Chapter Twelve: Ice-Cream at Midnight

Ian’s POV

The bedroom door opened.

I had changed out of the suit, showered, and was already in bed when she walked in — still in her wedding dress, her hair slightly less perfect than it had been at the cathedral, her expression carrying the particular energy of someone who had been managing themselves all day and was running low on reserves.

She stopped when she saw me.

“Why are you here?”

I looked at her from where I was lying on the bed. “Because it’s my room. And my house.” I paused. “Do I need to remind you of that?”

She looked around the room — at the one bed, at me on top of it, at the general situation — and I could see the calculation happening behind her eyes.

“What do we do about the bed?” she asked.

“It’s a king size.” I pulled the duvet slightly. “We share it. You stay on your side. I stay on mine. Simple.”

“I don’t trust you.” She crossed her arms. “Get out of the bed.”

I stared at her.

“Let me be very clear about something.” I kept my voice flat because I was genuinely exhausted and this conversation was already taking energy I did not have. “I do not force myself on women. I never have and I never will. And trust me — with a face like mine I have never needed to. Women come to me. Willingly. Enthusiastically.”

She made a sound.

“You think very highly of yourself,” she said.

“Think?” I raised an eyebrow. “With a face like mine even the Greek gods don’t come close.”

“You are an egoistic devil,” she said, her voice rising now, the patience she had been holding onto all day finally running out. “That is exactly why you think you are God’s gift to women. Handsome with the worst character I have ever encountered. You are genuinely the worst.”

Did she just call me a devil?

“Women are dying for my attention,” I said. “Every day. Without effort.”

“Women are dying for your attention.” She repeated it slowly, like she was examining it for logic and finding none. “And you think I — Layla Thompson — would ever seek that attention?” She laughed — not the warm laugh, the sharp one. “In your dreams. You are not even close to my type. And you are absolutely the last man on earth I would have married if this stupid arrangement did not exist.”

“The feeling,” I said, “is completely mutual. We have established that fact approximately one million times now.” I closed my eyes and pressed the back of my hand over them. “I would not be sharing my room with you if it were not for my grandfather. I am tired. You are giving me a headache. Please stop talking and go to sleep.”

The silence that followed lasted about two seconds.

“I hate you, Ian Lawson.”

The door slammed.

I lay in the sudden quiet and stared at the ceiling.

Then I pulled the duvet over my head and closed my eyes.

***

Layla’s POV

I stood in the hallway outside his bedroom and breathed.

The anger was still running through me — bright and hot and looking for somewhere to go. I pressed my back against the wall for a moment and let it move through me until it settled into something more manageable.

I hate him.

I said it again in my head just to make sure it was still true. It was. Fully and completely true.

I pushed off from the wall and looked around.

The house was quiet. Large and expensive and quiet, the way houses were when they had too many rooms and not enough people. I looked toward the staircase.

I started down the stairs.

The house was beautiful even in the dim evening light — high ceilings, clean lines, the kind of space that had been designed by someone who understood both comfort and aesthetics. I made a mental note to do a proper tour in the morning. There was something interesting in almost every direction I looked.

A sound reached me from the kitchen. Low — the murmur of something playing on a phone.

I pushed the kitchen door open.

Haze was sitting at the kitchen island in a t-shirt and shorts, a tub of ice cream in front of him, his phone propped against the fruit bowl showing something I couldn’t make out from the doorway.

He looked up when he heard me and smiled — the same open, uncomplicated smile he had given me at the reception.

“Hi, Lay Lay.”

I blinked. “Lay Lay?”

“Too much?” He tilted his head.

“My best friend calls me that,” I said. “It’s fine.” I came in and sat down on the stool beside him. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“I was in the cinema upstairs when you guys got back.” He pushed the ice cream tub slightly toward me in an offering. “Have you eaten? Ian gave the staff two weeks leave before they resume so the kitchen is basically just this right now.” He held up the spoon. “Ice cream is the only option.”

“I’m fine, thank you.” I looked at him for a moment — this boy who was so entirely different from his brother that it was almost difficult to believe they had come from the same family. “Do you stay here often?”

“Whenever I’m back in New York.” He scooped another spoonful. “I’m in my final year at university in London. And I’m at the football academy there at the same time so it’s a lot but I manage.” He grinned. “Ian calls me every week to check I’m not failing anything.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty. Mum had me seven years after Ian.” He smiled. “He was so jealous when I was born. Had all the attention to himself for seven years and then suddenly there was a baby and everyone forgot he existed.” He laughed. “He pretended not to care but Mum has photos of him carrying me around everywhere when I was little. He loved it.”

I smiled at the image.

“He still treats me like I’m about five,” Haze said, not without fondness. “But honestly I don’t mind. He would do anything for me.”

I looked at the kitchen counter. The house. The quiet.

“The Lawsons are good people,” I said. In my head.

Haze looked at me. “I know this whole situation is — a lot. And I know Ian is—” He paused again, choosing his words. “Ian takes time. He’s not always easy. But he’s a good person underneath everything.”

I said nothing.

I was not ready to agree with that. I was not even close to ready.

But I sat at the kitchen island with Ian’s twenty-year-old brother at midnight and ate ice cream that he insisted on giving me despite my refusal, and listened to him talk about London and football and university, and felt the day slowly, carefully begin to release its grip on me.

The arrangement was still a disaster. Ian was still insufferable.

But Haze was sitting beside me like I had always been part of this family.

And Rose and Lucas had told me to call them Mum and Dad.

And Ian Lawson’s house was quiet and warm and full of rooms I had not yet explored.

The Lawson family — every single one of them except the one I had actually married — was making this harder than it needed to be.

In the best possible way.

*******

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

— Ruthie ❤️