Ch. I Refuse to Be Your Luna 35 I Refuse to Be Your Luna 35

Chapter 35 Unsettling Possibilities

Lady Flourish’s POV

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The moment the tears started, I wanted the earth to open beneath me and swallow me whole.

There were many things I could tolerate in life.

Public humiliation, betrayal, disappointment, pack politics, and even Harold’s increasingly ridiculous behavior were all things I had learned to survive with my dignity reasonably intact.

Crying in front of Damian Virel was not one of them.

Yet there I was, sitting frozen in the passenger seat while tears slid down my cheeks, furious with myself for every single one of them and completely powerless to stop it.

The silence lasted exactly three seconds before Damian completely abandoned whatever composure he had left.

“Flourish.”

I shook my head.

“Little Flower.”

I shook it harder.

“Please don’t cry.”

That somehow made everything worse. A laugh escaped me that sounded suspiciously like another sob, and I heard him exhale sharply beside me.

“Oh goddess,” he muttered.

I finally looked up, and the expression on his face was nothing short of catastrophic. Not Alpha panic. Not battlefield panic.

Actual, unguarded, helpless panic, the kind that looked deeply out of place on a man who supposedly made territory leaders nervous for sport.

His hands had tightened around the edge of the seat as though he needed something to hold

onto.

“Does it hurt that badly?” he asked.

“No.”

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“Then why are you crying?”

“I don’t know.”

He stared at me, I stared back. Then both of us looked away at the exact same time, and for some reason that struck me as so completely absurd that I laughed again.

A real laugh this time, reluctant and exhausted and slightly hysterical.

“Flourish.”

“I said I don’t know.”

“But you’re crying.”

“Thank you for noticing.”

His jaw clenched. “I genuinely cannot tell if you are mocking me or having a medical emergency.”

That earned another laugh, and a reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “There she is.”

I immediately stopped laughing. His smile disappeared. “Ah. And she’s gone.”

Despite everything, despite the wine stains and the allergic reaction and the tears I couldn’t explain, I found myself smiling faintly at the road ahead.

The rest of the drive passed in quiet, and I was grateful for it, because if Damian had continued looking at me the way he had been, I might have seriously considered throwing myself out of the moving vehicle.

The healers rushed me into treatment almost immediately.

Apparently moonrose wine allergies were not something they liked taking chances with, and by the time we arrived the reaction had spread across my neck, shoulders, and upper chest in angry red streaks.

It was so bad that the lead healer, an older she-wolf named Mara, spent several minutes inspecting while lecturing me with the focused intensity of someone who had been waiting years for an opportunity exactly like this.

“You should have come sooner.”

“I was going to.”

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“You were not.”

“I was.”

“You weren’t.” I looked away, and Mara snorted. “Exactly.”

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The medication worked quickly, and within an hour most of the burning had faded to a dull warmth beneath my skin.

My wolf finally stopped pacing inside my head. The relief was immediate and profound and slightly humiliating, because it confirmed just how bad the reaction had actually gotten while I stood on a street corner arguing with taxi drivers.

“Three days of rest,” Mara instructed firmly, pressing a packet of medication into my hands. “No exceptions.”

“I’ll survive.”

“Three days.”

“Fine.”

“And no alcohol.”

I sighed with my entire body. “You people take all the joy out of life.”

“Good,” she said, and left without another word.

When I finally stepped out of the treatment a

room, I found Damian sitting in the corridor outside. Waiting.

He wasn’t on his telecom, wasn’t reviewing documents, wasn’t doing anything except sitting there with his forearms resting on his knees, watching the door.

The sight hit me somewhere I wasn’t prepared for. “You stayed.”

His eyes lifted. “Of course I stayed.” The answer came so easily, so naturally, as though there had never been any other possibility, and something about that simplicity unsettled me far more than anything dramatic could have.

I cleared my throat. “Thank you.”

Something softened briefly in his expression, there and gone, like light through a closing door. “You’re welcome.”

The drive home was nothing like the drive to the hospital.

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The urgency had dissolved, and in its place was something quieter and considerably more dangerous.

The next morning arrived much too quickly and with far too little mercy.

I stood in front of my wardrobe trying to make a decision that should have taken thirty seconds and somehow consumed twenty minutes.

The reaction marks had faded considerably overnight, but traces still lingered across my neck and collarbone in pale rosy streaks, and anything too restrictive would aggravate the healing skin.

Eventually I settled on a loose cream blouse and dark trousers. Simple. Professional. Completely unremarkable.

My brain, however, had chosen violence.

Because every time I caught my reflection in the mirror, the memories returned without permission.

Damian checking behind my ears with those careful, deliberate hands, his fingers brushing through my hair, those impossibly green eyes moving across my skin with a focus that had felt far too much like being seen.

His voice.

His concern.

The way he had looked genuinely, unguardedly distressed when I cried, as though my tears had caused him actual pain.

My stomach performed an irritating, traitorous little flip.

I frowned at my reflection. He was simply being kind. That was all.

There was absolutely no reason to keep thinking about the shape of his hands, or the breadth of his shoulders, or the way he had said of course I stayed as though the alternative had never once occurred to him……

“No.” I pointed directly at my own reflection. “We are not doing this.”

My wolf ignored me completely, stretched languidly in the back of my mind, and had the audacity to look smug about it.

By the time I arrived at the company, I had managed to reclaim most of my sanity. Most. The elevator doors opened onto my floor, and immediately not walked, not approached, but

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Chapter 35 Unsettling Possibilities

immediately – Beta Rhys appeared.

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The man practically materialized from the air itself, eyes shining with the kind of brightness that meant either exceptional news or an exceptional disaster.

“Lady Flourish!”

“Good morning?” I said cautiously.

“Come.” He turned on his heel.

“Rhys-”

“Come.”

He practically pulled me toward my office, and the moment we entered he spread documents across my desk with the energy of someone who had been rehearsing this moment since dawn. Charts. Financial projections. Acquisition reports. Projected earnings, expansion models, growth forecasts stacked one on top of another in a cascade of numbers that grew more extraordinary with every page I turned.

My eyebrows climbed steadily. “What exactly am I looking at?”

Rhys looked ready to combust. “The Stormbridge partnership.”

“What about it?”

His grin widened to something bordering on unhinged. “Lady Flourish, do you understand how large Damian’s operation actually is?”

I stared at him. “I am beginning to suspect that I don’t.”

He pointed at one of the reports. “This is only one subsidiary.” I looked down at the figures, and my eyes widened.

Then widened again.

Then widened a third time, because the numbers were not simply large – they were

monstrous.

The kind of numbers that didn’t belong in a single report.

“If Stormbridge’s board agrees to the proposed subsidy structure,” Rhys continued, barely containing himself, “and if F-Tech gains partial operational control, our annual profits could increase by nearly forty percent.”

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Refuse To Be Your Luna