THE CRAZY PROPOSITION

The boutique on Orchard Road didn't have a sign. It didn't need one.

Atelier Lumière was three floors of white marble and hushed whispers, where the consultants wore black silk and the champagne was real French, and where a wedding dress wasn't a dress — it was a coronation.

Brett arrived in a simple blush slip dress and his Louboutin So Kates, his honey blonde hair in a low ponytail, his D cup breasts barely contained by the thin silk, his left hand flashing the three-carat diamond Lance had given him in Montana. He was shaking so hard he had to clutch Lance's arm on the elevator up.

"You don't have to do this today," Lance murmured, his hand covering Brett's on his forearm, his blue eyes soft under his sunglasses. He was in a navy cashmere sweater and slacks, trying — and failing — to look casual. "We can wait."

Brett shook his head, his cherry lips pressed together, his blue eyes huge and wet. "I want to. I need to see it. I need to see me in it."

Nico was already waiting upstairs with the head consultant, Madame Elise, a tiny French woman in her sixties who took one look at Brett — at his 23-inch waist, at his long legs, at the way he carried himself in six-inch heels like he'd been born in them — and clapped her hands once, delighted.

"Ah," she said in perfect, accented English. "The American fiancée. We have been expecting you, ma chérie."

The private salon was all mirrors and pale pink velvet, a raised platform in the center, and five — no, six, seven — racks of white already waiting, each dress bagged in silk.

Brett's breath caught. His hand flew to his throat.

"Oh my god," he whispered, his soft alto breaking. "Lance—"

Lance just smiled, that slow, wrecked smile he only ever gave Brett, and kissed his temple. "Pick the one that makes you feel like you."

Madame Elise unzipped the first bag with a reverent flourish.

It was a classic ballgown — strapless sweetheart bodice boned so tight Brett gasped when they laced him into it, layers and layers of ivory tulle that exploded from his tiny waist like a cloud, making his hips look impossibly small, making him look like a princess from a storybook. The veil was cathedral length, edged in lace that matched the corset.

Brett stepped onto the platform in it and burst into tears.

"I look..." he choked out, his hands fluttering over the tulle, over his breasts pushed up high and perfect, over the diamond at his throat. "I look like a bride, Lance."

Lance, sitting on the pink velvet sofa with a glass of champagne he hadn't touched, looked like he'd been punched in the chest. His eyes were glassy.

"You look like my wife," he said hoarsely.

Dress two was the opposite — a slinky, bias-cut silk satin that clung to every inch of Brett's 129-pound frame like water, backless to the base of his spine, showing off the long, elegant line of his back, the tiny dip of his waist, the perfect curve of his ass. No veil. Just a simple pearl comb in his honey blonde hair, now down in waves.

Brett turned on the platform and the silk moved with him, liquid and sinful, and he saw Lance shift in his seat, his jaw tight.

"For the reception," Nico declared, fanning himself. "So you can actually dance with your husband."

Dress three made Madame Elise gasp. It was French lace — not the cheap stuff, but real Chantilly, hand-sewn onto a nude illusion base, long sleeves, high neck in front, but the back... the back was nothing but lace and skin and a row of tiny silk buttons down to Brett's lower back, ending right where his tuck would be. It was modest and obscene at the same time.

Brett stared at himself in the three-way mirror and didn't see Brett from Montana anymore. He saw Brielle. He saw the woman Lance had seen from the very first hormone shot.

"This one," Brett whispered, his fingers tracing the lace over his breasts, tears spilling down his cheeks, ruining his makeup. "This feels like me."

Dress four was for drama — a full mermaid in structured mikado, off-the-shoulder, with a massive bow at the small of his back and a train that went on for ten feet. When Brett walked, the whole salon held its breath. He looked regal. He looked untouchable. He looked expensive.

Lance stood up.

He walked to the platform, his hands shaking, and took Brett's pink-nailed hands in his.

"You're killing me," Lance whispered, his forehead pressed to Brett's, his voice wrecked. "Pick them all. I don't care. I want to marry you in every single one."

Brett laughed through his tears, a wet, happy sob, and threw his arms around Lance's neck, careful not to crush the mikado.

"I can't pick," Brett admitted into Lance's shoulder, his voice muffled by tulle and emotion. "They all feel right. They all feel like the girl you made me."

Madame Elise, watching from the side with Nico, dabbed at her eyes with a silk handkerchief.

"Mon cher," she said softly, in French, "this is what happens when a woman is truly loved. She becomes the dress."

Brett pulled back and looked at Lance — really looked at him — at the man who had paid for the hormones, who had bought the heels, who had held him through the tucking tutorials and the voice lessons and the terror of meeting his mother.

"Which one do you see me walking down the aisle in?" Brett asked, his blue eyes searching Lance's.

Lance didn't hesitate. He cupped Brett's face, his thumb wiping away a tear, his diamond flashing next to Brett's.

"The lace one," Lance said quietly. "The third one. Because when I first saw you in that pink blouse in Montana, I thought you were beautiful. But in lace... in lace, Brielle, you look like you were made to be my wife."

Brett collapsed against him, sobbing openly now, the massive train pooling around their feet like snow, the consultants applauding softly, Nico filming everything on his phone for the wedding video.

He was going to be a bride.

He was really, truly, going to be a bride…