Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 123 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 123

Chapter 123 Uninvited

Lady Flourish’s POV

By midafternoon, Mira had gone to coordinate with Damian’s enforcers, and I finally had a rare, quiet hour to myself before heading back to F-Tech to face what I already knew would be a mountain of questions about the invoice discrepancies.

My phone buzzed against the desk.

‘Flourish, why did you leave the banquet so early last night?’ The message was from Wren, the Silver Moon songstress I’d spent nearly an hour talking to before everything at the dinner had gone sideways. We’d exchanged numbers on a whim, the kind of easy, unplanned friendship that rarely survived past a single evening — except somehow, with her, it already felt like it might.

–

I stared at the screen, unsure how much of the truth I was even allowed to share. ‘I wasn’t feeling well. Had to leave early.’

‘Understood,’ she replied almost instantly, warm and easy despite everything. ‘Once my tour schedule clears up, let’s actually sit down for a real meal. Something tells me you and I are going to get along.

I smiled despite the exhaustion still sitting heavy behind my eyes. I’d like that.

Having a friend who existed entirely outside of pack politics, business fraud, and poisoned wine felt like something precious. I tucked the thought away carefully, promising myself I’d protect it.

I made my way downstairs to the small café near F-Tech’s main office, craving something as simple as a warm drink before the afternoon swallowed me whole again.

“Flourish, I’m telling you, the new place two blocks over does half-price pastries until two,” Lila called over her shoulder, already halfway through the door with two other coworkers trailing behind her.

“Go grab a table,” I told her. “I’ll get drinks and catch up.”

The moment they disappeared inside, I felt it before I saw him – a familiar, anxious scent threading through the crowd, sharp with nerves. I turned, and my stomach sank.

Harold.

“Are you ever going to stop?” I asked flatly, not bothering to soften my tone.

He pressed his lips into a thin line and held out a glossy shopping bag without a word. I

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Chapter 123 Uninvited

glimpsed a flash of deep purple silk inside and felt my jaw tighten.

“What is this?”

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Finished

“The dress,” he said quietly. “The one you liked at the tailor’s last month. I had it made again.”

“Again?” My eyes narrowed. “So the first one went to Phina instead.”

His jaw twitched, which told me everything I needed to know.

“This one’s new,” he said. “She never touched it. I thought-”

“You thought wrong.” I didn’t take the bag. Beneath my blouse, the sapphire pendant pulsed faintly warm against my skin, a quiet, steady reminder of exactly who I belonged to now, and exactly why standing here even a moment longer felt like a mistake. “Harold, it isn’t about the dress. It was never about the dress. Even if I loved it, I wouldn’t want it now. Not from you.”

“Phina would never even have to know,” he said, and something in the desperate edge of his voice made my wolf’s hackles rise in warning.

“That’s exactly the problem,” I said quietly. “You’re still thinking in secrets. I’m done being anyone’s secret, Harold. I told you that after the poisoning. I meant it then, and I mean it twice as much now.”

He flinched at the word ‘poisoning, his gaze dropping briefly to the ground before lifting again, pleading. “Flourish, I know I don’t deserve-”

“You’re right,” I cut in. “You don’t. Go home, Harold. Take the dress to Phina, or throw it away. Either way, stop bringing it to me.”

For a moment he just stood there, and I watched something in his shoulders cave inward, not acceptance, but close enough to it that I almost pitied him. Almost.

I turned before he could answer, my pulse still hammering with the particular exhaustion that came from repeating the same boundary for what felt like the hundredth time.

I’d made it barely three steps toward the café door when my phone rang.

Rhys.

I answered immediately, some old instinct already bracing for bad news. “Rhys, what is it?”

His voice came through low and urgent, the kind of tone he only used when something had gone seriously wrong. “Flourish, I pulled the shell account records like you asked. The one tied to Corwin Ashdown.”

“And?”

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Chapter 123 Uninvited

:

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Finished

“It’s not just him.” A pause, heavy enough that I could hear my own pulse in the silence. “There’s a second signature buried under the consulting adjustments. I only just cross-referenced it against old supplier contracts.”

“Whose name, Rhys?”

Behind me, I could still feel Harold hovering, still feel the warmth of the pendant against my skin, still feel every unresolved thread of the last two days pulling tighter around me all at once.

My wolf paced restlessly beneath my skin, torn between the fading scent of Harold’s guilt and the sharpening scent of something far more dangerous closing in.

“Flourish,” Rhys said quietly, “it’s Karl. Karl’s name is on the account.”

I stopped walking entirely, the noise of the street fading into a dull ring around me. Somewhere behind that ringing silence, my wolf let out a low, warning growl that had nothing to do with Harold at all.

Karl wasn’t just connected to the poison vial from the dinner.

He was funding Corwin Ashdown directly.

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