Chapter Nine: The Wedding

Layla’s POV

Four weeks.

Sometimes four weeks feels like a lifetime. Like when you are waiting for a vacation or counting down the last days of a school term — every hour stretching out longer than the one before it, time moving like something that has decided to punish you specifically.

And sometimes four weeks disappears so fast you start questioning your own sense of reality.

One minute I was walking out of that restaurant with don’t you dare fall in love with me still hanging in the air behind me.

The next I was standing in my bedroom in a wedding dress.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror.

The ballgown. The one Ian’s mother had chosen. Big, white, full skirted, the gems catching the morning light in small scattered flashes. It was beautiful — I had accepted that much. Beauty was not the issue.

The issue was that in approximately twenty minutes I was going to walk into a church and marry Ian Lawson.

The last four weeks had moved in a blur of boxes and decisions I had barely been part of. My things were packed — most of them already moved to Ian’s house in arrangements I had not been consulted about. The wedding had been planned entirely by my grandfather and the Lawson family. Flowers, venue, catering, guest list — all of it handled without asking for my input, which I had told myself I didn’t want anyway, and which had still somehow managed to irritate me every time a new decision arrived already made.

I had spent four weeks moving toward something I had not chosen.

And now here I was.

A knock at the door pulled me out of my thoughts.

“Ready, Layla?”

I turned.

Hailey came in first — and I felt the tightness in my chest ease slightly just at the sight of her. She was wearing a pink chiffon dress that fell to her knees, the fabric soft and flowing, her hair pinned up with a few loose strands framing her face. She looked beautiful and warm and entirely herself.

Behind her, my grandfather stepped into the room.

Derick Thompson at seventy was still the most commanding presence in any room he entered — straight-backed, sharp-eyed, the kind of man whose stillness communicated more than most people’s words. But this morning something in his face was different. Softer, perhaps. Or as close to soft as Derick Thompson’s face ever got.

“Wow.” Hailey crossed to me immediately and pulled me into a careful hug, mindful of the dress. “You look beautiful, Layla. Genuinely beautiful.”

“You look stunning, my angel.” My grandfather’s voice was quieter than usual. He looked at me for a long moment — at the dress, at my face, at something beyond both that I suspected only he could see. “I wish your parents were here today.”

“Grandpa.” My voice came out slightly unsteady. “Don’t make me cry.”

He stepped forward and took my hand in both of his. His hands were warm and dry and familiar — the hands that had held mine at sixteen when the world had fallen completely apart and there had been nothing left except him.

“I know I have been hard on you,” he said. “I know this has not been easy. But this wedding — Alan and I made the right call, Layla. You both think we are tying you into a business arrangement. But trust me when I tell you it is for the best.”

I looked at him.

There were a hundred things I wanted to say. A hundred arguments I had rehearsed over the last four weeks, lying awake in my bedroom surrounded by half-packed boxes, staring at the ceiling and composing responses he would never find convincing.

I said none of them.

I simply nodded.

“We really need to leave,” Hailey said gently, her timing as precise as always — stepping in at exactly the moment when a conversation had reached its limit and needed someone to close it with grace.

She crouched down carefully in her pink dress and helped me step into my heels. Then she straightened and looked at me with those bright, warm eyes that had been steadying me since we were young.

I took her hand.

I took my grandfather’s hand.

And I walked out of my bedroom for the last time.

The Cathedral doors were tall and heavy and entirely serious about the occasion.

I could hear the music before they opened — the soft, formal notes of something classical drifting through the wood, the sound of a building full of people settling into expectant quiet.

Full. The Cathedral was completely full.

I had been told it would be a private ceremony. I had imagined something small — immediate family, a handful of close associates, the minimum number of witnesses required to make this legal and satisfying for our grandfathers.

What greeted me when the doors opened was a church packed from front to back.

On the left, faces I recognised — family, people who had known my grandfather for decades, some who had known my parents. On the right, the Lawson side — just as full, just as formal, just as dressed for an occasion that had apparently grown significantly beyond the word private.

I walked forward on my grandfather’s arm.

The aisle felt long. The dress moved around my feet with every step. I kept my eyes forward — on the altar, on the priest, on the stained glass behind him throwing colour across the stone floor.

And then on Ian.

He was already at the altar. Dark suit — fitted, expensive, entirely him. His dark brown hair was neatly done. His jaw was set in the particular way it always was when he was maintaining composure by sheer force of will. His ocean blue eyes found me the moment I came into view.

We looked at each other across the length of the aisle.

Neither of us smiled.

We reached the top. My grandfather stopped. He looked at me — one long, private look that said everything he had not said in the bedroom — and then he turned to Ian.

“Take care of my baby,” he said.

Ian nodded once. He extended his hand toward me.

I looked at his outstretched hand.

I thought about the bridal shop. About standing outside on the pavement for over an hour in heels while his secretary called to say he was not coming. About the smug certainty of a man who believed his time was worth more than anyone else’s and acted accordingly.

I stepped forward to stand beside him.

Without taking his hand.

I felt it immediately — the slight shift in his posture, the almost imperceptible tightening of his jaw. His hand stayed extended for exactly one second longer than it should have before he curled it slowly into a fist and turned to face the priest.

The smile I had been holding back refused to stay contained any longer.

I pressed my lips together. It didn’t help.

It felt good. It felt exactly as good as I had hoped it would feel, standing in a cathedral full of people while Ian Lawson processed the fact that I had just ignored his hand in front of every single person he knew.

That was for the bridal shop.

We were even now.

For now.

“Let us begin,” the priest said.

*******

Thank you for reading. Please like, comment, vote and add to library. Your support means so much to me.

—Ruthie❤️