Chapter 4: Dressing Room Desperation
The penthouse dressing room felt like a surgical theater under the golden sunset glare. Mark stared at the sliver of black lace and Lycra dangling from Bella’s fingers. “It’s called a bodysuit,” she said, from her sprawl on the chaise. “It holds everything in. You’ll need it for the dress.”
“It looks like a torture device for a contortionist,” he muttered, his voice still a foreign melody to his own ears. He reluctantly took it, the material cool and strangely predatory.
Turning his back, he wrestled the silken thing, feeling a surge of hot frustration as Bella’s unfamiliar hips and breasts resisted the engineered fabric. He finally got it up, but the back was a maze of hooks his long nails fumbled against. A sound of pure vexation escaped him.
“Need help?” Bella asked, not moving.
“No.” The word was gritted out. He twisted, muscles he didn’t know straining, fingertips slipping. The boardroom humiliation was nothing compared to this intimate war with clothing.
Finally, with a gasp, he felt the hooks catch. Instant compression squeezed his ribs, flattening Bella’s curves into a smoother, artificial line. Breathing became a conscious, shallow act. “Jesus. How do you live in this?”
“You get used to the pressure,” she said, examining his—her—nails. “It’s like a constant hug. Or a straitjacket. Depends on the day.” She stood, walking over to the rack. “Now, the dress. Jake likes red.”
She pulled out a slip of crimson silk so minimal it looked like a thought. Mark felt a cold dread settle beside the bodysuit’s grip. This was the performance. And the curtain was about to rise.
The board’s skepticism had been a palpable fog in the penthouse, but a joint, surprisingly coherent explanation about a "collaborative sabbatical" had finally made them leave. “Advise from home,” Mark-in-Bella’s-body had stated, her voice a strained, melodic version of his usual command. Now, standing in the clutter of Bella’s vanity, that tense agreement felt a universe away. “I still don’t understand why I have to be the one to go on this date,” Mark grumbled, fumbling with a mascara wand like it was a live wire. Bella, leaning against the doorframe in his broad-shouldered form, let out a short laugh that rumbled in his chest. “Because I am not going on a date with my own boyfriend while looking like you,” she said, her tone leaving no room for argument. The drive to her place after grabbing a duffel bag of his clothes had been silent, thick with a mutual, screaming disbelief. Inside her home, a stark contrast to his minimalist penthouse, Mark had finally snapped, gesturing wildly at his new curves. “This is a logistical nightmare, Bella! The center of gravity is all wrong—” “Enough,” she’d cut him off, her borrowed voice low and final. “Jake will be here in ninety minutes. So you, in my body, are going to smile and have a nice dinner.” Now, she pointed a blunt, masculine finger at the mascara. “Short, wiggly strokes at the base. Unless you want to stab yourself in the eye, which is tempting.” Mark scowled at his—her—reflection, the expression foreign on Bella’s famously pouty face. He tried to mimic her instruction, his hand trembling slightly. The brush touched lashes, a weird, intimate sensation that made him flinch. “See? Not so hard,” Bella said, though her crossed arms betrayed her own tension. He blinked, leaving a tiny black smudge on a lid he now had to care for. “God, this is tedious,” he muttered, reaching for a makeup wipe. “No,” Bella commanded, stepping forward. “You fix it with a little concealer on a brush, not nuke it from orbit. This is my face, Sterling. Be gentle.” He met her eyes in the mirror, seeing his own steely gaze looking back at him, and for a second, they were just two people in an impossible situation. With a resigned sigh, he dipped the brush.
The glass vial of perfume hit the marble with a sound like a gunshot, and the cloying scent of tuberose exploded into the steamy air. “Goddammit,” Mark growled, the deep, unfamiliar rumble of his—no, her—own voice doing nothing to improve his mood. He stared at the shimmering puddle and the ridiculous, delicate nails that had caused it, nails that felt like ten tiny weapons attached to his fingers.
From the doorway, leaning against the frame with his—her—arms crossed, Bella watched. A low chuckle escaped her, sounding utterly alien coming from Mark’s stern, masculine face. “You know, I spent two hours getting those acrylics done,” she said, her tone light but laced with a possessiveness she couldn’t hide. “Try not to ruin my investments.”
Mark whirled, the motion sending a cascade of long red hair over his shoulder. “Your investments? I’m trapped in a… a mannequin with a physics problem for a center of gravity, and you’re worried about your nails?” He gestured wildly at the mirror, where Bella’s reflection glared back with his own furious expression. “How is this possible?”
Bella pushed off the doorframe and walked into the bathroom, her new height and stride still feeling disconcertingly powerful. She picked up a towel and tossed it at the puddle. “Clean it up. That’s Clive Christian.” She watched him fumble with the towel, her old body moving with a clumsy, unfamiliar aggression. For a second, she saw her own face contorted in a way it never had been—pure, unvarnished male frustration. A strange feeling twisted in her gut, part pity, part perverse satisfaction.
She smirkks.
“We crashed my car into your fountain,” she stated flatly, the memory sharp and electric. “The airbags went off. We woke up… swapped.” She leaned on the vanity, staring at her own eyes in Mark’s face. “So. What’s your brilliant, million-dollar plan, Sterling?”
Mark stopped dabbing at the floor, the towel soaking up the expensive ruin. He looked up at her, at the cool challenge in his own blue eyes. The panic began to harden into something colder, more focused. “First,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “We tell absolutely no one.”