25. Chapter 25 #3
He looks unreal. Six-feet-seven of sin in black and red, moving with that contained, coiled power he always carries. Chin up, jaw set, eyes locked ahead. He’s not trying to model. He’s just existing, and the clothes rise to meet him.
The room reacts before I can. The crowd noise spikes, sharp and bright. Phones shoot up like a synchronized flock. Even through the monitor’s tiny speakers, I can hear the pitch of the applause change—higher and stunned.
My heart is in my throat, my chest, my fingertips. Every inch of him on that screen is familiar and completely foreign at the same time. That’s the body I’ve had pinned under, the mouth that’s been on my skin, the hands that touch me everywhere.
He’s here.
He keeps walking, unbothered by the chaos he’s causing. Each step is steady, heavy with purpose. The tux moves like it was built to follow his muscles, swallowing the runway with him.
I feel sick. I feel euphoric.
“What the fuck,” I whisper, but it comes out as barely air.
Beside me, the coordinator lets out a low, delighted sound. “Yeah,” she says. “It’s your hot boytoy. Surprise.”
Halfway down the runway, he adjusts his cuff, and the cameras eat it up.
And then, as if he hears some frequency only we share, his head turns to my side of the wings .
The monitor catches his profile as his gaze slices toward where I’m standing in the shadows.
He can’t possibly see me from out there, not with the lights in his face, but the look still hits like impact. For one suspended heartbeat, it feels like we’re the only two people in the building.
It’s in his eyes. There you are, his expression says, without moving his lips. My fingers spasm tighter on the curtain.
Of course the seat next to Melody and Jace was empty.
He never planned to sit in it.
He didn’t come here to watch my show.
He came here to be in it.
He faces forward again and finishes the walk, each step hammering the reality deeper into my bones. The cameras, the crowd, my name on the graphic behind him—all wrapped around the fact that Dominic Moreal chose to put my work on his body in front of everyone.
By the time he hits the end of the runway and turns to stand in the white-hot lights, my heart is no longer beating at a normal speed .
The applause doesn’t quite roar, but it swells.
“Finale walk,” the caller says. “All looks, all models, go.”
My models start filing back out onto the runway until the full line is formed at the end. My clothes in a row—satins, suiting, sharp shoulders and soft drapes. And in the center of it all, like a spine, Dominic in my closing look.
“Designer to runway,” the coordinator says, squeezing my arm. “Jessica, that’s you.”
The curtain parts and the lights hit me.
For a second, I see nothing but white and shapes. Then the room comes into focus. My parents are on their feet, clapping.
Dannie is standing too, bouncing in place, eyes wide, clapping hard enough that her bracelets are a blur.
On the corner of the front row, Melody and Jace are up with the rest of the VIPs.
Melody’s hands are together in a neat, precise rhythm, eyes sharp and bright.
Jace has that shit-eating grin on his face and is probably saying something commentary-level stupid under his breath, but he’s clapping, too .
Then I look past them.
The lineup is close now. My silhouettes, my fabric, my name behind them. And him.
Dom stands in the middle. His hair is pushed back, a few strands already fighting their way loose. Under the spots, his eyes pick up warm flecks—amber at the edges.
He’s watching me with a knowing half-smile.
I reach the lineup and turn toward the audience. The applause lifts another notch, like they’re acknowledging the full picture now.
I bow. It’s quick and shallow, more instinct than choreography, just like I’ve daydreamed a million times. When I start to shift to the side, a hand closes over mine. It’s big, warm, and familiar. Dom’s fingers slide through mine and I look up.
His eyes are on me, he’s touching me. But it feels surreal. The entire situation I’ve found myself in feels like I’m about to wake up any moment.
“Take a second,” he says, low, angled toward me so it doesn’t carry. “Look.”
I do .
An entire room of mostly strangers is on its feet for something that started in my tiny apartment with cheap muslin and stolen time.
My parents are still standing. Dannie looks like she’s vibrating.
The director watches from the end of the row with a pleased expression.
Editors, buyers, influencers—faces I’ve only ever seen online—are clapping for my name on the screen.
On the far side, near the photographers’ pit, a familiar silhouette in black catches my eye.
Valencia.
Her headset is around her neck now and her arms are folded. Her expression is composed, but her eyes are sharp as glass as she tracks the line, the screens, the angles.
Then her gaze lands on me and Dom, our joined hands between us. One of the photographers says something to her I can’t hear, and she flicks two fingers in a tight little circle with disdain on her face.
I look away, already trying to pretend she’s not here.
Dom’s thumb presses lightly along the side of my index finger, dragging my focus back to him.
“You did this, baby,” he says. “Let them see it. ”
It hits harder than any “I’m proud of you” would.
A laugh stutters out of me. “I think I’m gonna faint.”
“I’ll catch you.” His mouth twitches, the ghost of a smile threatening.
His hand leaves mine and slides to my waist, securing a firm grip at my side. He tugs me in, just enough to bring me closer, a single step into the line of his body.
The applause doesn’t explode, but it changes, a couple of soft, delighted gasps near the front.
He dips his head and does something I’ve never seen done during a show. His mouth finds mine with the kind of certainty that says he doesn’t care who’s watching.
His palm is warm at my side, anchoring me in place. My free hand lands against his chest, over the slow, heavy thud of his heart under the shirt I cut and the jacket I tailored.
Our foreheads rest together for one suspended breath.
“Now you can breathe,” he says .
I inhale. The air actually makes it to my lungs this time.
Dom’s hand stays at the small of my back as the models begin to file off, the line breaking cleanly. We turn with them and walk back into the wings together.
Backstage is somehow louder after the show.
The second the curtain falls for real, everything snaps into motion. Models peel off in different directions, laughing, out of breath, half-high on adrenaline. Dressers start unzipping, unbuttoning, returning borrowed shoes to racks.
I’m in the middle of it all, my body humming.
Another model pulls me into a quick hug before someone yells at her to get out of the shoes. A dresser squeezes past, muttering “Nice work, babe,” as she drags a rolling rack away. The coordinator gives me a quick thumbs-up as she moves by with her headset still crackling.
Decompression chaos.
I turn to Dominic. The tux jacket is unbuttoned now, shirt open at the throat, bow tie tugged loose and hanging from his fingers .
My chest does a stupid swoop.
“What the hell,” I say, because my brain hasn’t caught up to my mouth yet. The words come out half-laugh, half-accusation. “What the hell, Dominic?”
His mouth crooks. “Hi.”
I smack my hand lightly against his chest. “Don’t ‘hi’ me. You…” I gesture wildly toward the general direction of the runway. “You were the surprise? The big hush-hush celebrity?”
“Last I checked.” He looks annoyingly calm.
“I thought you were going to sit in the audience,” I say, still breathless. “Not—” My throat tightens. “Not that.”
He studies me for a second, probably checking whether I mean it as a complaint.
“You hated it?” he asks, concerned.
I blink. “Are you insane? No. I almost died.”
“Okay,” he says, and some invisible tension in his shoulders eases. “Good.”
“When did you even decide this? How? Why?”
He slips the bow tie into his pocket and gives me a small smile .
“The second I heard you’d been added to the show,” he says. “I knew you were going to burn the place down. I wanted to be in it.”
“In it,” I echo.
“In your story,” he corrects. “Not just sitting there watching from the dark.”
He lifts my hand to his lips with both hands and kisses my knuckles.
“I’m your man,” he says, still holding my hand. “Which means I don’t stand on the sidelines while you climb. I put whatever I have where you need it. My name, my face, my time, my body in a tux. Whatever you’ll let me give.”
Something in my chest actually hurts from how emotional I’m getting. My head’s starting to ache from how tight I’m wired, but the warmth in my chest overpowers it.
“You will never be just the woman on my arm,” he says quietly. “You’re the woman next to me. And I’m gonna be the man next to you. That’s the deal. What do you say, Ms. Brooks? ”
There are a million things I could say. All of it is an emotional word-vomit inside the part of me that is currently melted on the floor.
“That was…” I swallow. “A very dramatic way to say you wanted to play runway model for a night.”
He snorts. “Yeah, well. You’re not the only one allowed to be a little dramatic.”
I step closer. “That was very unfair of you,” I say. “Weaponizing my own designs against my cardiovascular system.”
“You’ll live.” His grin is dashing.
He leans in and captures my lips. It’s quick, just a press, but he catches my lower lip on the way out, tempted to turn it into something more.
“Jess?”
I turn.
My mom is ten feet away, one hand pressed to her chest, her eyes shimmering. My dad stands beside her, trying and failing to look like he hasn’t been crying either.
For a second my brain refuses to accept they’re real, like I conjured them out of pure adrenaline and wishful thinking .
“Mom?” My voice cracks.