Chapter Eight: The Wrong Dress

Layla’s POV

“He’s not coming.”

Hailey lowered her phone and looked at me with the expression she wore when she was about to say something I was not going to enjoy hearing.

I stared at her. “He stood me up.”

“His secretary just confirmed it. He won’t be making it today.”

I let out a slow breath and looked up at the ceiling of the bridal shop entrance.

One hour. I had been waiting outside this shop for one hour — in heels, on a Tuesday morning, when I had approximately forty things I could have been doing at the office — because my grandfather had arranged for Ian and me to come together to look at the wedding dress. Together. As though we were a normal couple who made decisions about things like wedding dresses together.

And Ian Lawson had simply decided not to show up.

“He’s getting back at me,” I said. “For making him wait at the restaurant.”

Hailey pressed her lips together.

“Say it,” I said.

“Lay Lay.” She tilted her head. “You kept him waiting for over an hour on the first meeting your grandfathers arranged. You did that on purpose.

“That’s different.”

“How is it different?”

“It just is.”

She gave me the look. The one that said she had a fully formed argument ready and was choosing not to deploy it because she loved me.

I rolled my eyes and walked through the door of the bridal shop.

“The more I learn about him the more I dislike him,” I said, as she fell into step beside me. “He is domineering and arrogant and he thinks the whole world should arrange itself around his schedule.” I kept my voice low — the shop was quiet and elegant and not the place for the full version of this conversation. “And I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for Grandpa. I don’t care about this wedding. This whole thing is a sham.”

“A sham,” Hailey said pleasantly, “that every woman in New York would trade places with you for. Domineering, filthy rich and absolutely gorgeous seems to be a very popular combination.”

“Count me out of that group.”

“Already noted,” she said.

A staff member appeared — young, polished, her smile warm and professional.

“Miss Thompson.” She dipped her head slightly. “Mr. Derick Thompson’s secretary let us know you would be coming today. Welcome.” She gestured toward the back of the shop. “Please follow me.”

She led us through the shop — past displays of veils and accessories and gowns arranged on mannequins like art — and into a large private room at the back. A plush cream sofa sat against one wall. A changing area with heavy curtains was set up in the corner. Everything smelled like flowers and expensive fabric.

“Can we get you anything?” the staff member asked.

“No thank you,” Hailey said before I could answer. “Just show us the dress.”

The staff member crossed to the changing area and pulled back the curtain.

I walked closer.

The dress was on a padded hanger, covered in a protective sleeve that she removed carefully. As the fabric came into view I studied it — the silhouette, the structure, the way it would fall.

Ballgown. Big. White. Full skirt, structured bodice, gems scattered across the fabric in a pattern that caught the light and scattered it in every direction. It was beautiful. Objectively, genuinely beautiful.

It was not a mermaid dress.

“Did my grandfather choose this?” I asked.

The staff member hesitated slightly. “Actually, Mr. Thompson selected a mermaid dress originally.” A pause. “But when he came in with the Lawson family, Mrs. Rose Lawson chose this one instead.”

I looked at the dress.

Grandpa knew. He had always known that my dream wedding dress was a mermaid silhouette, even if this wedding is a sham I still want my mermaid dress. He had heard me say it enough times over enough years that it was not information he could have forgotten. He had chosen correctly.

And then Ian’s mother had come along and chosen something else.

“That’s his mother,” Hailey said quietly beside me.

“I know.”

I did know — Rose Lawson, who ran a cafe and pastry business in the city with her husband Lucas instead of joining the corporate world her family occupied. Both of them known for being warm and approachable in a way that billionaire families rarely managed. Genuinely liked by people, not just respected. I had never met her but I knew who she was.

She had probably chosen this dress with completely good intentions.

She had still chosen wrong.

“Can you bring me a mermaid dress instead?” I said to the staff member.

She stepped back slightly. “I’m afraid I cannot do that, ma’am. Mr. Thompson was very clear that the dress was not to be changed.”

Of course he was.

Hailey touched my arm. “Can you give us a moment please?”

The staff member stepped out and closed the door quietly behind her.

Hailey turned to me.

“Layla.” Her voice was gentle but direct — the voice she used when she had already decided what she thought and wanted me to arrive at the same conclusion on my own. “Wear the dress.”

“Hailey—”

“His mother chose it. She chose it because she wanted to be involved, because she was excited, because she probably thought she was doing something kind.” She took my hands in hers. “If you change it now it sends a message to her before you have even properly met her. And we both know she meant well.”

“I know she meant well. That doesn’t mean I like the dress.”

“If you had gone with your grandfather that day you could have had a say.” She squeezed my hands. “You didn’t go. This is the consequence.” She looked at me steadily. “Just wear it, Lay Lay. You look gorgeous in everything. You know that.”

I looked at the dress.

She was right. I hated that she was right but she was.

I sighed.

The staff member came back in and helped me into the dress — lacing the back, smoothing the skirt, adjusting the shoulders. The process took several minutes. When she stepped back and I turned to the mirror I stood very still for a moment.

It was stunning. The gems caught the light. The skirt settled around my feet like something from a fairy tale. The bodice fit well.

It was also very much not what I would have chosen for myself.

“You look gorgeous, my Lay Lay,” Hailey said from the sofa, her chin in her hands, her expression warm and fond.

“You need to take in the waist a little more,” she added, turning to the staff member.

“It’s already fitted perfectly,” I said.

“Take it in,” Hailey told the staff member firmly.

I pulled the curtain across and changed back into my own clothes.

There was no point arguing with Hailey once she had decided something. I had learned this approximately four hundred times over the course of our friendship and had not yet found a way around it.

“When the alterations are done,” Hailey said from the other side of the curtain, “someone will come to collect it.”

“Yes ma’am,” the staff member said.

I stepped out of the changing area and looked at the ballgown one more time — hanging there in the private room of a bridal shop in New York, chosen by a woman I had never met, for a wedding I detest so much, to a man I could barely stand to be in the same room with.

One step at a time, I told myself.

Just one step at a time.

*******

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— Ruthie ❤️