Chapter Fifteen: The List

Layla’s POV

“Mandy?”

The name was already out of my mouth before I could decide whether I wanted it to be.

Ian moved faster.

“Pius.” His voice was smooth and entirely controlled. “This is Layla. My wife.”

Pius looked at me. The warm smile stayed but something behind it shifted — the particular discomfort of a man who had said something he immediately wished he could take back, watching the consequences arrange themselves in real time.

“I am so sorry, Madam.” He dipped his head. “I made a mistake. Please forgive me.”

“It’s perfectly fine, Pius.” I opened the menu. “No apology needed.”

I did not look at Ian.

We ordered — I asked for the egg waffles and sushi, Ian made his own choices without consulting me, and Pius disappeared with the particular relief of someone who was very glad to have somewhere else to be.

The food was good. That was the honest truth of it. The waffles were light and perfectly made, the sushi fresh in the way that only made sense when you were somewhere surrounded by ocean. I ate without speaking and Ian ate without speaking and for a while it was almost manageable.

Then I looked up.

“Who is Mandy?”

He looked up immediately. And there it was — the smirk. That infuriating, slow, completely deliberate smirk that he deployed specifically when he knew something I wanted to know and had decided not to tell me.

“I knew you were going to ask that,” he said.

“For the record,” I said, keeping my voice even, “I still don’t care about you. I am simply curious as to why Pius confused me with someone named Mandy.”

“It’s none of your business.” He leaned back slightly, his expression shifting into boredom — the performative kind, the kind that was actually something else wearing a mask. “Or are you starting to play wife now?”

“Please.” I picked up my wine glass. “I don’t know what Mandy is to you but judging by your reaction she’s probably one of your many fuck girls. I really don’t care.”

Something moved across his face. Sharp and quick.

“Let me be very clear.” His voice dropped — lower now, the boredom gone entirely, replaced by the cold directness he used when he meant every word. “Your business is yours. My business is mine. What I do and who I do it with is completely separate from whatever this arrangement is. We respect each other’s boundaries. We do not pry into each other’s personal lives.” His jaw was tight. “Whoever I have sex with is not your concern.”

I set my wine glass down.

Looked at him.

And then I said everything I had been keeping.

“This Mandy,” I said, “clearly means more to you than just a casual fuck. Otherwise you would not be this bothered by a simple question.” I held his gaze. “And while we are talking about what bothers people — let me tell you what bothers me, Ian. Since apparently we are having this conversation.”

His jaw tightened further.

“Manhattan,” I said. “You yanked your hand away and let me fall on the pavement. You did not even check if I was hurt. That is not how you treat a human being regardless of the circumstances.” I kept my voice steady. “Then you left me standing at the altar alone on our wedding day. In front of every person we know. You had made arrangements with the priest without telling me.” I paused. “And just days ago in your own dining room you questioned whether I could cook in front of your younger brother before you had tasted a single bite of what I made.” I leaned forward slightly. “You have been rude to me, dismissive of me and publicly humiliating to me since the first moment we met. And you want to talk to me about boundaries and respect?”

The table was very quiet.

Ian was looking at me with an expression I had not seen before on his face — not the cold boredom, not the smirk, not the calculated annoyance. Something that had been hit somewhere real and was in the process of deciding what to do about it.

“We can respect each other’s boundaries,” I said. “Fine. I agree. But let me be equally clear about mine.” My voice was firm. “I do not care what you did before this marriage. But while we are married you will not disrespect me. You will not humiliate me. And you will not have sex with other women through our shared life. I am not asking you to love me. I am not asking you to pretend. I am asking for the basic dignity that one adult owes another.” I stood up. “If that is too much to ask, take it up with your grandfather.”

I reached into my bag and placed my card on the table.

“The pin is 7074,” I said. “That covers my food.”

I turned and walked out.

I could feel his eyes on my back the entire way to the door. I did not turn around. I did not slow down. I walked out of Leo Treats and into the Bora Bora afternoon with the particular posture of someone who had said what needed to be said and was done.

The beach was not far.

The map I took before leaving the villa turned out to be genuinely useful — clear enough that I found the beach access path in under ten minutes, following it through a section of lush vegetation until it opened onto a stretch of pale sand that was, by some combination of luck almost completely empty.

I stopped when I reached the water’s edge.

The ocean. The actual, real, overwhelming ocean — stretching out in front of me in every shade of blue that existed, the water so clear near the shore that I could see the sand beneath it shifting with every small wave. Further out the colour deepened — turquoise to teal to a blue so dark it was almost purple at the horizon.

I exhaled.

I sat down on the sand and took off my flip flops. The sand was warm and fine and impossibly soft. The water reached my feet in small, cool waves — lapping forward, pulling back, forward, back, the rhythm of it so steady and indifferent to everything that it was immediately calming.

I closed my eyes.

The anger from the restaurant was still there — I could feel it, smaller now, the edges cooling. I breathed through it and let the sound of the waves do what sounds like that did — replace the noise in my head with something that had been here long before any of my problems existed and would be here long after.

Hailey had said to enjoy this place.

She was right. She was so right and I had been so determined not to admit it.

I was in Bora Bora. Whatever the circumstances, whatever the infuriating man sitting in that restaurant right now was thinking — I was sitting on a beach in French Polynesia with warm sand between my fingers and the most beautiful water I had ever seen in front of me and the sun on my skin.

I was going to enjoy it.

I tipped my head back slightly and let the warmth settle over me.

Then I felt a tap on my shoulder.

*******

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— Ruthie ❤️