Chapter 54
The envelope came on a Thursday.
Plain white, no return address, heavy cardstock. Brett found it tucked under the wiper of Lance's old Ford F-150 in the parking lot of the Smith's grocery store in Kalispell, while he was loading bags of the cheap pasta and canned soup they'd been living on for a month.
Inside was a single black business card.
*RICHARD SULLIVAN
SULLIVAN CAPITAL*
And a handwritten time and address on the back in sharp, slanted script that looked exactly like Lance's, only colder.
The Lodge at Whitefish Lake. Suite 401. 8 PM. Come alone.
Brett's hands shook so hard he dropped the eggs.
He didn't tell Lance.
He couldn't. Lance had worked a twelve-hour shift pouring concrete in the August heat and had come home with his back aching and his hands cracked, and he'd still tried to pull Brett into his lap on their sagging couch and kiss his forehead and whisper, "We'll figure it out, baby." Brett had turned his face away — not because he didn't love him, but because he couldn't stand the way his own body felt anymore, the way his breasts felt heavy and wrong under his hoodie, the way his mind felt flat and male and distant.
He told Lance he was going to see Nico for coffee.
Lance had smiled, tired and trusting. "Tell him I said hi."
The Lodge at Whitefish Lake was not a place for people who bought canned soup. The lobby smelled like cedar and money. Brett walked through it in his cleanest jeans and the one nice sweater he still owned — navy cashmere, a leftover from Singapore — feeling every inch the fraud Richard Sullivan already believed he was.
The elevator to the fourth floor was mirrored. Brett caught his reflection and flinched. No makeup. Hair pulled back in a low ponytail because he hadn't washed it. No bra under the sweater because the underwire dug into the breast tissue that now felt alien and tender without the estrogen. He looked like Brett trying to be Brielle and failing.
Suite 401 was already open.
Richard Sullivan stood at the window overlooking the lake, a glass of scotch in his hand, in a charcoal suit that probably cost more than Lance's yearly salary at the construction firm. He was seventy, silver-haired, tall like his son but harder, his blue eyes the same color as Lance's and utterly without warmth.
He didn't turn when Brett came in.
"Close the door," Richard said.
Brett did, his heart hammering against his ribs so hard he was sure Richard could hear it.
"You look terrible," Richard said finally, turning, his eyes raking over Brett from head to toe, lingering on the flatness of the sweater where Brett's D cups used to strain the fabric. "Stopping the hormones, I see. How... efficient."
Brett's face burned. "What do you want, Mr. Sullivan?"
Richard smiled, thin and joyless, and set his scotch down on the mahogany desk.
"I want what I've always wanted," he said. "For my son to come to his senses. For him to leave the... experiment... in Montana and come back to New York where he belongs."
"He's not going to," Brett said quietly, his hands fisted at his sides. "He loves me."
"Does he?" Richard walked closer, circling Brett slowly like a buyer inspecting damaged goods. "Does he love you now? Now that you're not taking your little shots? Now that your voice is dropping and your pretty little breasts are probably starting to ache and shrink? Now that you look at him and feel nothing?"
Brett went white. "How do you—"
"I know everything, Brielle," Richard said, savoring the name like poison. "I know you haven't refilled in six weeks. I know you're depressed. I know you're sleeping in Lance's old hoodies because you can't stand the sight of your own body. I know my son is working construction and coming home to a man who flinches when he tries to kiss him."
Tears burned Brett's eyes and he hated himself for them. "Get to the point."
Richard stopped in front of him, close enough that Brett could smell the expensive scotch, the expensive cologne.
"My point is simple," Richard said, his voice dropping to something low and intimate and vile. "One night. With me. Here. Tonight."
Brett stared at him, uncomprehending for a full three seconds.
"What?"
"You heard me," Richard said calmly. "One night. You submit to my every desire. No limits. No safe words. You do exactly as you're told, for as long as I want you. And in the morning, I turn the money back on."
Brett actually laughed, a sharp, broken sound. "You're insane."
"Am I?" Richard picked up a folder from the desk and tossed it at Brett's feet. Photos spilled out — bank statements, the trust reinstatement papers already drafted, a cashier's check made out to Lance Sullivan for five million dollars. "All of it. The accounts, the penthouse in Singapore, the allowance. Everything I took away. I'll even pay for your... maintenance... going forward. The hormones, the surgeries, whatever you want to keep playing dress-up."
Brett's knees felt weak. Five million dollars. The hormones. Lance not having to break his back pouring concrete. Their life back.
"And all it costs you," Richard continued, stepping closer, his hand coming up to brush a strand of Brett's blonde hair behind his ear, his touch making Brett's skin crawl, "is one night of spreading those pretty legs for the right Sullivan."
Brett jerked away. "He's your son."
"And you're his wife," Richard said, his eyes glittering. "Or at least you're playing one on TV. Don't pretend you're precious, Brielle. I've seen the before photos. I know exactly what you are under that sweater."
Brett's breath hitched, shame flooding him hot and sick. His "girl parts," the breasts he now hated, the tuck he could barely stand to maintain — Richard was looking at him like he knew, like he saw straight through to the male body Brett felt himself sliding back into.
"Two conditions," Richard said, turning back to his scotch like he was discussing a business merger. "One, you never tell Lance. Not ever. He thinks you went to see your friend Nico. He thinks you came home and we never spoke. If he finds out, the deal is void and I ruin you both publicly. I'll leak every medical record, every photo, every receipt to the press. I'll make sure the whole world knows my son married a man from Montana."
Brett's stomach turned over.
"Two," Richard continued, "you submit. Completely. I have... specific tastes. You've been trained well, I hear. The lingerie, the costumes, the schoolgirl act. You'll do all of that for me. And more. You will not say no. You will not cry. You will take what I give you and you will thank me for it."
Brett stood there in the middle of the five-star suite, in his cheap jeans and his failing body, staring at the man who held his entire future in one manicured hand, and felt something inside him crack wide open.
It wasn't just the humiliation. It wasn't just the revulsion at Richard's hand still hovering near his hair.
It was the terrible, traitorous part of his brain — the part that was getting louder every day without estrogen, the part that was starting to think like Brett again instead of Brielle — that whispered: This is a way out. This fixes everything. One night and Lance gets his life back.
"Lance would never forgive me," Brett whispered, tears spilling now, his voice cracking lower.
"Lance never has to know," Richard said smoothly, finally, and his hand slid down to cup Brett's jaw, his thumb stroking over Brett's cheekbone with possessive familiarity. "It can be our little secret. Just you, me, and what you really are."
Brett closed his eyes, his whole body shaking, the weight of the last two months — the cold rental, the empty hormone vial, the depression, the way he'd started to look at Lance and feel nothing — crushing him.
He thought of Lance in his work boots, kissing his forehead and saying "we'll figure it out."
He thought of the five-million-dollar check on the floor.
He thought of the hormones he couldn't afford, and the breasts he was starting to hate, and the man he was becoming again despite himself.
Richard leaned in, his lips brushing Brett's ear, his voice a dark promise.
"Say yes, Brielle. One night. And tomorrow morning, you're a rich man's wife again."
Brett opened his mouth, his heart hammering, his soul tearing in two.
And in the little rental in Kalispell, Lance Sullivan checked his phone for the third time, frowning at the empty driveway, wondering why his wife wasn't home from coffee yet.…