A/N: I'm not too sure if I'll be able to update next weekend because my schedule is now full of uni work. I'll try my absolute best to post next weekend! Enjoy this week's updates. ☺️

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Sahara has draped a coat over herself. It's a little cold out anyways because it's the beginning of November.

Sebastian opens the back passenger side door for Sahara as she walks towards the Rolls Royce Phantom. She had to stop walking when Sebastian opened the door as the handle of the door was on the opposite end of the door unlike most normal cars and she became genuinely confused.

Sebastian let out a small smile at her bemused look. He bows slightly, "I hope you enjoy today's event, Madam."

"Thank you, you to–" Sahara has a bad habit of saying you too when someone greets her with such things, even if it doesn't make sense. She smacks her forehead, "I mean, ugh, I'm sorry. I'm so embarrassing."

Sebastian quietly laughs, Sahara thought how he reminded her so much of a father figure in this short period of time she's known him.

There is already a driver sitting in the driver's seat, which means Damian and Sahara are going to have to sit beside each other in an awkward atmosphere.

Sahara has loosely draped her black chiffon scarf around her head because she couldn't find her hijab pins. But she made sure every piece of her hair was out of view.

She takes a seat in the car and Sebastian helps her tuck in the trail of her dress inside the car. She waves at Sebastian before he closes the door, "Bye! Enjoy the rest of you night!"

He bows and closes the door.

She looks to face Damian, then scans the rest of the car and her smile disappears, "Where's Anastasia and Jennifer?"

"Anastasia and Jennifer took a separate car." Damian says without looking up.

"Oh" was all Sahara managed to say.

The atmosphere became thick with awkwardness so she decides to say something but she's horrible at conversation so she makes it extra awkward.

She turns to look at him, while he's busy on his phone. "Hi!" The moment the word slips out of her mouth, she smacks her cheek and quietly says to herself, "you idiot, you just want to ruin your day with your own words tonight."

Damian looks at her and raises a brow and then bursts into laughter while shaking his head.

Sahara looks at him in amusement, she's never heard or seen him laugh. It was almost a breathtaking experience because his usual gruff look on his face completely disappeared, filling his face with so much light.

She smiles at his charming laugh and also because she's proud of herself for unintentionally making him laugh.

Sahara feeling a tad bit embarrassed, says, "I'm sorry, it's just too quiet, I didn't know what to–"

Damian notices a hair peaking out so he reaches out to tuck it back in her scarf. "Ty otlichno viglyadish (Russian: You look great..."

Sahara freezes at his sudden affection, but then a small smile starts playing on her lips, "I totally wasn't expecting that, thank you. And vi krasivi (Russian: You're handsome/You look handsome)"

Damian's face of shock makes Sahara tip her head back as she bursts out laughing. "You really didn't expect me to understand!"

"How did you–"

"Anastasia taught me a few sentences in Russian while we were getting ready. I'm multilingual, believe it or not. I'm already fluent in four languages, it's not hard for me to catch up on new languages." Sahara says pretty proud of herself.

She's multilingual mostly because Urdu and Bangla were her main languages growing up. Then she learned English and French in school, both being the official languages in Canada.

Damian genuinely smiles, "You're full of surprises, woman."

The rest of the car ride Sahara talked about how she's multilingual, why she chose to study abroad, etcetera. They mostly talked about her and he stayed quiet and listened, occasionally making a comment here and there. For the first time in their months of marriage, they were talking to each other like actual human beings.

• • •

"You cannot make me walk through all those people." Sahara looks through the window at the red carpet leading to the entrance, but not only that, the surrounding of the carpet is filled with paparazzi.

"Well, it's not like you're given choice." Damian leaves the car and makes his way around to Sahara's door and opens it. "Give me your hand."

Sahara hesitates for a moment but finally reaches her hand out. He helps her off the car and wraps her arms around his, "Just smile and look like you're in love with me."

Sahara looks at him with confusion and he whispers, "They think I married you because of love so act the part."

Sahara puts up a weak smile on her face but the intensity of the crowd starts giving her anxiety. The crowd makes the entrance look like miles away.

The paps bombard her with questions and pictures the moment her feet touch the red carpet, she can barely see where she's going with the amount of flash from the cameras.

"Mrs. Vasiliev, how did you make Britain's notorious playboy fall for you?"

"How is that someone like you is with someone like him?"

"Miss, do you really love him or are you in it for the money?"

"Are you in any way associated with an Islamic Terror group?"

"Ma'am, how can a Muslim like you marry him?"

The questions makes Sahara sick to her stomach, she literally feels like as if she's going to throw up. Her arm tightens around Damian's as she also puts her other hand on top of his.

Damian looks down on her to see her small she's become, not physically, but she looks as if disappearing from cowering beside him. She looks up at him and whispers in a quiet and fragile voice, "Please make it stop, please."

Damian puts up a hand, gesturing for all the photographers, paparazzi, and the crowd of fans to stop. Immediately, everything stops in its place as if he pressed pause on a tv. It became pin drop silent.

"My wife is in great discomfort from the impolite and discourteous questions and comments." He takes her hand in his, puts it up to his lips, and softly kisses the back of her hand, all while not taking his eyes off of her. The fans around them couldn't help but erupt into a loud awe.

Sahara's discomfort turns into shock once more by Damian's softer side. In a stern voice, he says, "It'll be in all of your best interest to not pester my wife any further because the consequences will be severe for every single person here." He looks around to make sure he has everyone's attention.

Almost everyone virtually nods their head in understanding, then everything goes back to its normal way. Damian, still holding Sahara's hand, guides her inside.

The whole way in, Sahara couldn't help but stare at Damian. His jaw clenched, making the edges sharp enough to cut. His eyes shining like icy glass. She looks at the tattoos starting at his neck, she hasn't wondered about them until now. The tattoos snaking down to– lord knows where it ends and deep down inside [maybe not that deep down], Sahara wants to find the end to those tattoos.

Astagfirullah, what am I thinking? She snaps back to reality.

Damian lets go of her hand abruptly, "You're always trying to create a scene, I can't take you anywhere without causing a scene."

She knew, every single time, that Kind-Hearted-Damian only lasts for five minutes at most.

She lets out a sigh, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make things complicated but I was suffocating out there."

Damian scoffs, "You need to learn to deal–"

Sahara takes his hand and gives it a soft squeeze, "I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I really thought I was going to die out there. If you hadn't stopped them, I might've passed out from my severe anxiety."

A part of Damian didn't want Sahara to let go of his hand. Her hands felt like silk against his rough skin. He looks up from their hands to look at her as she's smiling at him, she's always trying to make good things out of bad situations. Every time she smiles, all he wants to do is hold her in his arms and kiss her. Fuck, shut the bloody-hell up.

"Damian! Mate, I haven't seen you in almost a year!" They're interrupted by a guy who Sahara describes as a "man straight out of s Bollywood movie".

The anonymous man's smile is bright and contagious, making Sahara smile at him. The fact that he's handsome, doesn't hurt either.

"And you must be the beautiful Mrs. Sahara Vasiliev." He says, with a huge smile on his face.

Sahara could swear she felt her heart skip a beat from his strong [and handsome] presence.

• • •

Viktor interrupts, "This is literally the best song to slow dance to. Let me call Damian so he could take you away." He winks.

"Let me have the first dance." Imran's comment shocks everyone at the table.

"I don't think that's a good–" Imran cuts off Viktor.

"Damian won't mind. It's not as if I'm stealing her from him. Just a dance with the new sister-in-law." Before Sahara could even assert her own opinion, she's swept away to the middle of the ballroom.

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Sorry, this chapter became a little longer than expected. Do you guys prefer longer or shorter chapters?

♥️