Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 138 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 138

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Chapter 138 No Risk, No Reward

Alpha Garret’s POV

“Dad, I’m telling you, you’re betting on the wrong horse! Flourish is hopeless. There’s no way she’s landing you a wealthy match. It’s just not happening!”

“Enough.” I cut Selene off before she could work herself any further into a temper, rubbing at the headache already forming behind my eyes.

Between the two of them, neither of my daughters gave me a single day’s peace anymore. Selene’s tactless honesty had always grated, but lately it had curdled into something sharper, more bitter, each word aimed like it was trying to draw blood rather than simply speak the truth.

Her scent soured with it too, sharp and frustrated, filling the study in a way that made even my own composure fray at the edges.

“I’ll speak to Flourish myself,” I said. “In the meantime, keep your head down this month. Until the Stonehedge wedding is behind us, I don’t want to hear about any more trouble from you.”

If the news about Harold’s wedding turned out to be true and every source I’d checked confirmed it was this event would draw half the pack nobility from three territories. If Selene could manage to appear as part of the bridal party, even at the edges, it might do something to repair what the scandal had cost her. Cost all of us, really. My own company’s stock hadn’t stopped bleeding since the story broke, and no amount of quiet damage control from Flourish’s people had fully stopped the wound.

I was nothing if not practical. Whichever daughter could still salvage something out of this mess, that was the one I intended to back.

It wasn’t cruelty, whatever Selene liked to accuse me of when she thought I couldn’t hear her muttering it under her breath. It was simple pack arithmetic. A lesser Alpha family survived on alliances, on marriages that shored up borders and trade routes and standing with the council.

I’d built this house on exactly that kind of careful calculation, and I wasn’t about to stop now just because my daughters resented the weight of it.

Selene stormed off in a huff, her frustration trailing after her like smoke, and I collected my coat, already dialing my driver.

I found Flourish leaving F-Tech’s main entrance an hour later and pulled the car alongside her before she could hail a cab.

She climbed in without hesitation, settling into the seat with the same composed, unbothered air she’d carried since she was old enough to negotiate her own allowance. Even her scent gave

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steady, unbothered, the particular calm of someone who’d already anticipated this exact conversation days before it happened. I’d raised her to be sharp.

I hadn’t quite accounted for what it would feel like sitting across from just how sharp she’d actually become.

“Dad, what brings you here?”

“Can’t a father check on his daughter?” I studied her carefully, searching for any crack in that composure and finding none. “Flourish, do you remember what you told me? Back when everything with Selene first broke, when the stock started falling and I asked what you intended to do to help steady this family.”

Something flickered behind her eyes, quick and unreadable. “I remember.”

“Well, Harold’s getting married.” I let the words sit heavy between us. “So tell me. How exactly do you plan to secure the match with Stonehedge now, when the only unmarried Virel son left standing is about to say vows to someone else entirely?”

–

A slow, unhurried smile spread across her face the exact expression she used to wear right before closing a negotiation she’d already won three moves ahead of everyone else at the table.

“Dad,” she said, “I never said I’d marry Harold.”

I stared at her, my grip tightening on the wheel. “What?”

“You assumed I meant Harold,” she continued, entirely too pleased with herself. “I never actually said his name.”

My mouth went dry. There was only one other unmarried man left standing anywhere near the top of that family, and the mere thought of it seemed impossible enough that I couldn’t quite make myself say it out loud.

“Flourish,” I said slowly, “tell me you don’t mean-

Her smile only widened.

I sat back against the seat, my mind racing through every reason this was impossible and finding, uncomfortably, that I couldn’t land on a single one that actually held up under scrutiny.

Sebastian Virel, Damian, as half the pack had taken to calling him since the banquet was no ordinary catch.

He was an Alpha in his own right, heir to Stonehedge’s full authority, the kind of match that would make every other alliance I’d ever brokered look like a child’s bargain by comparison.

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Chapter 138 No Risk, No Reward

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It was also, by every account I’d heard, an utterly absurd thing to hope for. Men like that didn’t simply fall into arrangements. They chose, deliberately and rarely, and I’d never once heard so much as a rumor connecting his name to my daughter’s.

“You can’t be serious,” I said finally.

“Can’t I?” She turned to look out the window, entirely too composed for a woman claiming something this outlandish. “You wanted a marriage that would fix everything, Dad. I told you I’d handle it. I am handling it.”

I opened my mouth to argue and found, for once in my life, that I had absolutely nothing ready to say.

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