Read Chapter 8: The Charity Gala

The gown was a cage of champagne silk, and Elise had been holding her breath for forty minutes.

She smiled at the photographer—flash, flash, flash—and let Theo's hand rest at the small of her back with practiced ease. The Palais Garnier's grand foyer swallowed them whole, all gilded arches and crystal chandeliers, a cathedral built for the worship of good causes and better optics. Charity gala for children's arts education. Perfect cause. Perfect venue. Perfect couple.

"Relax your jaw," Theo murmured against her ear, lips barely moving. To anyone watching, it was an intimate whisper. To Elise, it was direction.

She kept the smile. "I am relaxed."

"Your left eye twitches when you're lying."

"And your breath smells like the four espresso shots you had before we arrived, so we're even."

Theo laughed—genuine, surprised, and Elise hated that she'd given it to him. The sound drew eyes, drew murmurs, drew another wave of photographers angling for the candid moment. 'Theo makes Elise laugh' had trended for exactly six hours after their restaurant date. Now it was 'Theo and Elise share a private joke at the gala.' She could already see tomorrow's headlines taking shape.

She could also see Vivienne, thirty feet away beside the silent auction table, raising a single eyebrow in a question Elise couldn't answer from across the room.

The choreography was simple. Circulate, charm, be seen. Theo would deliver a short speech—Simon had written three drafts, and Theo had chosen the one that mentioned Elise by name twice, calling her "a partner in every sense of the word." She'd been given the line to approve. She had not been given a choice in it.

The gala's organizer, a silver-haired woman with the relentless energy of a terrier, appeared at Theo's elbow. "Mr. Ashford, we're ready for you in five minutes. The podium is in the Salon des Glaces."

Theo squeezed Elise's hand—a gesture that read as romantic to anyone watching, but felt like a warning to her. "I'll be quick."

He walked away with the organizer, leaving Elise alone in a sea of black-tie strangers who all pretended not to watch her. She'd been here before, in the before times, when her name alone had been enough to fill rooms and her smile had been a currency of its own. Now she was here on someone else's arm, playing a role she hadn't written.

"Darling." A kiss on both cheeks. Jean-Pierre Marchand, the film producer who'd passed on her for La Mer Blanche. He smelled of expensive cologne and older regrets. "You look radiant. That American's done wonders for you."

"I'm French," she said, keeping her smile even. "I've always been radiant."

Marchand laughed, a dry crackle. "Touché. I heard about your meeting with the La Mer Blanche team tomorrow. Brave of you to go after the role that was taken from you." He tilted his head. "Or foolish. Hard to say."

"Neither," Elise said. "I'm taking back what should have been mine."

"Mm." Marchand's eyes drifted toward the podium, where Theo was being introduced with a warmth that made Elise's skin prickle. "Your young man's quite the speaker. Very earnest. Very—" He paused, searching for the word. "American."

"He's English."

"He's a brand. Brands don't have nationalities." Marchand patted her arm, a gesture so condescending she nearly pulled away. "I do hope he knows what he's doing with you. It would be a shame to see you used twice."

He melted back into the crowd before she could respond, and Elise was left with the ugly echo of his words lodged between her ribs like a splinter.

She moved closer to the salon's entrance, just enough to hear Theo's speech through the crowd. His voice was steady, warm, the kind of voice that made people feel safe. He talked about access to art, about the way a single painting or performance could change a child's understanding of the world. He sounded like he meant it. Maybe he did.

"Thank you." Theo's voice carried through the room as he reached his conclusion. "And thank you to my partner, Elise Moreau, who taught me that the most beautiful stories are the ones we don't script."

A ripple of applause. Elise forced warmth into her face, tilting her head as if she'd been caught off guard by the compliment. The photographers loved it. She could feel their lenses like insects on her skin.

When the applause faded and the crowd dispersed toward the cocktail lounge, Elise made her way backstage toward the green room where Theo would be decompressing. She needed a moment alone with him, needed to puncture the bubble of his performance and remind him that she was not a prop in his one-man show.

The corridor was quieter, the sound of the gala muffled behind velvet curtains. She rounded a corner and stopped.

Theo stood with his back to her, phone pressed to his ear. His shoulders were drawn tight beneath his tuxedo jacket, a tension she'd learned to read in the weeks since their first staged date.

"—understand the timing's not ideal, but I thought you'd appreciate the direct approach."

A pause. He laughed, low and confiding. It was the same laugh he'd used on her father, the one that said *you can trust me*.

"I spoke to him tonight, yes. He seemed interested. Said he'd look at the script if I sent it over."

Elise's blood went cold.

"I know it's not my usual track," Theo continued, oblivious. "But if I can land the lead in Marchand's next production, that changes everything. That's the difference between a rom-com actor and someone they take seriously."

Marchand. The man who'd buried her chances at La Mer Blanche. The man who'd just called her radiant and used, in the same breath.

She must have made a sound—a breath, a shift of weight—because Theo turned. His face registered surprise, then something closer to guilt, and he said into the phone, "I'll call you back," and lowered it.

"Elise."

"Marchand produces La Mer Blanche," she said. Her voice came out flat, tamped down through sheer force of will. "The same production team I'm meeting tomorrow to fight for my role back. The role they gave to my replacement. My replacement, who they've been grooming for months while I was public enemy number one."

Theo opened his mouth. Closed it. He looked, for the first time since she'd met him, genuinely caught.

"It's not related to your project," he said carefully. "It's a different film entirely. I only mentioned it tonight because he happened to be here, and I—"

"You pitched him." Elise heard the words land like stones. "At our first high-profile event as a couple. You used this—this performance—to network behind my back."

"I didn't plan it." He stepped toward her, and she stepped back. "I saw an opportunity. That's what this arrangement is for, isn't it? Leverage."

"Not against me."

"It's not against you." And there it was, that note of reasonableness in his voice, the same tone he'd used to talk her into the restaurant, into the public displays, into the script of their entire fabricated love. "I'm trying to build a career, Elise. The same as you. If my gamble on this relationship doesn't pay off, I need something else to fall back on."

"Then you should have told me." She heard the crack in her own voice and hated it. "You should have told me we were working separate angles. That you'd be using our nights to advance yourself while I'm out here fighting to reclaim a role you knew I was up for."

Theo's jaw tightened. "I didn't know he was the producer. I saw his name on the guest list and I took a chance. That's not a betrayal. That's survival."

"And what about my survival?" Elise's voice rose, and she didn't care who heard. "What happens when Marchand tells the La Mer Blanche team that I'm a liability? That I'm attached to some ambitious actor who's only using me to climb? It doesn't matter that he's right. What matters is that it makes me look desperate. Again."

Theo's face went still. "I'm not using you."

"Then what are you doing?"

He didn't answer. The silence stretched between them, velvet and poisonous, and Elise felt something in her chest give way. She thought of her mother's earring, still lost somewhere between the lobby of Simon's office and the floorboards of her memory. She thought of her father's warning—*he's hiding something*—and pushed it away.

"I need to go," she said.

"Elise—"

"Tomorrow I have a meeting to win back my career," she said. "Tonight, I have to go smile at donors for another hour and pretend I'm the happiest woman in Paris. So if you'll excuse me, I need to go be your girlfriend."

She turned and walked back toward the light, toward the applause and the cameras and the beautiful lie she was being paid to tell. Behind her, Theo said nothing.

That was the worst part.

He said nothing at all.

---

The gala dragged for another two hours. Elise smiled until her cheeks ached. She accepted compliments about Theo, about her dress, about the way she seemed so much happier now. She drank sparkling water and pretended it was champagne.

When the limousine finally pulled up outside her flat, Theo reached for her hand. She let him take it—some muscle memory of the performance—then pulled away.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said, without meeting his eyes. "For the meeting. I'll be there at nine."

"Elise." His voice was low, almost gentle. "What happened tonight—I should have told you before I spoke to him. I'm sorry."

She finally looked at him. In the dim light of the car, his face was harder to read, all shadows and controlled angles. She could see the actor in him, the discipline, the careful containment. She wondered if anything he did was uncalculated.

"Theo," she said quietly. "I had dinner with my father and lied to his face about us being in love. I did that because I believed we were working toward the same thing. I gave you something real." She swallowed. "And you gave me a business card you were too ashamed to hand to Marchand yourself."

The silence was his answer.

Elise opened the door and stepped out into the cold Paris night.

The air smelled like rain and car exhaust, and she stood on the pavement for a long moment, watching the limousine's taillights disappear around the corner. Then she reached into her clutch and pulled out her phone.

No missed calls. No messages from Marcus about the photos he was threatening to release. No word from her mother, who still didn't know about this handsome Englishman Elise had apparently fallen for.

She had one day before the meeting of her life. One day to figure out whether Theo was her partner or her saboteur. One day to decide how much of herself she was willing to give to get what she wanted back.

The rain started, soft and persistent, and Elise felt the evening's careful lacquer begin to wash away.

Tomorrow, she would have to be flawless.

Tonight, she was just tired.