Layla
: Chapter 17

The bed is empty when I wake up. I touch Layla’s pillow and run my hand over it, as if Willow is still lying there. Maybe she is.

I sit up to check the time, but I can’t replace my phone. I look on the floor. On the bed. It isn’t in here.

Did Layla take it?

I rush downstairs to replace her, my fear two steps ahead of me as I wonder why she took my phone and what she might be seeing on it. A conversation with Willow, the app for the security system. I rush into the kitchen, but Layla isn’t there. I search the Grand Room, the downstairs bedrooms. I open the back door, but she isn’t out by the pool.

I run to the front door and swing it open.

Layla is sitting on the porch steps, staring out over the front yard.

There’s a cigarette in her hand.

“What are you doing?”

She doesn’t turn around to look at me, which makes me wonder what she found out. There are so many things. The cameras, the conversations on my laptop, the kiss last night.

I walk tentatively toward the steps and watch as Layla takes in a slow drag of the cigarette. “I wasn’t aware you smoked,” I say.

She blows the smoke out. “I don’t. But I keep some hidden in my purse for when I’m stressed.” She cuts her eyes at me, looking over her shoulder. I’m not sure what it is that caused that betrayal in her expression, but she definitely uncovered something.

I keep my voice steady when I say, “What’s wrong, Layla?”

She looks away from me again. Her voice is flat when she says, “Why didn’t you tell me you were buying this house?”

I lean my head back and blow out a silent breath of relief. I thought maybe she might have found the security footage. I wouldn’t have been able to explain that.

But I expected her to be mad about this.

I’m even okay that she knows about it. I planned to tell her today anyway. “How did you replace out?”

“The Realtor just stopped by.” Layla jams her cigarette onto the wooden step next to her, and it feels like an insult. “The contract is on the kitchen counter. She’d like it back by the end of the day.”

I’ve never seen her this angry. Her sentences are tight, and she won’t look me in the eye. “Layla. It was supposed to be a surprise.”

“The hell it was,” she says. She stands up and brushes past me, then makes her way into the house and up the stairs.

I follow her, a little confused by her level of anger. I didn’t expect her to be thrilled, but I also didn’t expect her to be this incensed. “Layla,” I say when I reach the top of the stairs. I get her name out, right as the bedroom door closes in my face. I open it and watch as she pulls an empty suitcase from beneath the bed. She tosses it on the bed, opens it, and then walks to the dresser. “Why are you so upset about this?”

She scoops up the entire contents of the dresser drawer and tosses them into the suitcase. “I don’t want to live in the middle of nowhere. We’re a couple. You should talk to me about things like this, but instead, you went behind my back.” She walks to the closet now and grabs several of her shirts.

“I wasn’t hiding it. It was a surprise. We fell in love here. I thought this place meant something to us.”

Her face contorts into a mixture of confusion and anger. “My sister got married here. This place means more to her than it does to me. I don’t even like Kansas. I’ve said it in all the ways I can possibly say it without being rude.” She shoves the shirts in the suitcase, hangers still on them. “What is your ultimate goal, Leeds? To force me to live somewhere I don’t want to live, or were you hoping I’d leave you and go back to Chicago?”

She’s still packing, and I’m not sure I can convince her not to leave.

But she can’t leave. Not after last night. Not after that kiss with Willow. I have to convince her to stay, even if it’s just for one last night. I need a chance to see Willow again. Even if it’s just so I can tell her goodbye face to face.

I can’t do that if Layla leaves.

I rush to the closet and dig inside my shoe. I frantically pull out the engagement ring. “I had a plan, Layla,” I say, walking over to her.

She’s staring at the ring in my hand.

“I was going to propose tonight and tell you about the house. I had it all planned out. You weren’t supposed to replace out this way.”

Layla has stopped packing. She’s staring at the box, and then she lifts her eyes to mine, but they’re still filled with anger. “I already saw the ring.

You realize you left the receipt inside the box, right?”

I don’t know why that matters. I would have taken it out before I proposed anyway. “Why does that matter?”

“You bought the ring while I was in the hospital, Leeds. Six months ago. That means you’ve spent the last six months doubting whether you even want to be with me.” She turns and zips up her suitcase. “If you don’t want to leave, fine. Stay and close on your house. But I don’t like it here, and I don’t want to stay here. I’m taking the car.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

If she leaves, I won’t get to see Willow again.

I run through the bedroom, past Layla. I block the doorway and then kneel in front of her. She stops moving. “This isn’t how I wanted this to happen,” I say. “But I’ve known since the night I met you that I wanted to marry you. I bought this ring six months ago, knowing that once you recovered, we would come back here. I wanted to ask you to be my wife, but I wanted to do it here. Where we met. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Layla. Please don’t go.”

Layla doesn’t move. She’s staring at the ring now, less tense than she was a minute ago. Less angry.

“Please,” I beg.

She hesitates, her expression still full of doubt. She releases the suitcase. “This is really confusing,” she says. “I want to believe you. Why don’t I believe you?”

Because you shouldn’t, I want to say. Instead, I stand up and grab her hand. I look at her intently, and with what I hope looks like honesty.

Because what I’m about to say is honest. “I knew I wanted to marry you the first night we met. I had never felt more connected to someone like I did to you.” What I follow that up with is a lie, though. “I want to spend my life with you, Layla. Please. Marry me.”

She believed that. I can see it in her expression. All her anger has turned to relief. “So you haven’t been doubting us?”

Yes. For six months. “No. Not even for one second.”

A tear spills out of her right eye, and then she shakes her head regretfully. “I ruined it. Leeds, I’m so sorry. I got angry and I ruined this whole thing.”

I pull the ring out of the box. I slip it on her trembling finger. She’s full on crying now. “It’s not your fault. I should have planned this better.”

She shakes her head and throws her arms around my neck. “No, it was perfect.” She kisses me and then pulls back to look at the ring. “And yes.

Yes, yes, yes, I’ll marry you.”

This was not the proposal I had imagined.

Far from it.

I try to keep a solid expression on my face, but the bigger her smile gets, the smaller I feel.

She kisses me again, and she tastes like cigarettes, and I have to force myself through the kiss.

I’ve done some pretty terrible things in the last year, but this may be the lowest I’ve ever sunk. I just proposed to a girl I’m not even sure I’m in love with anymore.

“I have to call Aspen,” Layla says. She bounds out the bedroom door and down the stairs.

I just stand still in the bedroom, shaking my head. What have I just done?

I hear something behind me—a noise coming from the dresser. The bottom drawer slowly slides open by itself.

I walk over to the dresser and look inside the drawer. My laptop and my phone are tucked away inside. I pick up my phone and enter the pass code. I open the messages where Willow and I have most of our conversations. There’s an unread message that reads, I had to hide your phone and your laptop after the realtor left. Layla looked really angry and I didn’t want her snooping.

The message was sent an hour ago.

I sigh, walk over to the bed, and fall on top of it, face-first. “I’m sorry,” I say out loud. “I had no other choice.”

The room is silent. I lay my phone on the bed in case Willow wants to use it to respond to me.

She doesn’t.

She doesn’t speak to me at all.