HATE ME SLOWER

Chapter Three: The Terrace

IVY

I tell myself I'm going to the terrace for air.

That is a lie, and a poor one. The ballroom is perfectly ventilated, the champagne is flowing, and my brother is currently attempting to dance the waltz with a woman who has seen him fall over twice. I have no logical reason to slip through the glass doors at the far end of the room and follow a man I have spent eleven years avoiding.

But Ryan left, and he looked back at me before he did it.

And I am, apparently, a woman with no self-preservation instincts whatsoever.

The night air is cool against my bare shoulders. Greystone glitters below the terrace, a sprawl of gold lights and glass towers, and the whole city looks like it's holding its breath.

He's standing at the far railing, one hand braced against the stone, phone gripped in the other so tightly his knuckles have gone pale.

"You followed me," Ryan says without turning around.

"I did not. I came out for air."

"Ivy."

"I have a right to air."

"You have a right to lie badly, too." He finally turns, and the terrace lights catch the sharp line of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders, the tiredness in his eyes that I've never noticed before. "Go back inside."

"No."

"It's cold."

"I'm fine."

I am not fine. I am freezing. My teeth are one gust of wind away from chattering, and he knows it, because before I can stop him, he's shrugging out of his jacket and holding it out toward me, his expression carefully blank.

"Take it."

"I don't want your jacket."

"Ivy." His voice drops, low and rough and dangerously close to gentle. "Please."

Please.

In eleven years, I have never heard that word leave his mouth in my direction.

I take the jacket. It's warm from his body and smells like cedar and something faintly expensive, and I hate how much I want to bury my face in the collar.

RYAN

She looks ridiculous in my jacket.

The sleeves swallow her hands entirely. The shoulders hang halfway to her elbows. She looks small and rumpled and unfairly beautiful, and every disciplined instinct I've spent a decade building is quietly setting itself on fire.

"Who called?" she asks, nodding at the phone still clenched in my fist.

"Nobody important."

"You looked like you wanted to throw it off the balcony."

"I did." I exhale, loosening my grip. "My father."

Her expression shifts. "Alexander called you during Noah's engagement party?"

"Alexander doesn't recognize the concept of inappropriate timing." The words come out bitter. "He and your father are in Zurich. They wanted to know why I'm not answering their emails."

"Because you're at a party."

"Because I'm ignoring them." I almost smile, and it feels foreign on my face. "There's a merger. Something about consolidating Monroe & Co. with Blackwood Holdings. They've been circling it for months. They want a meeting."

"That's ridiculous. My father would never..." She stops. Her brow furrows, thinking. "Wait. Why would they need you specifically?"

"I've been asking myself the same thing."

The silence that follows is different from the ones at dinner. Softer. Almost companionable. The wind tugs at her hair, and she tucks a loose strand behind her ear, a habit I've catalogued so thoroughly I could sketch it blindfolded.

Don't stare. Do not stare.

"Ryan," she says quietly.

"Yes?"

"At the table. What did you mean? That I have no idea what you think about me?"

Every muscle in my body locks.

Because I have two options. I can lie, deflect, retreat into the cold, clipped silence that has protected me for eleven years. Or I can tell her the truth: that I think about her when I wake up and when I fall asleep, that every insult she's ever thrown at me has been easier to bear than the thought of her looking at me with indifference, that I would burn down every boardroom in this city for the sound of her laugh.

I choose the coward's path.

"It meant nothing," I say. "I'd had too much wine."

I watch it land. Watch the light in her eyes flicker and dim, watch her lift her chin in that stubborn way that tells me she's hurt and refusing to show it.

"Right," Ivy says. "Of course."

She shrugs off my jacket and pushes it back into my hands. "Thank you for the loan. I'll stick to hating you. It's less exhausting."

"Ivy—"

"Goodnight, Ryan."

The door clicks shut behind her, and I stand alone on the terrace, holding a jacket that smells like her perfume, and I think: Eleven years. You're a coward. You're an absolute coward.

IVY

I make it all the way to the powder room before the tears start.

They're stupid tears. Angry tears. The kind that come when you've allowed yourself one foolish, fleeting moment of hope and it has been dismantled in a single sentence.

It meant nothing.

Fine. Wonderful. Nothing meant everything and nothing means nothing, and I am done analyzing the tone of a man who communicates primarily through scowls.

"You're crying in a very expensive bathroom," Olive observes from the doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed. "I'd like to formally note that."

"I'm not crying."

"You have mascara on your chin."

I swipe at it viciously. "He said it meant nothing."

Olive's expression goes through several complicated stages, ending on something that looks suspiciously like fury. "My brother is a coward and an i***t, and I say that with love."

"He's not a coward. He just doesn't care."

"Ivy." She crosses to me and takes my shoulders, forcing me to meet her gaze. "I have known Ryan Blackwood my entire life. That man has never once looked at anyone the way he looks at you. Not once."

"He looks at me like I'm an inconvenience."

"He looks at you like you're a sunrise and he's terrified of going blind."

I stare at her.

"Too much?" Olive winces. "That was a bit much. But you get the point."

Before I can answer, my phone vibrates in my clutch. I fish it out, ready to ignore it. Then I see the name flashing across the screen.

Mom.

My mother, Vivienne Monroe, has called me exactly four times this year. Twice for my birthday. Once by accident. Once to ask if I still had a copy of the family tax documents.

I answer. "Mom? Is everything okay?"

"Ivy, darling." Her voice is crisp and unhurried, the way it always is, like she's dictating a memo. "I'm afraid I can't stay long. Your father and I are boarding in ten minutes. But there's something urgent we need to discuss."

"What is it?"

A pause. Then, in the same polished tone she'd use to announce a quarterly earnings report:

"The Blackwoods and the Monroes have reached an agreement. It involves you and Ryan. We'll be home Monday morning. Please make sure you're both at the house."

The line goes dead.

I lower the phone slowly, feeling the blood drain from my face.

"Ivy?" Olive says carefully. "What did she say?"

I look up at her, and for the first time in my life, I have absolutely no words.

To be continued in Chapter Four...