Chapter Seventeen: Silent Treatment

Ian’s POV

I love you so much and I’m missing you so bad.

— Mandy

I stared at the message for a moment then locked my phone and set it face down on the bed.

Another number. She had done it again — I blocked one and she found another, the way she had been doing for months now. First the apologies. Then the feelings. Then, most recently, a message about my marriage to Layla that I had deleted without finishing.

Mandy Park did not understand the word finished.

I understood it. I had understood it the moment I walked into that apartment and saw what I saw. There was no version of that evening that I had replayed and arrived at a different conclusion. It was finished. It had been finished for a long time before I even knew it.

Pius at Leo Treats had known Mandy because of me — I had been on the phone with her once during a previous trip here, complaining that she couldn’t come because of some brand deal, and I had mentioned her name. That was all. One conversation, one name, and now the man assumed that every woman I arrived with was the same woman.

I was done with Mandy.

I was done with thinking about Mandy.

My phone rang.

Gabriel.

“Wassup,” I said. “Did you send those files?”

“Yeah. You haven’t checked them?”

“Not yet.”

A pause. “You sound annoyed. What happened?”

I leaned back against the headboard.

“Layla,” I said. “That woman knows how to have the last word every single time. She knows exactly how to get under my skin. She knows how to shut me up mid-sentence and then — every time, Gabriel, every single time — she walks out.” I exhaled. “She always walks out on me. Like it’s a hobby she has specifically developed to irritate me.”

A pause.

Then laughter. Full, unrestrained, completely unhelpful laughter coming through the phone from my best friend of twenty years.

“Are you seriously laughing right now?” I said.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He did not sound sorry. “It’s just — Ian. It is genuinely funny that there is finally a woman in the world who makes you this irritated.”

“I’m glad my suffering is entertaining.”

“And the walking out thing—” he started.

“Don’t.”

“You stood her up at the altar, man. In front of everyone.”

“Gabriel.”

“I’m just saying. Objectively.”

“Are you my friend or hers? Because I’m genuinely confused right now.”

“I’m your friend. Which is exactly why I’m telling you the truth.” He paused. “What happened today specifically?”

“She left her card on the table,” I said. “At the restaurant. Told me the pin and walked out. Like I — Ian Lawson — needed her to cover a lunch bill.”

A silence.

“She did that?” Gabriel said.

“Yes.”

“Ian.” His voice had shifted. “That girl is something else.”

“Stop praising her.”

“I’m not praising her I’m just—”

“You are absolutely praising her and I need you to stop.” I pressed my hand to my forehead. “She is messing with my head and all you can do is sound impressed.”

“Okay. Okay, I’ll stop.” A pause that told me he had not stopped being impressed. “But listen — I think you two need to call a truce. Start over. Stop this constant back and forth.”

“She’s the one being petty.”

“Ian.”

“What.”

“You are the rude one here. You know that.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“One second — when are you back?”

“Day after tomorrow. Saturday.”

“Good. I need to talk to you in person about something. A deal.”

“Fine.”

“Audrey’s back by the way. She sends her regards.”

“Tell her hi from me.” I hung up.

I lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

I had expected Layla to be like the others — the women who adjusted to me, who found ways to manage my moods, who chose their battles carefully and generally let me win the ones I pushed on. Every woman I had been around, in every context, had done some version of that eventually.

Layla did none of it.

She did not adjust. She did not manage. She fired back every time, kept score of everything, paid for her own food when she felt I had been disrespectful and walked out without looking back.

She was unlike anyone I had encountered.

I closed my eyes.

That was either going to become very tiresome very quickly or it was going to become something else entirely.

I was not ready to think about what else it might become.

***

Layla’s POV

I pushed the villa door open quietly and stepped inside.

Ian was on the bed — black joggers, black hoodie, sleeves pushed up to his elbows the way he wore them when he was relaxed. The tattoos on his forearms caught the lamp light. He looked up when I came in.

“Walking out on me is becoming a real hobby for you,” he said.

I said nothing.

I crossed to the small ensuite kitchen and opened the fridge for water.

“Your card is on the table,” he said from behind me. “I paid for the food. I’m more than wealthy enough to cover a lunch bill.”

Silence.

“Where did you go after the restaurant?”

Silence.

I heard him get up. Heard his footsteps crossing the room. A moment later he was in the kitchen doorway.

“There’s food in the microwave,” he said. “In case you haven’t had dinner.”

I looked at the microwave. Then at him.

He had ordered it. Or done something that resulted in there being food in the microwave for me even after I had walked out on him in a restaurant and left my card on the table.

I did not say anything about it.

He leaned against the doorframe, watching me with that expression — unreadable, giving nothing away.

“Are you giving me the silent treatment?” He almost sounded amused. Almost.

I walked past him out of the kitchen. Into the bedroom.

“I was the one who was embarrassed at that restaurant,” he said, stopping at the bedroom door. “And I am trying to be the bigger person here. But I don’t want to talk to you right now.” I looked at him over my shoulder. “I’m sure you understand that. You run a multi-billion dollar company. Basic communication should not be beyond you.”

I went into the closet and closed the door.

I stood in the quiet for a moment, surrounded by my clothes on one side and his on the other, the villa warm and still outside.

He had put food in the microwave.

Without being asked. Without making it obvious. Without saying anything that required me to acknowledge it or thank him or give him anything in return.

I stared at a row of his shirts and thought about that for a moment longer than I intended to.

Then I got changed and went to bed.

*******