Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 162 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 162

Chapter 162 Stay Out Of The Spotlight

Lady Flourish’s POV

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Ethan stared at the buzzing phone like it might bite him, his hand hovering over it for three full rings before he finally swiped to answer.

“Hello?”

A

pause.

Then his shoulders dropped, tension bleeding out of him all at once. “Wrong number,” he said, setting the phone face down with a shaky laugh. “Sorry. After this morning, I think I’m jumping at everything.”

I didn’t relax quite as easily as he did. My wolf stayed alert a moment longer, some instinct insisting that a wrong number this precisely timed deserved a second look regardless. But there was nothing to actually chase, no scent to follow through a phone line, so I let it go and turned my attention back to the table between us.

“Honestly, I didn’t expect Stonehedge to let this trend for so long without burying it,” Ethan said, some of his earlier fire returning now that the scare had passed. “The bigger this gets, the better it looks for my case.”

“That works in our favor,” I agreed. “I’ll go through everything you’ve told me tonight. Any chat logs or recordings from your negotiations with their people, those count as evidence. I’ll also need digital copies of the receipt for the five hundred thousand, and proof you returned every cent of it. Once that’s all together, coordinate directly with Zephyr Legal. That’s solid ground to build on.”

Relief warmed his whole face. “That’s perfect, Ms. Steele. I really appreciate this.”

“No thanks needed.” I allowed myself a small smile. “You’re Wren’s friend, and I promised her I’d step in where I could. Honestly, the credit belongs to you. Without the courage to speak up, none of this would exist to build a case around.”

He was still thanking me when a shadow fell across our table, unhurried and unmistakable even before I looked up.

Damian.

Still in his work suit, tie loosened, the particular tightness around his eyes telling me this hadn’t been a casual detour on his way home. My wolf, traitor that she was, sat up immediately at the sight of him, some quiet, foolish part of her pleased regardless of whatever had actually brought him here.

“Mr. Carver,” he said, polite but brief, before turning to me. “Flourish. Do you have a minute?”

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Chapter 162 Stay Out Of The Spotlight

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Ethan glanced between us, reading the room fast enough to gather his files and excuse himself with a hurried goodnight. I watched him go, then turned back to Damian, my earlier warmth cooling into something more wary at the look on his face.

“You never show up somewhere like this without a reason,” I said. “What happened?”

He didn’t sit. He crouched instead, level with me, voice dropped low enough that only I would catch it over the cafe’s quiet hum. “The pressure campaign against Ethan didn’t come from Stonehedge alone. Someone routed the payout through an account tied to Karl.”

The name landed like a stone dropped into still water, spreading out slow and cold through my chest. “You’re certain.”

“Fenwick flagged it an hour ago. I came straight here.” His jaw tightened. “Flourish, whoever’s running this isn’t just protecting Phina’s reputation. They’re using her scandal as cover for something else entirely, and you’ve been circling the exact case they’re hiding behind.”

My wolf bristled, torn between the instinct to lean into his concern and the sharper, more familiar instinct that refused to be handled like something fragile. “I’m not backing off this case.”

“I’m not asking you to.” Something flickered across his face, frustration and restraint warring visibly for half a second before he mastered it. “I’m asking you to let me help you carry it. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?” I kept my voice even, though my pulse hadn’t slowed since he’d said Karl’s name. “Because every time you’ve stepped in so far, it’s been without asking first. The merger timeline. Harold’s accident. Now this.”

He didn’t flinch from that, though something behind his eyes went very still. “Would you rather I’d said nothing and let you walk into whatever Karl’s actually building blind?”

“I’d rather you trusted me to walk into it with my eyes open, instead of deciding for me how much I needed to see.” The words came out sharper than I intended, though I didn’t take them back.

For a long moment, neither of us said anything. The cafe hummed on around us, oblivious, and somewhere beneath the tension I recognized something else entirely, something that had nothing to do with strategy or danger at all. He hadn’t tracked me down tonight because protocol demanded it. He’d come because the thought of me sitting here unaware had apparently been unbearable enough to pull him straight out of whatever else his evening held.

My wolf recognized it before I let myself, the particular ache of being wanted this fiercely by someone who didn’t quite know how to want carefully yet.

“I’m not trying to control you,” he said finally, quieter now. “I don’t know how to do this the way it’s supposed to be done, Flourish. I’ve spent my whole life handling threats by removing them

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Chapter 16. Stay Out Of The Spotlight

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before anyone I cared about noticed they existed. You’re the first person who’s ever made me want to explain myself instead of just acting.”

Something in my chest loosened, despite every reasonable instinct telling me not to let it. “Then explain,” I said. “Every time. Not after.”

“Every time,” he agreed.

I reached across the table and laced my fingers through his, some of the earlier tension finally easing between us, though the name he’d said minutes ago still sat heavy and unresolved underneath everything else.

That was when his phone buzzed against the table, sharp and insistent. He glanced down, and whatever color remained in his expression drained out of it entirely.

“It’s Harold,” he said slowly. “Five missed calls in the last twenty minutes.”

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