I Refuse To Be Your Luna (Flourish and Harold) novel Chapter 127

Chapter 127 Missed By Twenty Minutes

“Two days before the reconciliation dinner’

Harold’s POV

M

22

R

Finished

I didn’t think much of it when Callum handed my phone back that morning, his expression carefully blank in the particular way that meant he was hiding something.

“Everything alright?” I asked.

“Fine, Alpha Harold.” He hesitated half a second too long before adding, “Ms. Steele responded to your message earlier. I thought it looked like spam, so I deleted it before reading it properly.”

I frowned, studying him closely enough that his scent spiked faintly with nerves, the sharp, sour edge that always gave Callum away no matter how carefully he schooled his face.

Callum had served my family long enough that I trusted his instincts more than most, but something about the explanation didn’t sit right, and my wolf’s ears had already pricked forward at the lie sitting somewhere underneath it.

“How exactly does a personal reply get mistaken for spam?”

He didn’t answer, which told me everything his silence hadn’t.

I let it go. If I were being honest with myself, I already had a fairly accurate guess at what Flourish is. I made myself use the name she’d actually asked for now, not the old one – would have said in response to an accusation like the one I’d sent her. Whatever Callum had actually deleted was probably nothing but a string of curses I deserved every bit of.

It wasn’t until early afternoon, scrolling through the same feeds that had blown up my message threads that morning, that I saw the correction.

‘Steele family scandal update: sources now confirm the woman involved was the CEO’s younger daughter, not the elder

I read it twice, my stomach dropping somewhere colder than I expected.

I’d accused her. Publicly, in writing, without a single shred of proof beyond a headline and my own wounded pride. And she’d been innocent the entire time, dragged into a scandal that had nothing to do with her, blamed by strangers online and, worse, by me.

My wolf shifted uneasily beneath my skin, an old, familiar shame curling low in my chest. It wasn’t the first time I’d let my temper outrun my judgment where she was concerned. It was, apparently, becoming something of a pattern.

2

11:42 Thu, Oct 1

Chapter 177 Missed By Twenty Minutes

:

I stood from my desk so abruptly that Callum flinched.

“Get the car.”

“Alpha Harold, your schedule this afternoon-”

“Cancel it.”

Finished-

He didn’t argue further. Something in my voice must have carried more weight than I intended. A low thread of command bleeding through without my permission, the kind that made even a seasoned aide’s shoulders drop half an inch out of old instinct. Within minutes we were pulling out of the estate gates, my grip tight on the door handle as the city blurred past the window.

I told myself I only wanted to apologize, that whatever this restless, gnawing urgency clawing at my chest was, it had nothing to do with the fact that my wolf hadn’t stopped pacing since the moment I’d read that correction.

F-Tech’s lobby was sleek and modern, nothing like the heavy stone halls of Stonehedge, and it struck me, walking through it, how thoroughly she’d built something entirely her own. Something that had never needed either of my family’s names attached to it.

The receptionist’s eyes widened the moment she recognized me. “Alpha Harold. I’m sorry, we weren’t informed you’d be visiting.”

“I’m here to see Flourish.”

Her expression shifted into something apologetic. “I’m afraid Ms. Steele left for an off-site inspection about twenty minutes ago. A warehouse audit, I believe. She’s not expected back until later this evening.”

Twenty minutes.

I’d missed her by twenty minutes.

I thanked the receptionist and turned back toward the entrance, frustration curdling into something sharper as I stepped out into the afternoon light.

My wolf, still restless, still pacing, lifted his head sharply the moment we crossed the threshold, not toward the street, but toward the far end of the parking structure, where a sleek black car sat idling far longer than any legitimate visitor should have needed.

I couldn’t place the scent drifting faintly off it. Not pack. Not anyone I recognized. Something colder, sharper, carrying the faint metallic edge that made every hair on the back of my neck rise in warning, the same wrongness I’d learned to trust years before I ever learned to trust my own temper.

11:42 Thu, Oct 1

Chapter 127 Missed By Twenty Minutes

:0

“Callum.” My voice dropped low. “Do you smell that?”

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