HATE ME SLOWER

Chapter Eight: Morning Light

IVY

I wake up to sunlight streaming through unfamiliar curtains and the steady rhythm of a heartbeat beneath my ear.

For one disoriented moment, I forget where I am. Then it all comes rushing back the dinner, the kitchen, the words I never thought I'd hear from Ryan Blackwood, the night that followed.

I shift slightly, and his arm tightens around me on instinct, pulling me closer even in sleep. I allow myself a moment to just look at him the hard lines of his face softened in rest, the furrow that usually sits between his brows completely smoothed away. He looks younger like this. Unguarded in a way he never allows himself to be awake.

"You're staring," he murmurs, eyes still closed, voice rough with sleep.

"I thought you were asleep."

"I was. You staring woke me up." One eye cracks open, dark and warm, a lazy smile tugging at his mouth. "Good morning."

"Good morning." I can't help the smile that spreads across my own face, still slightly disbelieving that this is real that somehow, after eleven years of ice, I woke up tangled in Ryan Blackwood's arms and it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

He reaches up, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear, thumb brushing gently along my cheekbone. "I keep waiting to wake up and discover this was a dream."

"If it's a dream, we're having the same one."

"Good." He pulls me down for a slow, unhurried kiss, and for a long moment, there's nothing but the warmth of morning light and the quiet certainty that something fundamental has shifted between us permanently, irrevocably, for the better.

RYAN

Breakfast is simple coffee, toast, eggs I manage not to burn this time eaten at the kitchen island while Ivy wears my shirt and absolutely nothing else, and I think I could live in this exact moment for the rest of my life and never once grow tired of it.

"We should tell them," she says eventually, turning her coffee cup in slow circles. "Noah. Olive. Our parents."

"Tell them what, exactly? That the arranged marriage turned into something real?"

"That we're not just going through the motions anymore." She looks up at me, something vulnerable in her expression. "That this matters to me. That you matter to me."

Something in my chest tightens at her words eleven years of careful distance finally collapsing into something I never let myself hope for.

"It matters to me too," I say quietly. "More than I know how to say."

My phone buzzes against the counter, interrupting the moment. I glance at the screen, and my stomach drops.

Dad: Need you at the office. Now. It's about the Monroe contract.

"Everything okay?" Ivy asks, noticing my expression shift.

"My father. Something about the contract." I frown, standing, already reaching for my discarded shirt from last night. "He wouldn't usually summon me like this unless"

"Unless what?"

"I don't know. But I don't like it." I lean down, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead. "Stay. Finish your coffee. I'll call you after."

The elevator ride to my father's office feels longer than usual, dread pooling low in my stomach with every floor that passes. Alexander Blackwood doesn't summon me on weekends unless something has gone wrong.

He's waiting in his office when I arrive, Richard Monroe seated across from him, both men wearing expressions that make my blood run cold.

"Sit down, Ryan," my father says.

"What's going on?"

"There's a problem with the merger terms." Richard's voice is clipped, controlled in a way that worries me more than anger would. "The board has reviewed the final contract language, and they're insisting on an additional clause."

"What clause?"

Alexander slides a document across the desk toward me. I scan it quickly, and the words blur together before snapping into horrifying clarity.

Prenuptial stipulation: In the event of marital dissolution within five years, custody of merged company assets reverts entirely to the Blackwood family, with the Monroe family retaining minority shareholder status only.

"This is insane," I say, voice tight with disbelief. "You're asking Ivy to sign away her family's company if we ever divorce?"

"It's standard protective language for arrangements like this," my father says, entirely too calm. "The board insists on it."

"She'll never agree to this."

"She won't have a choice," Richard says quietly, and something in his tone makes my stomach twist. "The merger falls apart without this clause. Monroe & Co. defaults on three major contracts within the quarter if that happens. People lose their jobs, Ryan. My employees. Families who depend on this company."

I stare between them, understanding dawning slowly, sickeningly. "You're going to pressure her into signing this."

"We're going to explain the stakes," my father corrects. "What she does with that information is her choice."

But it isn't really a choice, is it? Not when the alternative is watching her family's company crumble, watching hundreds of people lose their livelihoods because she refused to sign a piece of paper.

"I won't let you do this to her," I say, rising from my chair. "Find another way."

"There is no other way." Alexander's voice hardens. "Sign the papers, Ryan, or watch everything your mother and I built everything the Monroes built collapse because you got sentimental at the worst possible moment."

I leave the office without another word, hands shaking, dread coiling tight in my chest.

How do I tell Ivy that the fragile, beautiful thing we just built together might already be compromised by terms neither of us chose?

IVY

I know something's wrong the moment Ryan walks back into the penthouse, his expression carefully blank in a way that immediately sets off alarm bells.

"What happened?" I ask, setting down my coffee cup.

"Ivy, I need you to sit down."

"That's never a good sign." I try for lightness, but his expression doesn't shift, and dread pools heavy in my stomach. "Ryan, you're scaring me."

He crosses the room, sitting across from me, taking both my hands in his like he's bracing himself for something. "There's a new clause in the merger contract. A prenuptial stipulation."

"What kind of stipulation?"

He explains it slowly, carefully the custody clause, the five-year dissolution terms, the threat of the entire merger collapsing if we don't comply and I feel the morning's warmth drain out of the room entirely, replaced by something cold and sharp.

"They're using you," I say finally, voice tight. "They're using us what we just built as leverage."

"I won't ask you to sign it," Ryan says firmly. "Not without understanding exactly what it means."

"What it means," I say bitterly, "is that if we ever fail if this marriage ever falls apart for any reason my family loses everything we've built for three generations. And you keep all of it."

"Ivy, that's not"

"Isn't it?" My voice cracks, hurt and fear tangling together. "Last night felt real, Ryan. It felt like the beginning of something true. But this morning, your family is already planning for the version where it fails."

"I'm not planning for failure. I would never"

"Your father is. And apparently my father is standing right beside him, willing to sacrifice my future to save his company." I pull my hands free, standing, putting distance between us even as everything in me screams against it. "I need to think. I need space."

"Ivy"

"Please, Ryan." My voice breaks completely now, tears I refuse to let fall burning behind my eyes. "Just give me some space."

I grab my things and leave before he can respond, before the tears threatening to spill can actually fall, carrying with me the terrifying realization that the fragile hope I'd allowed myself to feel might already be unraveling under the weight of everything neither of us chose.

To be continued in Chapter Nine...