HATE ME SLOWER

Chapter Four: Home

IVY

The Monroe estate looks the same as it always does on Monday mornings sprawling, silent, and entirely too big for the four people who technically live in it, three of whom are rarely home at the same time.

Noah paces the length of the study like a man awaiting sentencing. Olive sits curled in the window seat, unusually quiet, which somehow worries me more than if she'd been running commentary the whole time.

And Ryan stands by the fireplace, arms crossed, jaw set, refusing to look at me.

He hasn't looked at me since the terrace.

"They're late," Noah mutters, checking his watch for the fourth time in as many minutes.

"They're never late," I say. "Mom runs on a schedule tighter than air traffic control."

As if summoned, the front door opens. Voices in the hall my father's low, measured tone, my mother's crisp and efficient and then they're in the study, trailing the scent of expensive perfume and jet lag.

Richard Monroe doesn't waste time on pleasantries. "Sit down, all of you."

We sit. Even Ryan, though he chooses the chair furthest from mine, which I try very hard not to notice or care about.

"I assume Vivienne told you the broad strokes," my father continues, settling behind his desk like this is a board meeting and not, apparently, the demolition of my entire life plan. "Monroe & Co. and Blackwood Holdings have been circling a merger for two years. The board finally approved terms last week."

"What does that have to do with me?" I ask, though I already suspect I know, and the suspicion sits like a stone in my stomach.

My mother answers, unbothered, like she's reading a quarterly report. "The board wants assurance of long-term alignment between the families. A marriage secures that in a way contracts alone cannot."

The room goes very still.

"A marriage," I repeat.

"Between you and Ryan," my father confirms. "The engagement will be announced within the month. The wedding, six weeks after that."

I laugh. It's an ugly, disbelieving sound. "You're joking."

"I don't joke about billion-dollar mergers, Ivy."

"This is my life. Not a line item."

"It's both," my mother says, not unkindly, but not gently either. "The company has provided for this family for three generations. It's time you understood what that provision costs."

I look at Ryan. He's staring at the fireplace like it holds answers, jaw tight, saying absolutely nothing.

"Ryan." My voice comes out sharper than I intend. "Say something."

He finally looks at me, and for one unguarded second, I see something raw underneath the coldness something that looks almost like guilt.

"What would you like me to say?" he asks quietly.

"That this is insane. That you won't do it. That you'll tell them no."

His jaw works. "It's not that simple."

"It's exactly that simple, Ryan. Say no."

"Ivy." Alexander Blackwood's voice cuts in, smooth and unhurried, entirely too pleased with himself. "Ryan understands the stakes far better than you're giving him credit for. Don't you, son?"

Ryan's eyes flick to his father, something hard and unreadable passing between them. "I understand," he says finally, voice flat.

"Good." Alexander smiles, cold and satisfied. "Then it's settled."

"It's not settled," I snap, rising from my chair so fast it scrapes against the floor. "You cannot just decide this. I have a say in who I marry."

"You have a say," my father says calmly, "in how gracefully you accept it."

I stare at him. At my mother, unmoved. At Alexander, smug. At Ryan, silent.

Noah finally speaks, voice tight with something I rarely hear from him real anger. "Dad. This is Ivy's life. You can't just"

"I can, and I have." My father's tone leaves no room for argument. "The papers are already drafted. The engagement announcement goes out in three weeks."

I feel the room tilting slightly, the walls pressing in. Everyone is talking now Noah arguing, Olive uncharacteristically silent in the corner, my mother explaining terms of the arrangement like she's reading off a spreadsheet.

I don't hear any of it.

I'm looking at Ryan, who is looking at the floor, and I think: Eleven years of hating you, and somehow this is worse. This is so much worse than hate.

RYAN

I should say something.

I should stand up, tell my father exactly where he can put his merger, tell Richard Monroe that his daughter is not a bargaining chip, tell Ivy that this all of this is not what I want for her, that I never wanted her cornered into anything, least of all me.

Instead I sit in silence, letting the weight of my father's expectations settle over the room like fog, because the alternative telling the truth, admitting that the thought of marrying Ivy Monroe has haunted me for over a decade feels far more dangerous than staying quiet.

She's staring at me. I can feel it, the heat of her gaze, demanding something I don't know how to give her without giving away everything.

"Fine," I say finally, low and controlled. "I'll do it."

The room quiets.

"Ryan" Noah starts.

"I said I'll do it." My voice comes out harder than I mean it to. "It's a business arrangement. We'll marry, we'll satisfy the board, and life continues as it always has."

Ivy's face does something complicated hurt flickering under the anger, gone so fast I might have imagined it.

"How romantic," she says bitterly. "A business arrangement. Lucky me."

"Ivy"

"Don't." She holds up a hand, voice shaking now, whether from anger or something else I can't tell. "Don't you dare try to make this easier for either of us. You had a chance to fight for something and you chose the company. That tells me everything I need to know."

She walks out before anyone can stop her. Olive's on her feet a second later, shooting me a look sharp enough to draw blood, before following.

The study falls silent except for the low murmur of my father and Richard discussing timelines like nothing has happened at all.

Noah rounds on me the second they're distracted. "What the hell was that?" he hisses.

"What was I supposed to say?"

"The truth, Ryan. For once in your life, the actual truth."

I don't answer. I can't. Because the truth is a door I've kept locked for eleven years, and I'm terrified of what happens if I finally open it for her, for me, for the fragile thing I've built my entire life around not wanting.

IVY

I find the garden before I find my composure, sinking onto the stone bench beneath the old oak tree where I used to hide as a kid whenever the house felt too big and too loud.

Olive finds me twenty minutes later, sitting down beside me without a word, letting the silence stretch until I'm ready.

"He said yes," I finally say. "Like it was a business decision. Like I'm a merger clause."

"He's an i***t," Olive says fiercely. "I love him, but he is a genuine idiot."

"Everyone keeps telling me he cares. That there's something underneath all that ice." I laugh, hollow. "Well, I just watched him agree to marry me with all the enthusiasm of signing a lease agreement."

Olive is quiet for a moment. Then: "Can I tell you something, and you have to promise not to hate me for it?"

"What?"

"Ryan didn't have a choice the way you think he did." Her voice is careful, measured in a way that's unlike her. "Our father doesn't offer options. He gives orders wearing the costume of a request. Ryan saying yes wasn't him choosing the company over you. It was him choosing the only path where he still gets to keep you in his life at all."

I stare at her. "That doesn't make it better."

"No," she agrees. "But it might make it true."

I press the heels of my hands against my eyes, willing the tears to stay put. "I'm supposed to marry a man who's spent eleven years pretending I don't exist."

"Ivy." Olive takes my hand, squeezing once. "I don't think pretending you don't exist is what he's been doing at all. I think it's the opposite. I think he's been trying very, very hard to survive the fact that you do."

Somewhere behind us, I hear footsteps on the gravel path. I don't need to turn around to know who it is.

"Ivy." Ryan's voice, low and careful. "Can we talk?"

I wipe my face, straighten my spine, and turn to face the man I am apparently going to marry the man who has hated me, wanted me, and just agreed to bind his life to mine without a single word of protest to save me from any of it.

"Say what you need to say," I tell him. "Make it quick."

He steps closer, and in the fading afternoon light, I see something in his expression I've never seen there before.

Fear.

"I need you to know," he says quietly, "that this isn't what I wanted for you. Any of it. But I'm going to marry you, Ivy Monroe, and I swear to God, I am going to spend every day making sure you never regret it."

I don't know what to say to that. I don't know if I believe him.

But for the first time since my mother's phone call, something in my chest loosens, just slightly hope, dangerous and unwelcome, taking root despite everything.

To be continued in Chapter Five...