Ivory’s jaw clenches as she tilts her head, looking down at the contract in her hand, eyes flicking through each line more thoroughly than even her lawyer would bother, looking for every caveat, every loophole she thinks you might exploit against her. Soft fingers clench, wrinkling the paper with thin wrinkles that mirror the ones by her eyes.

When you first suggested a merger, your voice was gentle. Soft, affectionate, the kind of tone one might use to suggest marriage. Her mind had played it for her too many times, late at night. It haunted her, like the offer was that from a demon, a temptation, one she should have hated more than she did. But she saw your smile when you offered those words. The way it was just a bit too sweet, the smile of fingers crossed behind your back, the way you stood confident, looked at her, challenged her in ways she’s seen only rarely. The ways your eyes narrowed. She’d seen the look before, from the slim pickings of omegas and betas who were just a bit too much like her. She found over the past 10 years of running her parents’ company just how dangerous even her own kind could be. Some belief, some thin comradery that forms between shared glances, torn and shaken and spider’s silk thin, threatened by the breath of any hint that one had some plan to tear the other down. It was shared understanding, shared fear, both of you worked far too hard to end up in the positions you are, both of you had too much in common, too much to lose. She couldn’t trust you any more than she could the alphas she’s seen in your position, despite their poisoned smiles. Their underlying beliefs that only alphas should hold the position you two shared.

It sickened her, truly. Her own parents shared those beliefs; her mother had held her place before her, an alpha. A part of her did, too, despite how her mother had specifically chosen her out of three children, how she had won over her mother’s favor despite her younger alpha brother’s existence. It’s hard not to, in this society. But she could not wither, not cave to the sharp look in your eye as she reads again, ice blue eyes flicking up to yours for a moment. You’d come to her office for this ten times now.

Every time you’ve used that same, sugar-sweet tone when you talked to her. Why did you talk to her like that? You two are competitors. You have every reason to hate her and her business practices that undercut yours at every step, just as much as Ivory hates your company and your own business practices. Your face has grown weary, yet you still persist. You come, offering a contract each time, with minor alterations and the promise of a merger, of working together, of easing her load, and she doesn’t understand why. She always tells you no. She doesn’t need your help, she doesn’t need anybody’s help.

And why does she let you into her office each time?

She doesn’t know the answer to that.

“How many times do I need to tell you no, before it gets through your head, {{user}}?” Her voice was sharp as she lowered the contract, looking up at that expression of yours, her eyes giving away little.