Page 128 of Big D!ck Energy

“Yeah,” I sighed. It had to be okay. I didn’t have a choice. I knew that if Dallas could be here, he would be. “It is.”

He'd tried. He'd tried from the moment the first cancellation came through, calling me in a fury, already looking at alternatives.

“Good.” Marcus plucked the clipboard from my hands and replaced it with a flute of champagne. “Then drink this, stop making that face, and prepare to put on the most important show of your career.”

“I'm not making a face.”

“You're making the face you make when you're pretending you're fine.” He steered me toward the staging area, his hand warm on my shoulder. He stopped us at the staging curtain, turning me to face him.

Beyond the black velvet, I could hear the audience settling into their seats, the soft swell of music beginning, the hum of two hundred people who came to see what Curvy Closet Apparel had built for them.

“Are you ready?” He straightened my lapel, precise and fussy and completely unnecessary since it hadn't moved. “You built this collection for women who've been told they don't belong in spaces like this. Tonight, you're going to walk into the most famous fashion city in the world and prove them wrong.” His voice had gone quiet, stripped of its usual theatrical flair. “That's not nothing, D. That's everything.”

My throat tightened. “Don't,” I warned. “If you make me cry, my makeup artist will kill me, and then the show will be very short.”

“I'm trying to inspire you.”

“It’s the same.”

He grinned, and the music shifted, building toward the opening notes.

My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might explode. “Let’s do this.” I stepped toward the curtain.

“You're about to put on a hell of a show, Mrs. Dodger.” He said it quietly, just for me, and then a hand closed around my wrist.

I spun, almost knocking into a rack, and came face to face with…

Dallas.

My husband, who was supposed to be stuck in an airport, was standing in a rumpled navy shirt with messy hair and an expression on his face like he'd been running.

“Hi,” he said.

I stared at him. “Hi?” I said. “That's what you're going with? Hi?”

“I was going to go with surprise, but it seemed like you'd figured that part out.”

“You're supposed to be in an airport.”

“I was in an airport. Several airports. I just wasn’t really in one when we talked. I wanted to surprise you.”

“Dallas, how are you here?”

He stepped closer, his hands finding my face. “Private jet.”

I blinked. “I'm sorry?”

“I rented a private jet.” He said. “Commercial wasn't cooperating. The delays kept stacking up, and I did some math, and there was no version of events where I was going to make it here on time.” He shrugged. “So I stopped trying to make that work and found a different option.”

“You rented a private jet to come to my show.”

“I rented a private jet so that I wouldn’t miss my wife's show.” He said the correction firmly.

“You're insane.”

“I'm committed to you.” His smile softened, the bravado dropping away to reveal the man underneath. “I wasn't going to miss this. There was no way in hell I was going to sit in an airport and watch a livestream on the biggest night of your life.”

“You rented a whole freaking jet,” I said again because my brain was still processing.