THE CRAZY PROPOSITION

The invitation came on heavy cream cardstock, delivered by hand to the penthouse at 9 a.m. the morning after the jacuzzi.

Mrs. Eleanor Sullivan requests the pleasure of your company for tea. Today. Four o'clock. The Garden Suite, Raffles.

Lance read it twice, his jaw tight. Brett read it once and felt his stomach drop straight through the 68th floor.

"Eleanor," Lance said quietly, setting the card down on the marble kitchen island like it might explode. "My mom."

Brett was still in Lance's oversized white t-shirt from the night before, his long honey blonde hair in a messy bun, his face scrubbed clean of makeup, his three-carat diamond the only thing that looked expensive on him. The maximum hormones made his emotions sit right on the surface, made fear feel like nausea.

"She met me," Brett whispered, his soft alto small and scared in a way it hadn't been since Whitefish. "Three years ago. At your graduation party in Seattle. I was... I was Brett. Short hair. Hoodie. I shook her hand and she called me 'Lance's little friend from Montana.'"

Lance came around the island and pulled Brett into his arms, his big hands warm and steady on Brett's back, right where the t-shirt hung loose over his D cup breasts.

"I know," Lance murmured into Brett's hair. "She remembers."

Brett pulled back, his big blue eyes wide and wet. "Lance, she knows what I looked like. What if she—"

"She won't," Lance said fiercely, cutting him off, cupping Brett's face with both hands. "Because you're not that person anymore. You're Brielle. You're my fiancée. And you're going to walk in there and she's going to see exactly what my dad saw — a beautiful, elegant woman who's perfect for her son."

Brett stared at him, breathing hard, the panic starting to spiral. Then he took a deep breath, squared his tiny shoulders, and nodded once.

"Okay," he whispered. "Okay. Then I need the right armor."

Nico arrived within the hour with three garment bags, his face serious for once.

"Conservative," Nico said, unzipping the first bag with a flourish. "Classy. Pretty. Not a hint of sassy secretary, not a whisper of stewardess. We are going for 'future daughter-in-law who volunteers at the art museum.'"

Brett stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in just his pink lace panties and bra, his 129-pound body trembling slightly, as Nico held up options.

Not the pinstripe suit — too severe, too much like the dad meeting. Not the black bodycon — too sexy, too obvious. Not anything with a slit, or a plunging neckline, or a tight pencil skirt that showed the tuck.

Nico finally pulled out the winner, and Brett felt his breath catch.

It was a dress, not a suit. A soft, dove-grey silk crepe midi dress with a high modest neckline, three-quarter sleeves that ended in delicate cuffs, and a fitted bodice that nipped in at Brett's tiny twenty-three inch waist before flaring gently over his hips to just below the knee. No cling. No stretch. It skimmed, it didn't grab. The back had a row of tiny covered buttons down the spine — demure, old-money, expensive.

"This," Nico said softly, "is Chanel. 2024. She wore it to meet the Queen Mother."

Brett stepped into it carefully, and Nico zipped it up, his fingers deft on the tiny buttons. The silk settled over Brett's breasts like water, giving him shape without showing it, the D cups looking soft and natural instead of pushed up and obvious.

For once, no pantyhose — just bare legs, smooth and golden from months of laser, and on his feet, not Louboutins, not platforms. Low, nude patent leather slingbacks with a kitten heel, maybe two inches, Chanel, with the little black cap toe. Classy. Quiet. The kind of shoe a woman wears when she doesn't need to prove anything.

Nico sat Brett down at the vanity and did his makeup completely differently. No smoky eye, no sharp wing. Just perfect skin, a wash of warm taupe on his lids, his lashes curled and lengthened but not false, his brows brushed and soft. His lips were a muted rose-brown, a "my lips but better" that made his perfect white veneers look natural, that hid his slightly sharpened canines instead of showing them off.

His long honey blonde hair was pulled back into a low, sleek chignon at the nape of his neck, not a strand out of place, showing off the elegant line of his throat, the delicate gold chain with a single small diamond pendant Lance had given him that morning — not the three-carat, that would stay in the safe. Too much.

When Nico stepped back, Brett stared at himself in the mirror and didn't recognize the woman looking back.

She wasn't the sexiest secretary. She wasn't the stewardess goddess. She wasn't even Brielle the bombshell.

She was... ladylike. Poised. Untouchable in a completely different way.

"Pretty but conservative," Nico whispered, misting him with perfume. "Classy but not sassy. If Eleanor met a boy named Brett three years ago, she's about to meet a woman she can't possibly connect to him."

Lance walked in from the bedroom and stopped dead in the doorway.

He was in a light grey suit, no tie, his dark hair perfect, his blue eyes soft. He looked at Brett in the dove-grey dress and his entire face changed.

"Oh," Lance breathed, walking slowly over, his hand coming up to gently touch Brett's cheek, careful not to mess the makeup. "Oh, baby."

Brett's eyes filled instantly, the hormones making him weepy. "Is it too much? Too boring? Do I look—"

"You look like my wife," Lance said simply, his voice thick with emotion. He leaned down and pressed the softest kiss to Brett's forehead, right above his brow. "You look like the mother of my children."

Brett made a small, broken sound and clutched at Lance's suit jacket with both hands, his pink nails digging in.

"What if she knows?" Brett whispered against his chest. "What if she looks at me and sees him?"

"Then she'll see how happy he made you," Lance whispered back fiercely, holding Brett's tiny waist in both his big hands, steadying him. "She'll see how brave you were to become this."

The car ride to Raffles was silent, Lance's hand holding Brett's so tight his knuckles were white, his thumb stroking over the small gold band Brett wore today instead of the diamond.

The Garden Suite was cool and green and smelled like orchids and old money. Eleanor Sullivan was already there, pouring tea, a woman in her early sixties with Lance's blue eyes and silver-blonde hair in a perfect bob, wearing a pale blue dress that probably cost more than Brett's old truck.

She looked up as they entered, and her eyes went straight to Brett.

Brett felt his heart stop. Felt every hormone in his body scream run. Felt the tucking underwear, the smoothing shapewear Nico had insisted on under the silk, the low heels, the chignon — all of it suddenly feeling like a costume that wouldn't hold.

Eleanor stood, graceful, and extended her hand, her gaze traveling slowly from Brett's low slingbacks, up the modest midi dress, over his soft breasts, to his face, to his hair, to his eyes.

"Brielle," Eleanor said, her voice warm and cultured and giving away nothing. "At last. Lance has told me so much about you."

Brett slid his small, soft hand into hers — no long pink nails today, just a short, natural French manicure — and felt Eleanor's cool, dry grip, felt her eyes holding his for one beat too long.

"It's such an honor to meet you, Mrs. Sullivan," Brett said in his softest, most practiced alto, the voice he'd worked eleven weeks to perfect, dropping into a slight curtsy without even thinking about it. "Thank you for having me."

Eleanor smiled, and it reached her eyes, but there was something sharp behind it, something assessing.

"Please," Eleanor said, gesturing to the chair opposite her, "sit. Tell me everything. How did my son convince a beautiful girl like you to say yes?"

Brett sat, smoothing the dove-grey silk over his knees with trembling hands, feeling Lance sit beside him, feeling Lance's knee press firmly against his under the table — I'm here — and looked straight into the eyes of the woman who had once shaken his hand when he was a boy in a hoodie.

And smiled the most demure, most ladylike, most perfect smile Nico had taught him.

"Well," Brett began, his voice steady as a rock despite his hammering heart, "it started with a text message at nine pm..."

And as he told the story — their story, the edited, perfect version — Brett watched Eleanor Sullivan watch him, watched her blue eyes flicker with recognition that never quite landed, with suspicion that never quite formed, and knew this was going to be the hardest performance of his life.

Because this time, he wasn't just hiding a body.

He was hiding a whole past.…