Chapter Eleven: Thorn

Ian’s POV

Four years.

I had given Mandy four years of my life — four years of trust and patience and the kind of love that makes you do things you would not otherwise do. Things like ignoring what Gabriel told me. Things like choosing belief over evidence because the alternative was too uncomfortable to sit with.

The memory of catching her still made my stomach turn if I let it stay too long. So I did not let it stay too long. I had gotten very good at that.

What I had not gotten good at was the way it had changed me — the specific, permanent way it had rearranged my relationship with trust. I knew it had happened. I was not blind to it. I simply did not consider it a problem worth fixing.

Love was a liability. I had tested that theory against reality and reality had confirmed it.

And then my grandfather had arranged my marriage.

The other thing I had not planned — the thing I had not thought about since it happened until the moment Layla Thompson’s name was attached to my future — was that night in Manhattan.

Tessy had been one of the women I had casual sex with in the city. She was beginning to want more than casual and I had been in the process of making my position very clear when Layla stumbled into us on the pavement. I had been irritated before the collision. I had been in exactly the wrong mood at exactly the wrong moment.

None of that excused what I said or did. I was aware of that.

But it did not change the fact that she had slapped me across the face on a Manhattan street.

I stabbed a piece of food on my plate and chewed it without tasting it.

The reception was in full swing around us — music, conversation, the cheerful noise of two families who were very pleased with themselves for arranging an evening like this. Beside me at the head table, Layla sat in her ballgown and said absolutely nothing to me. She had been sending glares in my direction at regular intervals since we sat down, each one precise and deliberate, the kind of look that communicated volumes while maintaining total deniability.

I stared at my plate and pretended not to notice.

Movement at the edge of my vision. I looked up.

Haze was heading toward us with the particular energy he always brought to situations — enthusiastic, warm, entirely unbothered by the possibility that his enthusiasm might not be welcome.

“Sister-in-law,” he said, grinning at Layla like she was someone he had been waiting to meet for a long time.

Something shifted in Layla’s face. The careful neutrality she had been maintaining cracked slightly — and what came through was not performance. It was genuine surprise, and then something warmer than surprise.

“You must be Haze,” she said, extending her hand.

He ignored the hand completely and pulled her into a hug.

“Nice to finally meet you in person,” he said, releasing her. “I’ve heard things.”

She laughed. It was a real laugh — the same one from the restaurant, the one that arrived without asking permission. I looked away.

My parents were next.

My mother arrived the way she always arrived — like warmth itself had decided to take a form and walk into the room.

“Hi, my love,” she said, pulling Layla into a hug before introductions were complete. “You are absolutely beautiful.”

“Hi, Mrs. Lawson,” Layla said.

“No, no.” My mother pulled back and held her by the shoulders. “We are family now. Call us Rose and Lucas.” She looked at my father. “Right, honey?”

My father stepped forward with the calm, steady presence that had anchored our family my entire life. “Layla.” He smiled — genuine and unhurried. “It’s very good to meet you in person. Call us Mum and Dad. Whichever feels right.”

Something moved across Layla’s face.

It was small and quick — there and gone, the way certain things passed through a person who had learned to keep their expressions managed. But I saw it. A shift. Something that responded to the word Mum and Dad in a way she had not prepared for.

I thought about what Gabriel had told me on the golf course.

Both parents. Car accident. She was sixteen.

I looked at my plate.

She is still an attention seeker, I told myself.

My mother had taken Layla’s hands and was talking with the focused enthusiasm of someone who had been waiting for a daughter-in-law for years and intended to make up for lost time immediately. Tea parties. Shopping. Things we should do together. The full catalogue of everything she had been storing up.

“Mum,” I said.

She paused and looked at me.

“Give her some space to breathe.”

My mother opened her mouth. My father put his hand on her arm.

“She has all the time in the world to get to know you,” he said. “Let her enjoy the party tonight.”

My mother considered this. “Fine.” She turned back to Layla with a smile that communicated that fine was temporary and the tea parties were definitely still happening. “Enjoy the party. And when this boy annoys you — which he will — you come straight to me.”

Layla smiled. “Yes, ma.”

They moved back to their seats.

The evening continued.

My mother took Layla on a circuit of the Lawson side — introductions, conversation, the particular warmth my family brought to social occasions that I had always taken for granted and had never fully appreciated until I watched it directed at someone else. Layla moved through it with a composure that I recognised — not the same as mine, not cold, but controlled. Managed. The composure of someone who was choosing very carefully what to show and what to hold back.

Derick Thompson came forward at some point in the evening and shook my hand with the grip of a man communicating something specific through pressure.

“Ian, my boy.” His eyes were direct. “Take care of my baby girl.”

I nodded. I said nothing. I focused very deliberately on not showing the particular category of irritation that these pleasantries produced in me — two old men who had arranged our lives between them and were now distributing instructions as though the whole thing had been a thoughtful gift rather than a transaction.

Gabriel appeared at my elbow.

“Don’t,” he said, without preamble.

I looked at him.

“Whatever your face is doing right now,” he said, “stop it. Your grandfather is watching.”

I adjusted my expression.

The first dance happened. It was exactly as awkward as I had known it would be — Layla and I occupying the same space on a dance floor, maintaining the minimum viable distance that could still be interpreted as romantic, neither of us looking at the other for longer than the cameras required.

The night ended the way these things ended — guests leaving in waves, the music fading, the catering staff moving efficiently through the space.

My father found me near the door.

“Tonight was a success,” he said. The quiet satisfaction in his voice was genuine. He looked out at the emptying room with the expression of a man who had watched something he cared about go well. “You have a responsibility now, Ian. To your wife and to both our families.”

“Dad—”

“I saw what you did at the altar.” His voice did not rise. It never needed to. “Your grandfather was not pleased. I managed to calm him down.” He looked at me steadily. “What exactly do you have against her?”

“She’s not what she appears to be. She’s rude and—”

“I don’t believe that.” Simple. Final. “Your mother and I both like her very much. Haze has been talking about her since he met her. She is warm and gracious and she handled this evening with more composure than most people would have.” He paused. “I know this arrangement was sudden. I know it was not what you would have chosen. But I am asking you — as your father, not as part of any agreement — to respect her. That is my final word on it.”

I held his gaze for a moment.

“Fine,” I said. “I will.”

He patted my back — the gesture he had used my whole life when he knew I was frustrated and wanted me to know he saw it without making it worse.

“Your honeymoon is in two days,” he said. “Go and enjoy it.” A pause. “We love you, son. Your grandfather. Your mother. Haze. And you know how much I love you.”

He walked away.

I stood alone for a moment in the emptying reception hall.

Two days until the honeymoon. A honeymoon I had not agreed to and had not planned and was apparently attending regardless because everything about the last four weeks had happened to me rather than with me.

My parents liked her. Haze liked her. My grandfather had arranged this entire catastrophe for her benefit as much as mine.

And she had switched the ring. She had stood at the altar and given me a Tiffany ring with something engraved on the inside — I had felt the engraving when I put it on and had not yet brought myself to look at what it said — while wearing her another ring on her finger to spite me.

Layla is a thorn in my flesh, I thought.

A very well-dressed, infuriatingly composed, completely unbothered thorn.

And I was married to her.

God help me.

*******

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