Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 139 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 139

Chapter 139 The Terms Of The Deal

Lady Flourish’s POV

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Finished

My father’s stunned silence lasted longer than I expected. I let it stretch, watching the streets slide past the window while he worked through the implications one visible thought at a time.

It wasn’t cruelty, exactly, letting him sit with it. It was simply the same lesson he’d taught me himself, years ago, back when I was still learning to read a negotiation before I ever learned to read a boardroom, never fill silence that’s working in your favor.

“Sebastian Virel,” he finally managed, still tasting the shape of the name like it might rearrange itself into something more believable. “Damian. You’re telling me you intend to secure a match with the Alpha of Stonehedge himself.”

I kept my expression carefully neutral, though my wolf preened at the sound of his name in my father’s mouth, some small, prideful part of her wanting to simply announce the truth and be done with the careful games entirely.

“I’m telling you I intend to try,” I said carefully, keeping the words vague enough to survive scrutiny without technically confirming anything he could repeat to the wrong person. My wolf huffed quietly at the deception, unhappy with even this small, necessary distance from the truth, but Karl was still out there, and my father’s discretion had never once been something I could rely on when it mattered most.

“You said fifteen percent,” he said slowly, some of his composure returning now that we’d moved into territory he actually understood. “That was the arrangement. If you deliver a marriage that secures this family’s standing.”

“That arrangement was built around marrying into Stonehedge through Harold.” I turned to face him fully now, letting my voice settle into the same unhurried confidence I used whenever I wanted a room to understand exactly who held the leverage. “What I’m offering you now is worth considerably more than that. Harold was never going to fix this family’s standing, Dad. He barely manages his own.”

His brows drew together. “Meaning?”

He shifted in his seat, the leather creaking faintly beneath him, his scent sharpening with the particular focus he only ever gave to numbers that might actually move in his favor. Whatever doubt he’d carried into this car had already started losing ground to ambition.

“Meaning if I deliver the true head of the family instead of a spare,” I said, “the terms change. Twenty percent of Steele Holdings. Not fifteen.”

For a moment, I watched him actually consider it, the old calculations already running behind his eyes, stock prices, council standing, the particular kind of prestige that came from a name

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Chapter 139 The Terms Of The Deal

like Virel attached permanently to ours.

ཉྙཊྛི

Finished

My wolf sat back, satisfied, watching my own father weigh me like an asset rather than argue like a parent, and finding that I no longer minded quite as much as I once had. This was simply the language he’d always understood best.

“Twenty percent is a significant ask,” he said finally.

“So is landing an Alpha,” I said. “No risk, no reward, Dad. You taught me that yourself.”

He exhaled hard, the sound equal parts frustration and reluctant respect. “If you actually manage this-”

“When I manage this,” I corrected.

A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth despite himself. “Fine. When you manage it. Twenty percent. But I want it drafted properly. Notarized. I’m not taking your word for something this large.”

“Good.” I extended my hand toward him, entirely serious despite the absurdity of shaking hands with my own father in the back of a moving car. “Verbal promises mean nothing between us, and we both know it.”

He shook it, still shaking his head slightly, like he couldn’t quite decide whether he’d just won or lost this particular round.

Knowing him, he’d spend the drive back to his own office deciding it was a win regardless of how it actually played out, simply because the alternative meant admitting his daughter had outmaneuvered him in his own car.

The rest of the ride passed in comfortable silence, my father lost in whatever calculations he was already running about stock recovery and council perception, and me lost in something far quieter the strange, private satisfaction of having just secured, on paper, permission to pursue exactly the life I’d already built for myself in private.

Outside, the city rolled by in its usual indifferent rhythm, entirely unaware that somewhere in the back of this car, a contract had just been struck that would eventually tangle two of the pack’s most powerful families together for good.

Damian would find it entirely too amusing, I suspected, learning that I’d just negotiated a formal price for something he’d already given me freely the moment he decided I was his.

I only hoped, watching the city blur past the window, that whatever Karl was still planning stayed far enough away that I’d actually get the chance to tell him.

For now, this small, ridiculous victory would have to be enough on its own, a father who finally believed his daughter capable of reaching further than he’d ever dared hope, even if the version

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Chapter 139 The Terms Of The Deal

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Finished

of the truth he’d believed wasn’t quite the one currently written into a sapphire pendant resting warm against my skin.

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