knew, logically, that this was technically his first time doing it with her specifically at his side.
"Smile," he murmured close to her ear, his voice low enough that only she could properly hear it. "Don't answer anything directly, whatever they ask."
She smiled. She didn't answer anything directly. Inside, her heart slammed hard against her ribs, hard enough that she was genuinely certain the nearest microphone would somehow manage to pick up the frantic sound.
"Mrs. Crew!" a reporter shouted, pushing forward aggressively against the security rope separating them. "Is it true you stole your own sister's wedding out from directly under her?"
Silveria froze for half a second, the old, familiar shame rising fast and hot in her chest at the cruel accusation. Damien's hand tightened slightly against her back, a silent, steadying signal to simply keep walking forward, to not let the deliberately provocative question properly land the way it was clearly designed to.
"No comment," Damien said smoothly, his voice carrying just enough natural authority to end the exchange entirely, and he pulled her further into the ballroom before anyone else could manage to press the point any harder.
Inside, the assault continued in a considerably quieter, more insidious fashion. Every single eye in the enormous, glittering room seemed to turn toward them the moment they properly crossed the threshold together. Whispers rippled steadily outward like a stone dropped carelessly into still water. Silveria felt, quite acutely, like some kind of exotic animal on public display, dressed up carefully in silk and expensive jewelry and paraded slowly around a room full of strangers eager to judge every single visible detail about her.
"You're doing fine," Damien said quietly, leaning close enough that only she could properly hear him over the low murmur of the surrounding crowd.
"I genuinely don't feel fine."
"You don't have to feel it properly," he said. "You only have to look like you do, convincingly enough." He guided her smoothly toward a small cluster of businessmen waiting near the elegant bar, his expression sliding effortlessly into something practiced and cool, a careful mask she recognized now from their very first encounter in the kitchen weeks earlier. "Simply follow my lead tonight."
She did exactly that. All evening long, she followed his careful lead precisely, smiling whenever he smiled, laughing softly at jokes that weren't especially funny, answering careful questions with the rehearsed, neutral lines Felix and Damien had both drilled into her over the past several days. She met executives whose names she immediately forgot the moment they were spoken, shook hands with elegant women who studied her with barely concealed curiosity, endured no fewer than three separate conversations that circled, however carefully, back toward the ongoing scandal of the substitute wedding.
By the time they finally climbed back into the waiting car well after midnight, Silveria felt hollowed out with a particular kind of exhaustion she had never quite experienced before, a bone-deep tiredness that had remarkably little to do with any physical exertion and everything to do with holding an entire elaborate performance together for hours on end without a single genuine break.
"You did well tonight," Damien said, surprising her as the car finally pulled smoothly away from the venue.
"That's genuinely the nicest thing you've said to me since we first met."
"Don't get too used to hearing it," he said, though something almost warm colored his careful voice as he said it, and she let herself hold onto that small warmth for the entire quiet ride home, replaying it over carefully in her mind like something precious she wanted to properly keep.
"Can I ask you something?" she said, once the passing city lights had settled into a steady, hypnotic blur outside the car window.
"Go ahead," he said, watching her carefully in the dim light.
"Was tonight as genuinely exhausting for you as it clearly was for me? Or does it eventually get easier, the way Felix kept promising me it would?"
Damien was quiet for a moment, considering the question with considerably more seriousness than she'd properly expected from him. "It gets more familiar over time," he said finally. "I'm not entirely certain familiar is quite the same thing as easier, though. I've been performing that particular version of myself for a very long time now. Long enough, honestly, that I sometimes struggle properly to remember what the version underneath it actually looks like anymore."
The honesty of that particular admission caught her completely off guard, something unexpectedly vulnerable slipping through the careful mask he'd worn all evening long. "I think I got a genuine glimpse of him," she said softly. "At breakfast, the other morning. When you told me about wanting to become an architect."
Something shifted visibly in his expression at that, surprise mixed together with something considerably warmer underneath it. "That particular admission was an accident," he said. "I don't usually let that particular version of myself out so easily, not for anyone."
"Maybe you should let him out considerably more often," she said. "He seemed like someone genuinely worth properly knowing."
Damien didn't answer immediately, but something in his careful silence felt different from his usual guarded distance, softer somehow, like her words had landed somewhere he genuinely hadn't expected them to properly reach. They rode the remainder of the way home in a silence that no longer felt uncomfortable between them, both of them quietly exhausted, both of them, perhaps, a little less genuinely alone than they'd each been at the start of the long evening.
"Pascal will want a full report tomorrow," Damien said eventually, breaking the comfortable silence. "My grandfather. He wasn't able to attend tonight, but he'll have heard plenty about it regardless by morning."
"What should I expect from him?" Silveria asked, a fresh flicker of nervousness rising at the mention of a grandfather she hadn't yet properly met.
"Honestly, I'm not entirely certain," Damien admitted. "He's unpredictable. He might approve of you instantly, or he might spend considerable time testing exactly how much you can properly handle before he decides anything at all."
"That's not especially reassuring."
"I didn't say it to reassure you," he said, something almost apologetic in his tone now. "I said it because I thought you deserved honesty, rather than false comfort before you meet him properly."
"Thank you," she said quietly, meaning it. "I think I'd rather know what to properly expect."
"Then you should know this as well," he added, after a moment's consideration. "Whatever he decides about you, it won't change how I've come to see you these past few weeks. I want you to understand that clearly, before you meet him."
The unexpected admission settled warm and startling in her chest, and she found herself unable to properly respond to it beyond a small, grateful smile that she suspected said considerably more than any words could have managed in that particular moment.
• • •
Pascal Crew summoned them both to lunch two days later, at a private club downtown that Silveria had never once heard of before, the kind of place with no visible sign and a doorman who clearly recognized Damien on sight.
"He prefers meeting somewhere he controls," Damien explained during the short drive over, something wry entering his tone. "Easier to properly read people, he always says, when they're on his territory rather than their own."
"That's not especially comforting to hear right before meeting him for the first time."
"I did warn you he was unpredictable."
They found Pascal already seated at a corner table when they arrived, an elderly man with sharp, assessing eyes that reminded Silveria immediately of Damien's own careful gaze, though considerably more weathered by age. He didn't stand when they approached, simply watched them both with an expression she couldn't properly read at all.
"So this is the substitute bride," Pascal said, by way of greeting, his voice carrying more curiosity than judgment, though Silveria couldn't be entirely certain of that distinction yet.
"Grandfather," Damien said, something warning entering his tone.
"I'm simply stating the obvious, Damien," Pascal said, waving a dismissive hand. "No need to be so defensive about it already." His sharp eyes turned properly to Silveria. "Sit, girl. Let me actually look at you properly before we order anything."
Silveria sat, doing her best not to visibly fidget under his careful, assessing scrutiny. "It's genuinely a pleasure to meet you, sir."
"Is it, though?" Pascal asked, something almost amused entering his weathered expression. "I doubt very much that meeting your husband's intimidating grandfather two days after an already exhausting gala qualifies as any kind of genuine pleasure. Let's dispense with the pleasantries, shall we, and speak honestly instead."
"Grandfather," Damien said again, more sharply this time.
"Let her answer for herself, Damien," Pascal said, not looking away from Silveria. "I find I learn considerably more about a person from how they handle an honest question than from how they handle a polite one."
Silveria considered her response carefully, sensing this particular moment mattered more than the casual tone of the lunch might suggest. "You're right," she said finally. "It's not exactly a pleasure, given the circumstances. But I'd still rather be here, meeting you honestly, than hiding from the conversation entirely."
Something shifted in Pascal's expression at that, sharp assessment giving way to something that might have been genuine approval. "Good answer," he said. "The last one my grandson considered marrying would have simply agreed with whatever I said, purely to avoid conflict." His gaze flicked briefly to Damien. "This one has a spine. I approve, provisionally."
"Provisionally?" Silveria asked, unable to help herself.
"I've been wrong about people before," Pascal said simply. "I prefer to reserve full judgment until I've had proper time to be certain. But I'll say this much, girl: my grandson hasn't looked this alive in years. Whatever you're doing, keep doing it."
Silveria glanced at Damien, who was watching his grandfather with an expression caught somewhere between exasperation and genuine affection, and felt something warm settle in her chest at the unexpected, gruff approval. Whatever else the lunch held in store for them, she suspected she'd just cleared a considerably more important hurdle than any gala ever could have presented.
"Now," Pascal said, finally gesturing for a waiter, "let's actually order something to eat. I imagine you've both had quite enough interrogation for one afternoon, and I find important conversations go considerably better on a full stomach."
Damien caught Silveria's eye across the table and offered her the smallest of relieved smiles, and she found herself smiling back, something settled and grateful passing quietly between them as the waiter approached to take their order.