Chapter 52
They were still in Singapore when the call came.
Three days after the wedding. Three days of room service and white sheets and Brett still wearing the white silk robe from the honeymoon suite more often than not, his new platinum band catching the light every time he reached for Lance's hand.
They were having breakfast on the balcony — Brett in Lance's white t-shirt and nothing else, his honey blonde hair in a messy bun, his bare feet tucked under him on the rattan chair, laughing at something Lance had said about Nico's terrible best-man speech — when Lance's phone rang.
PRIVATE NUMBER.
Lance frowned, his blue eyes flicking to the screen, then to Brett. "It's my father."
Brett's smile faltered just a little. He'd met Richard Sullivan once, at the engagement dinner in New York — a tall, silver-haired man in a Brioni suit who'd shaken Brett's hand a little too hard and looked at his D cup breasts in the Hervé Léger dress a little too long and said, "Well. Lance always did like a project."
"He never calls," Lance said quietly, already standing, already walking inside for privacy. "Give me a minute, baby."
Brett nodded, pulling Lance's t-shirt tighter around himself, his stomach suddenly cold despite the Singapore heat.
He watched through the glass doors as Lance answered, as his husband's face — relaxed and happy and sun-kissed from three days of honeymoon — went still. Then tight. Then white.
Lance didn't speak for a long time. He just listened, his jaw clenched, his free hand fisted at his side.
Then: "You had no right."
Then: "That's not—"
Then: "Dad, listen to me—"
Then nothing. Lance just stood there, the phone to his ear, his shoulders rigid, as Richard Sullivan talked and talked and talked.
When Lance finally hung up, he didn't come back to the balcony right away. He stood in the middle of the suite, staring at the white orchids from the wedding night, now starting to wilt.
Brett went to him, his bare feet silent on the marble, his hand light on Lance's back.
"Lance?" Brett whispered, his soft alto small and scared. "What is it?"
Lance turned slowly, his blue eyes — the eyes that had wept at the altar, that had worshipped Brett in every costume — now flat and shattered.
"He knows," Lance said hoarsely.
Brett's blood turned to ice. "Knows what?"
"Everything." Lance swallowed hard, his hands coming up to grip Brett's shoulders, not hard, just... holding on. "He hired a private investigator six months ago. After the engagement party. He didn't like... he didn't like that I wouldn't sign a prenup. He didn't like that you..."
Brett couldn't breathe. "That I what?"
"That you were born Brett Michael Anderson in Kalispell, Montana," Lance said, each word like glass in his throat. "That your birth certificate says male. That you started hormones at twenty-four. That you had your name legally changed to Brielle Daisy Anderson eight months ago. That your... that your medical records—"
Brett stepped back out of Lance's hands like he'd been burned, his hand flying to his mouth, his eyes filling instantly.
"He knows I'm trans," Brett whispered, the word he'd never said out loud to Lance's family, the word they'd both carefully danced around with "project" and "journey" and "becoming."
Lance nodded once, his own eyes wet now. "He has everything, Brielle. The clinic in Seattle. The endocrinologist. The receipts for the surgeries. Photos from before. He... he emailed them to me."
Brett sank onto the edge of the bed, his knees giving out, the white t-shirt suddenly too big, too thin, too nothing.
"What did he say?" Brett asked, his voice barely audible.
Lance sat next to him, but didn't touch him — not yet — his hands clasped between his knees, his head bowed.
"He said I married a man," Lance said flatly, repeating his father's words like they poisoned him. "He said I've embarrassed the family. He said the Sullivan name—"
Brett flinched.
"He said he's cutting me off," Lance continued, his voice breaking on the last word. "Effective immediately. The trust, the accounts, the apartments, the cards. Everything. He froze the joint accounts this morning. The money is gone, Brielle."
Brett stared at the wilted orchids, his mind blank with shock.
The money. The Sullivan money that had paid for the hormones, the five wedding dresses, the La Perla lingerie, the Singapore penthouse, the CHIJMES Hall wedding, the hundred-button Chantilly lace dress still hanging in the closet.
Gone.
"Lance," Brett whispered, tears spilling now, hot and fast down his cheeks. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I should have told them myself, I should have—"
"No." Lance turned sharply, grabbing Brett's hands in both of his, his blue eyes fierce through his own tears. "No, don't you dare apologize for who you are. Don't you ever apologize for being my wife."
Brett sobbed once, a broken sound, and collapsed forward into Lance's chest, his honey blonde hair falling out of its bun, his shoulders shaking.
Lance held him tight, his arms like iron around Brett's shaking body, his face buried in Brett's hair, his own tears wetting the blonde strands.
"He said I have a choice," Lance murmured into Brett's hair, his voice shaking with rage and grief. "Come home alone, denounce the marriage, go to 'therapy,' and he'll restore everything. Or stay with you and have nothing."
Brett pulled back, his blue eyes red and swollen, his cherry lips trembling. "What did you tell him?"
Lance looked at him — at his wife, in his t-shirt, with no makeup and messy hair and the platinum band still on his left hand — and his face hardened into the Lance Sullivan who'd built an empire before he was thirty, the Lance who'd never lost a negotiation in his life.
"I told him to go to hell," Lance said quietly, fiercely. "I told him I didn't marry his money. I married you."
Brett stared at him, his breath catching.
"Lance, you can't— your company, your—"
"I have my own money," Lance cut him off, his thumb wiping tears from Brett's cheek. "Not Sullivan money. Mine. From before. It's not billions, Brielle, it's... it's enough for an apartment, not a penthouse. It's enough for one wedding dress, not five. It's—"
"It's enough," Brett whispered, his hands fisting in Lance's t-shirt, pulling him close. "It's more than enough if I have you."
Lance kissed him then — hard and desperate and full of promise — not the reverent wedding-night kiss, but a battle kiss, a vow.
"We'll go back to Montana," Lance said against Brett's lips, his forehead pressed to Brett's. "We'll get a little house in Kalispell. You'll wear your Mary Janes to the grocery store. I'll get a job. A real job. We'll be okay."
Brett laughed through his tears, a wet, hiccuping sound. "You? A job?"
"For you?" Lance smiled, that rare, real smile that was only for Brett. "I'd flip burgers in a hairnet if it meant I got to come home to you every night in that white silk robe."
Brett threw his arms around Lance's neck, holding on like he was drowning, his platinum band digging into Lance's skin.
"I love you," Brett sobbed into Lance's neck. "I love you so much, and I'm so scared."
"I know, baby," Lance whispered, holding him tighter, rocking him gently on the edge of their honeymoon bed while the Singapore skyline glittered indifferently outside. "I know. But he doesn't get to decide who I love. He doesn't get to buy you out of my life."
He pulled back just enough to look Brett in the eye, his blue eyes blazing.
"Let him keep his money," Lance said, his voice low and dangerous and full of love. "He can't have you. He can't have us."
Brett nodded, his tears slowing, his breathing evening out, his hands clutching Lance's like a lifeline.
"Okay," Brett whispered. "Okay. Montana."
Lance kissed his forehead, his eyelids, his tear-stained cheeks, his trembling lips.
"Montana," Lance promised. "Just you and me and no more secrets."
On the nightstand, Lance's phone buzzed again — PRIVATE NUMBER — and Lance reached over without looking and turned it off completely.
The money was gone.
But Brett was still in his arms, in his t-shirt, wearing his ring.
And for the first time since the doors of CHIJMES Hall had opened, Lance Sullivan felt like he could breathe again...