Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 172 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 172

Chapter 172 Decorating His Space

Lady Flourish’s POV

Finished

Rhys turned his monitor toward me without a word, and I read the routing information twice before the shape of it settled properly.

“That’s the same account Damian flagged,” I said slowly. “The one tied to Karl.”

“I think so too.” He rubbed his jaw, something grim settling over his usual composure. “Which means Chris either knows exactly who he’s working with, or he’s being used the same way Ragnar’s complaint got used, as cover for something considerably larger than office politics.”

I sat with that for a long moment, my wolf was pacing slow and deliberate beneath my skin. Whoever wanted me out of this building today hadn’t done it purely to punish me for Ethan’s

case.

They’d wanted me quiet, sidelined, far enough from the merger that I couldn’t keep pulling at threads that led straight back to them.

“I won’t need a month,” I said finally, something sharp and certain settling into place behind my eyes. “I’ll be back sooner than anyone in that boardroom is expecting.”

Rhys studied me a moment, then nodded once, apparently deciding not to argue with whatever he saw in my expression. “Go home. I’ll handle what I can from here.”

I left the building without looking back, my mind already working through exactly how much of this I needed to hand to Damian personally rather than trust to a phone call.

Since he was still abroad this week, and since I no longer had a merger to sit in an office for, I found myself driving toward his villa instead of my own apartment, the passcode he’d given me weeks ago sitting comfortably in my memory by now.

Charles met me at the door with the particular warm formality he always carried, the kind that made the whole villa feel less like a fortress and more like somewhere people actually lived. “Lady Flourish. Alpha Damian mentioned you might stop by.”

“I hope that’s alright.”

“More than alright.” Something knowing crossed his weathered face. “The house has felt considerably less empty since you started visiting.”

I spent the better part of the afternoon doing something I hadn’t planned on when I arrived, rearranging a few pieces of furniture, adding warmer throws to the sitting room, setting out a small collection of candles I’d picked up weeks ago and never found the right place for. The villa had always struck me as beautiful in the sterile, showroom way expensive things

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12:01 Thu, Oct 1

Chapter 172 Decorating His Space

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Finished

sometimes were, everything perfectly arranged and entirely untouched by anyone actually living inside it.

By the time I finished, it looked considerably less like that.

I was straightening a bookshelf in the study when I found it, tucked behind a row of leather- bound volumes that looked like they hadn’t been opened in years.

A small, faded photograph, the edges soft with age, of a woman with Damian’s exact eyes standing beside a much younger Charles, both of them laughing at something outside the frame.

“That’s June,” Charles said quietly from the doorway, and I startled, not having heard him approach. “Alpha Damian’s mother.”

Something in my chest tightened. “I didn’t know he kept photos of her.”

“He doesn’t, usually. Not out where he’d have to look at them.” Charles crossed the room slowly and took the photograph from my hands with careful, practiced gentleness. “She died when he was young, before he ever properly claimed his place in this family. I used to think he’d grow old in this house alone, the way he shut everything down after that.” He looked at me then, something warm and assessing in his expression. “You’re the first woman he’s ever brought here, Lady Flourish. The first, truthfully, he’s ever let close enough to matter.”

I didn’t have a ready answer for that, my wolf went quiet and strangely fragile at the effect of what he’d just handed me.

That evening, after Charles had photographed the changes I’d made and promised to send them along, my own phone buzzed with a reply from Damian, hours later than I expected given the time difference.

‘She came during the day? It’s not a weekend. How did she have time?’

I smiled faintly at that, imagining him working out my schedule from another continent entirely.

I typed back, telling him I’d come by again whenever I had time these days, then set the phone down and let myself sit a while longer in the newly warm study, June’s photograph still resting where Charles had left it.

I was still there when my phone rang, an unfamiliar number this time, the same shape of anonymous dread I’d felt once already this week.

I answered anyway, my wolf bracing for whatever came next.

“Lady Flourish.” The voice on the other end was smooth, unhurried, entirely unfamiliar. “You’ve been asking a great many questions lately. I thought it was time we finally spoke directly.”

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12:01 Thu, Oct 1

I Refuse to Be Your Luna

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Finished